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Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
The vote to leave the European Union was a vote to take back control, and this Government continue to champion devolution to local government.
Chi Onwurah
Newcastle voted to remain; the north-east voted to leave, and that is what we are doing, but no one voted to replace regional European support with centralised Whitehall neglect. Will the Minister confirm that, as powers are returned from Brussels, they will be devolved to the regions? Will he agree to meet me and local government representatives in Newcastle to determine how best to achieve that?
Mr Jones
The hon. Lady invites me to visit Newcastle. In fact, I do intend to visit it, and I look forward to seeing her and local government leaders there. I must point out that this Government are making huge strides towards rebalancing the economy and empowering local government through the devolution of powers away from Whitehall. At the autumn statement, the Government signalled their intention to go further, including exploring devolution to cities such as London and Greater Manchester and to the west midlands, and offering greater flexibility for mayoral combined authorities to borrow for their new functions.
Julie Cooper
Although I voted in the referendum to remain, I fully accept the outcome of the democratic election and my focus now is to ensure that the people in my constituency are not worse off post-Brexit. Given that we have benefited from EU funding to the tune of around £5 million a year, may I seek a guarantee from the Minister that the Government have a plan to ensure that those resources continue to come to my constituency post-Brexit?
Mr Jones
The Government set out a clear plan at the autumn statement for our strategic framework for the northern powerhouse. We are spending £13 billion on transport in the north, establishing Transport for the North and ensuring a statutory status. Investment in the north is very substantial indeed, and that is borne out by the improving—and, indeed, record—levels of employment in the north.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I fully approve of more money going to the frontline, but can the Minister give me some reassurance that he will not be funding the “regions”—a pernicious invention of people who wanted to break up the United Kingdom into various parts that were not contiguous with any historical links to our communities?
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend point out to those who are moaning about the potential loss of EU funding that it is our money in the first place, and that for every £1 we get from the European Union, we have to pay £2 to achieve it?
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Change in local government is normally done by Bills that go through this House. The system this Government are adopting is to charge local authorities or produce cuts in local authorities—representing, in Derbyshire’s case, about £155 million—and then to say that if they have the northern “poorhouse”, as it might be called, they will get a little tiny bit back. As for Brexit, we all know why the Secretary of State is going slow on that: because, unlike John Major before him, who had about 18 rebels, this time there are 80 Tory Back Benchers who are in favour of Brexit and about another 80 who are against it. That is why he does not deliver any information.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
We could be a bit more positive if the Government showed us a plan that we could be positive about. I assume the Minister misspoke when he said that the regions are “a European construct”. I can assure him that that is not the case where I come from in the north-east. They are very much not a European construct, but something about which we are intensely proud. For the Government to think that they can negotiate without involving regional businesses, civic leaders, airports and our universities really takes a special kind of narcissism. If there is going to be so much money flowing post-Brexit, why is it that the Government are refusing to guarantee every penny of our regional funding now?
Mr Jones
The hon. Lady is entirely right: it is necessary to consult businesses, universities, civic leaders and all parts of civil society. Indeed, that is precisely what we are doing. The Department is engaging with representatives of over 50 sectors across the economy. This is important work, and it is much better to get a proper, reasonable Brexit than the hasty sort of Brexit that she and her colleagues seem to be advocating.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
Withdrawing from the EU means decisions on how we spend taxpayers’ money will be made in the United Kingdom. We will strike a deal in the best interests of United Kingdom taxpayers. It is the job of my Department to bring back control over issues such as money, law and borders. As we do so, it will be up to this House and this Government to make the decisions.
Andrew Rosindell
I do not expect the Secretary of State to reveal his negotiating position today, but will he accept that on 23 June the British people voted to restore control over the money that we have paid to the European Union? They want that money spent in the United Kingdom, not subsidising Brussels.
Mr Davis
I understand entirely where my hon. Friend is coming from. Indeed, as he well knows, I have a great deal of sympathy with that viewpoint. Of course we intend to respect the decision of the British people and what underpins it. As he rightly says, it would be irresponsible to set out red lines or to make unilateral decisions at this stage, but it must be made clear that we want decisions over how taxpayers’ money is spent to be made in this House.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
This is a general question, so it provides the Minister with plenty of scope to give some sort of response. Will the Government consider making any contribution in any shape or form for access to the single market?
Mr Davis
I note that the first half of the hon. Gentleman’s question was probably aimed more at you, Mr Speaker, than at me. The simple answer we have given previously—it is very important, because there is a distinction between picking off an individual policy and setting out a major criterion—is that the major criterion here—[Interruption.] I will answer him if he lets me do so. The major criterion is that we get the best possible access for goods and services to the European market. If that is included in what he is talking about, then of course we would consider it.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
One of the decisions that I suppose the Government have to make is when we will stop paying money to the European Union, or whether we then ask for it back. One way to negotiate could be to say, “Well, any money we’ve paid to the European Union after 23 June should come back to us.” Is that not one of the positions we could take?
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
In a week in which it has been reported that the Foreign Secretary told EU ambassadors that he does not agree with the Government’s policy on free movement and that a Dutch Member of Parliament attended a Downing Street briefing on the Government’s Brexit plans, does the Secretary of State understand why the House is getting a little fed up with being told nothing? If he does, will he tell us when the Government will come forward with their plans for Brexit, including for what will happen regarding any future contributions to the European Union after we have left?
Mr Davis
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am appearing in front of his Committee on 14 December. His Committee has already visited my Department, and we are seeking to help it as much as we can. As a previous Secretary of State for International Development and Cabinet Minister, he also knows full well that the probable success of the negotiations greatly depends on our ability to manage information and to keep secret until the last minute what needs to be kept secret.
As for the other things from this week that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, they are all based on a presumption that a scribbled note in Downing Street is actually anything like Government policy. It is not.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
EU Brexit negotiators have been clear about their intent to pursue the UK for an exit bill of anything up to €60 billion based on an expansive interpretation of our liabilities under the EU budget. That is a colossal sum of money and the British public deserve to know from their Government how accurate it is. Will the Secretary of State tell the House how much his Department estimates that it will cost to settle our outstanding liabilities as part of any future withdrawal agreement?
Mr Davis
May I start by welcoming the hon. Gentleman back? I understand that he has a new member of his family, on which the whole House will join me in congratulating him. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] We have seen an opening bid from the European Union. That is what it is. It is nothing more than the maximum price for departure from the Union. If he will forgive me, I am not going to engage in chipping away at that bid; we will start from scratch when we go through the door after March when the negotiations start.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
At home, we are carrying out an extensive programme of sectoral analysis on the key factors that affect our negotiations with the European Union. We are working closely with the devolved Administrations, Parliament and a range of other stakeholders, as we have already heard from the Minister of State. The House should understand that we are also working with every Department to ensure a full range of opportunities.
In Europe, we are undertaking wide-ranging engagement, led by the Prime Minister. I have met representatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament, as well as Ministers and other officials from several European member states.
Heidi Alexander
I am not entirely sure how that answer related to my question, but it was certainly full of flannel. It seems that we are no further forward with a plan to leave the EU than we were five months ago. Will the Secretary of State tell me when the Government are going to drop the pretence that Brexit can mean continued tariff-free access to the single market and an end to freedom of movement? The British public deserve better than that embarrassing charade.
Mr Davis
I am interested to hear the hon. Lady’s supplementary question, which she obviously prepared earlier—[Interruption.] This has been the Labour line for some time. It is really interesting that Labour Members cannot agree among themselves on whether they agree with their Front-Bench spokesman or with their shadow Chancellor. We are four to five months from the triggering of article 50. That will be point at which the negotiations start and it will be clear where we are going.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is quite a bit of room between the phrase “Brexit means Brexit” and a full detailed dossier of negotiation? Does he note that more than one witness to the Exiting the European Union Committee and several Members of Parliament believe that, in order to provide some clarity and deal with some of the current uncertainty, there is room for the Government to publish in advance something on their high-level objectives, which will be known to the EU and to all of us the moment article 50 is triggered? Will he consider that with great urgency?
Mr Davis
Of course I will consider anything my right hon. Friend comes forward with in this area; I know it is a matter of great importance to him. Let me say this: “Brexit means Brexit”, an interesting phrase at the beginning of this exercise, is a long way short of what we have already said, which is that we are aiming to achieve the maximum possible free access to the market and that we need to respect all the implications of the referendum. In between those things, in an important area that nobody seems to talk about, justice and home affairs, we have made it very clear that we want, as far as is possible, to replicate what we already have. We have had a great deal of parliamentary discussion about this matter already and we are going to have a great deal more between now and the triggering of article 50, including the appearance before the Select Committee and so on. So he can expect to know a very great deal about this at the time we get there. I made one particular undertaking at the first Select Committee I attended, the Lords one, which was that this House would be kept at least as well informed as the European Parliament.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
It could be argued that we have made some progress on what the Government’s plans are this week. Once the Secretary of State gets round to moving on from scribbled notes to typed-up notes, will he pass them to the House? Will he tell us whether he briefed the Foreign Secretary before his latest trip, and is freedom of movement still a priority for this Government?
Mr Davis
Let me pick up on the last point first. What I have seen in the papers this morning strikes me as completely at odds with what I know about my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary’s approach to this matter. He believes clearly—he made this clear during the leave campaign, which he was a much more major part of than I was—that some immigration is useful. We all agree on that, but it is not the same as thinking that free movement of people as it now stands is a good idea—it is a problem. On the other aspects of the forward planning, the hon. Gentleman should know—I assume he talks to his opposite number on the Joint Ministerial Committee EN, the Committee that co-ordinates the approaches of the three devolved Administrations—that a great deal of work has been taking place on these matters and all of it is in typed script; none of it is scribbled on a bit of paper.
Stephen Gethins
So what we take from that is: yet more bumbled diplomacy from the Foreign Secretary. On what the Minister of State said about regions being European constructs, I hope he was not referring to the ancient European nation of Scotland or the ancient European nation of Ireland. The Secretary of State will be aware of the First Minister’s successful trip this week, so what lessons does he take from Ireland and the fact that the number of passport applications has gone up by 50% in that country?
Mr Davis
One lesson I take from it is that if the parties on the Opposition Benches—all of them—continue to frighten people, that is what the response will be. The hon. Gentleman should know, in terms—we have said this over and over again—that we wish to provide the maximum protection for both European citizens here and British citizens abroad. Just so he does not forget this, let me say that the Polish Prime Minister—not just the British Prime Minister—accepted earlier this week in public that both of those matters matter.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
We need to speed up, as progress is very slow. I want an extremely short, one-sentence question from Mr Michael Tomlinson.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
On article 50, does the Secretary of State agree that it is right to appeal from the High Court, that it is inevitable that this would end up in the Supreme Court and that this constitutional point needs to be resolved?
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have repeatedly said that there will be no running commentary on their article 50 plans, yet there is one. It is being provided by leaked memos, notes caught on camera and the near-constant comments of the Foreign Secretary to anyone who will listen to him. This is serious because it is damaging the prospects of the negotiations getting off to a good start. The Secretary of State must realise that this is going to continue throughout the two years unless and until he discloses to this House the basic plan the Government are adopting. So my question is simple: when is he going to do so?
Mr Davis
The answer is the same one I have given the hon. Gentleman before to exactly the same question, which is that we have already set out the strategic aims—he knows that. He is also aware that we do not want to cut down the options available on things such as the old issue of market access. At this stage, we do not wish to go into great detail on the justice and home affairs front, on which I suspect that we absolutely agree, because we want to get the best possible outcome for Britain. The dominating factor here is not what is in the newspapers, but what is the best outcome for Britain in the long run.
Keir Starmer
The question was when will we see the plan. On 7 November, when the Secretary of State was last at the Dispatch Box, he was asked whether the Government were intending to keep the UK in the customs union. He answered by saying:
“We will make that judgment in due course and make it public in due course.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2016; Vol. 616, c. 1269.]
There are now just 121 days left until the end of March next year. Time is running out. Another simple question is: when does the Secretary of State intend to honour his commitment and make the Government’s position on the customs union clear?
Mr Davis
One hundred and twenty one days is a long time in policy terms, I am afraid. The simple truth is that there is one chance in this negotiation. This is unlike almost anything else that comes in front of this House. With everything else, we can come back and repeal it, change it or amend it later. This is a single-shot negotiation, so we must get it right, and we will get it right by doing the analysis first and the notification second. I will do that. I will meet my promise to the hon. and learned Gentleman—there is no doubt about that—but he will just have to wait until the analysis is complete.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
The Department is carrying out a programme of work to analyse the economic significance and trade dynamics of more than 50 sectors of the economy. That includes analysis at both national and regional levels. Ministers and officials also have an extensive programme of bilateral meetings and visits across the country to listen to the views of business.
Alison McGovern
But we know from academic research that the regions in the north of England will be hit the hardest by Brexit. Further to previous questions that I have raised in this House about the fact that the Department has no staff based outside London, may I ask the Minister whether that position has now been reconsidered, and if so, how many will be based in Merseyside?
Mr Jones
The hon. Lady is entirely wrong. The north-west of England is extremely important to our Department’s consideration of the negotiations and the terms of Brexit. I have to tell her that if she regards the Government’s proposals for the northern powerhouse as something that is inimical to the interests of the north-west, I am astonished.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend is entirely right: ports are absolutely crucial to the economic welfare of this country, not only in their own right but as enablers of trade. Ports have an extremely high significance, and I will of course be pleased to meet him to discuss the matter further.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Jones
As the hon. Lady will know, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has absolutely guaranteed the continuance of support for such programmes to 2020. She has to bear it in mind that the European Commission itself will not be making its own consideration of any future schemes until that time. We will of course take very seriously the issues that she mentions, but at this stage I cannot confirm anything.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Mr Jones
Yes. We fully acknowledge the importance of the aerospace sector, which is a major employer in his constituency and in many other parts of the country. It is very clear to us that, for example, integrated supply chains are important to that industry, which is why we are engaging extremely closely with the industry. Indeed, I had meetings earlier this week.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
Can the Minister detail the “significant powers”—to use the words of his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland when he appeared on the “Sunday Politics Scotland” programme—due to be devolved to Scotland?
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
The Prime Minister set out the timetable for triggering article 50 by the end of March 2017. We will soon put before Parliament the great repeal Bill, which will remove from the statute book the European Communities Act 1972 and bring back sovereignty to this Parliament.
Sir Edward Leigh
Those of us who campaigned for 30 years to take back control did not campaign for this elected House of Commons to be bypassed. My view is that we should have produced that Bill to trigger article 50. There should be a full debate on Second Reading, and let hon. Members who want to vote against it take the consequences. My right hon. Friend will not agree with that, but will he agree with this: that if he loses the court case, there will be no further faffing about, no delay, no draft Bill; he will produce a Bill within days, there will be a full debate—for at least two days—and then this House will get a chance to vote on article 50?
Mr Davis
I understand my hon. Friend’s impatience after, as he says, 30 years of campaigning, but there have been 40 years of membership of the Union and it takes some time to decide on the best way of removing us from the Union in the way that people want. On the court case, it is not just a yes/no outcome in December/January. The actual nature of the Bill may be influenced by the outcome, but within that context, yes, we will carry on as rapidly as we possibly can.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
With reference to delivering Brexit in a timely manner, the Secretary of State will be aware that there is a two-year timescale once article 50 is triggered. Is it the Government’s policy that both the Brexit negotiations and the future trade arrangements should be agreed within that two-year period, or are they open to a transitional arrangement if that is not possible?
Mr Davis
The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. There are other questions on transitional arrangements that I will come to in detail later, as the Speaker will pull me up if I do not. The answer is yes; we want to see them both done in parallel inside the two years.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
As I know from talking to businesses up and down the country, whether they voted to leave or to remain, there is overwhelming consensus—they want get on with this. Uncertainty is the one threat, as opposed to the comically inaccurate forecasts, which have been proved completely wrong, by the remain side. Can the Secretary of State confirm that whichever way the appeal goes in the Supreme Court—the Government do have very good arguments—there will still be time to pass the necessary legislation, if required, and to stick to the timetable of triggering article 50 by the end of March?
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
I congratulate the Government on the sophistication of their approach to Brexit. Deploying the Foreign Secretary to declare his undying support for free movement of labour is a masterly addition to the policy of chaos and confusion at the heart of the Government’s strategy. If 121 days is a long time in politics, how many days before 31 March will the Government narrow down their range of policies to one and tell us what it is? [Interruption.]
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
The Secretary of State and I speak regularly to our Home Office colleagues about a range of issues relating to the UK’s exit from the EU. We are both committed to maintaining very close police and security co-operation between the UK and EU member states after we leave the EU. The safety of the British public is, of course, a top priority.
Craig Whittaker
Can my right hon. Friend assure me that after Brexit we will continue this close co-operation with the EU on law enforcement and counter-terrorism in particular, to ensure that we continue to protect not only the UK, but Europe?
Mr Jones
I can assure my hon. Friend that the UK will continue to play a full role in this area at a time of increasing risk of terrorism, Russian belligerence, instability in the middle east and a host of other threats. There is undoubtedly a huge benefit for both the UK and the EU from continued close co-operation in this field.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that the deplorable comments being made about exiting the EU having a destabilising impact on the peace process, or leading to an increase in violence or the return of terrorism, are deeply damaging and wrong? Does he agree that co-operation between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Siochana has never been better and will continue like that after we exit the EU?
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
The UK has been a lead player in Europol. What is likely to be our access level post-Brexit? Will it be similar to that of non-EU members such as the United States?
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
In his discussions with the Home Office, has the Minister talked about the letter written to it by the National Farmers Union warning that British fruit and veg will go unpicked this winter because of the current labour crisis in the horticultural and agricultural industries, and what is he doing about that?
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
We take parliamentary scrutiny of the Department’s work extremely seriously, and I am delighted to be appearing before the new Select Committee on Exiting the European Union on 14 December. Department for Exiting the European Union Ministers and officials have made 10 appearances before Select Committees since the Department was established and before our own Select Committee was formed. But it is right that we do not overstep our remit and that Ministers across Whitehall—this is a cross-Whitehall operation—are accountable to their own Committees, including in relation to European Union exit.
Paul Flynn
To curb the Secretary of State’s manic optimism, would it not be beneficial for him to get a dose of reality from the Welsh Affairs Committee, which went to Aberystwyth this weekend? Somebody came to me and said, “My company has decided after the referendum not to expand here in Ceredigion but to relocate in Dublin.” Is it not right that the Minister should come, not to tell us what he is doing but so that we can pass on to him the fact that industry is collapsing post-referendum?
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman should perhaps make his point about industry collapsing to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Nissan, GSK, Jaguar Land Rover and the rest. To come to his substantive point, we consider every request from Select Committees on its individual merits. There are probably something of the order of 30 ongoing projects at the moment. Frankly, if we appeared in front of every Select Committee on all those, we would not have any time to do any negotiation or planning at all.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
The Department has a wide programme of engagements to ensure that the views of the science and technology sector are heard. For example, we have recently met representatives of the life sciences and tech sectors, and will continue to meet them in the coming months. While it is too early to speculate on our future relationship with EU science and research programmes, as part of our commitment to make Britain the global go-to nation for scientists, innovators and tech investors, we will be investing an extra £2 billion in research and development by the end of this Parliament.
Lucy Frazer
I thank the Minister for that answer. The life sciences and pharma sectors are concerned that they need globally recognised and equivalent regulations to compete internationally. Can the Minister assure me that he will continue to work closely with these sectors to ensure they have the best possible opportunities in the Brexit negotiations?
Mr Walker
My hon. and learned Friend is right, and the Government are committed to ensuring a positive outcome for the UK’s life sciences and the pharmaceuticals sector as we exit the European Union. We have welcomed many hundreds of millions of pounds of new investment from Alnylam and GSK, and I can assure her that Ministers in our Department are engaging, and will continue to engage, with the pharma and life sciences industry to ensure that we take the opportunities as well as meet the challenges ahead.
Mrs Gillan
In Europe’s largest space innovation competition this year, the UK took the top prize and four major awards. We have been one of the leaders in, and most successful exploiters of, space technology, and it is vital that this support continues. In particular, can the Minister confirm that the European Space Agency is entirely independent and not an EU organisation, and that our membership of and participation in ESA will continue, as will the UK’s involvement in space research?
Mr Walker
Absolutely. The UK space industry, in which I understand my right hon. Friend’s husband has played an important part, is a global success story, leveraging our best talent to deliver highly innovative products and services every year. We want a UK space industry that captures 10% of the global market by 2030, creating 100,000 new jobs. The UK will remain a member of the ESA, which is not a part of the EU. The ESA’s next ministerial council is being held in Lucerne today, attended by my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation.
Dr Mathias
May I thank the Minister for taking time last week to meet me and science and engineering companies from my constituency? Will he heed the calls made at that meeting, specifically to continue the easy and free movement of scientists across Europe and to maintain our participation in European projects?
Mr Walker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for arranging that very useful meeting. I will repeat what the Secretary of State has said before:
“We will always welcome those with the skills, the drive and the expertise to make our nation better still…Britain has always been one of the most tolerant and welcoming places on the face of the earth. It must and it will remain so.”
We are a global leader in scientific collaboration, and we want that to continue.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Is it the Government’s policy to exit the European Medicines Agency at the same time as we exit the EU?
Mr Walker
The Government are committed to ensuring a positive outcome for life sciences and pharma as we exit the European Union. The Prime Minister has already outlined steps to make sure that we continue to back research and development. No decisions have yet been taken as to the final location of the European Medicines Agency.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
T.G. Eakin, which is located in my constituency, is a successful business that supplies medical equipment throughout the world. It is imperative that such businesses are kept informed of progress. Will the Minister outline how his Department will achieve that?
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The absence of a Government plan for the science and technology sector is causing huge uncertainty. The Minister will be aware that the current funding arrangements for the ITER project, which includes a JET—Joint European Torus—centre for fusion energy in the UK, run out in 2018. If he can say nothing else about the Government’s plan, will he confirm that the UK will seek to maintain full participation in the Euratom programme?
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
We are seeking to ensure a smooth and orderly exit from the European Union, and it would not be in the interests of either side—Britain or the European Union—to see disruption. To that end, we are examining all possible options, focusing on the mutual interests of the UK and the European Union.
Emma Reynolds
The Prime Minister recently told the CBI conference that we want to avoid a cliff edge. Further to the answer that the Secretary of State gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), and given that our EU partners have so far refused to commit to parallel negotiations on our future arrangements alongside those on article 50, what is the plan if we cannot start, let alone conclude, those negotiations within two years? Will we be forced off that cliff and on to World Trade Organisation rules and tariffs, with all the consequences for jobs and investment that business has warned of?
Mr Davis
The substance of the hon. Lady’s question is incredibly important and, as she has said, the Prime Minister addressed it at the CBI. She addressed it again yesterday and that is why she has said that we want a smooth and orderly exit. How that occurs will be affected by a number of things. The hon. Lady has mentioned the structural issue relating to whether the negotiation is done in parallel or in series. We do not accept the series approach. We have made that plain to the European Union, and we need to deal with that before we come to the detailed question of whether there is a transition or not.
On transition itself, I make this important point. The Select Committee Chairman, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), is sitting next to the hon. Lady. Transition, when it is raised by various people, will mean different things. For example, when the Europeans talk about it, it effectively means a much longer negotiation period, while other people are concerned about matters such as financial stability. There are different issues that need to be dealt with in a different way.
Mr Speaker
I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman says that he needs to make an important point; all points made by Secretaries of State ought to be important, as should the points made to them.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
UK money through the European Union funds important international development projects all over the world. As part of any transitional arrangements, will the Secretary of State make sure that those continue to be supported and that the plug is not pulled when or if the UK finally leaves?
Mr Davis
There is no “if” about it. There is a “when.” I say that to the hon. Gentleman quite firmly, because that is part of the problem that the European Union has had in engaging on the process so far. Many of them want to see this not happen and they have to face up to that so we get the right answer.
The hon. Gentleman raises a significant issue. I have not addressed it in detail myself, but I will do so. Will he forgive me if I write to him on this matter, because it is sufficiently important that I think I should do so?
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
My ministerial colleagues and I have met a number of higher education institutions and groups, including Universities UK, the royal academies, the Russell Group and the Universities of Swansea, Reading, Ulster and Strathclyde. The sector strongly supports our ambition to create an environment in which the UK as a whole can continue to be a world leader in research, science and the tertiary education sector.
Gavin Newlands
I thank the Minister for that answer. The University of the West of Scotland provides a high-quality and accessible education, and the university’s 112 staff from the EU are absolutely critical in delivering that. Can the Minister guarantee EU staff working across higher education and further education the right to remain without any visa conditions when the UK leaves the EU?
Mr Walker
We value highly the contribution of EU and international researchers and academic staff. We remain fully open to scientists and researchers from across the EU, and we will always welcome those with the skills, drive and expertise to make our nation better still. Regarding those who are already in the UK, we have been clear that there has been no change to the rights and status of EU nationals in the UK as a result of the referendum.
Chris Elmore
In 2014-15, there were 43,000 EU staff in the UK higher education sector. Those people are making decisions now about their future. When will the Government give them certainty, and what is in the Government’s plan for Brexit to ensure that our universities can benefit from the contribution of those staff members once we have left the EU?
Mr Walker
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I have just given. I think we have been very clear that we want to continue to attract the top talent and that we want the UK to remain a leader in research, which means attracting people from the EU and from around the wider world.
Jeff Smith
The Erasmus exchange programme has enabled 200,000 UK students and 20,000 staff to spend time abroad. That enhances their employability, improves their knowledge and promotes understanding between cultures. What is the plan to ensure that that kind of valuable exchange can continue in future?
Mr Walker
There is no change for those who are currently participating in, or about to start, Erasmus+. Erasmus+ offers a range of programmes to countries across Europe and beyond. Post-exit access to Erasmus+ will be a matter for the negotiations that will follow the triggering of article 50. The Erasmus+ programme has proved to be a valuable tool that helps organisations and citizens to achieve their potential through international education, training and collaborative opportunities. As part of our vision for the UK as a global nation, I am sure we will want to look at how such an approach can be perpetuated in the future.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Secretary of State was absolutely right to say earlier that we only get one chance at this, so the Prime Minister is absolutely right to make sure that we have listened to all the representations, including those from universities, before invoking article 50. Does he agree that it is far preferable to have a full, hearty Brexit than a rushed, messy, unsatisfactory dog’s breakfast?
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
The Government are absolutely committed to working with the Scottish Government, alongside the other devolved Administrations, as we formulate plans for the United Kingdom to leave the EU. That includes working through the new Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations, which had its first meeting last month and is due to meet again on 7 December.
Roger Mullin
Can the Minister outline the benefits of Scotland securing full membership of the single market post-Brexit?
Mr Jones
I find it extremely difficult to see how one part of the United Kingdom could remain part of the single market while the rest did not. I refer the hon. Gentleman to what the First Minister of Wales said only the other day:
“I don’t see how there can be separate market access arrangements for the different nations within the UK that share the same land mass.”
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
Clearly something has disappeared from the file. The question is about—
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not wish to disorientate the right hon. Gentleman, but it had been an earlier ambition on his part, as communicated to my office, to group this question with question 22. I hope that he is still happy with that vaulting ambition.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Mr Davis
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the on-stage prompt.
The question is about European nationals. The Government’s aim is clear: we wish to guarantee the rights of European nationals at the same time as we guarantee those of British citizens abroad. We raised that matter with the Polish delegation—the Polish Prime Minister and others who came to the UK this week—and they agreed that both matters have to be dealt with at the same time.
Helen Hayes
Every week since 23 June, I have met EU nationals who live in my constituency. They are part of our community, many are working in vital roles in our NHS and public services, and they are deeply distressed by the uncertainty that this process is causing them and their families. Will the Secretary of State unilaterally confirm their right to live in the UK and to continue playing their vital role in our communities?
Mr Davis
May I say two things to the hon. Lady? It is a serious issue and I accept that she takes it seriously, as we all do. As I said last time—I hope this gets promulgated—the majority of European nationals already have the right indefinitely to remain because of the time they have been here, or if they have been here for two and a half years, they will certainly have that before we leave. More to the point of what she said, we discussed the matter with the Poles and several other European countries, and they accept in terms—indeed, the Polish Prime Minister said it in public two days ago—that this has to be dealt with at the same time as British citizens abroad because they, too, will feel a nervousness and we must not leave them hanging.
Ruth Cadbury
I also have many constituents who are EU citizens actively contributing to our community and our economy, and they are worried about their future here. This Government have the power to give them certainty and to find the best way to ensure reciprocal guarantees for UK citizens in other EU countries. Is it fair to use one group of people to hold another to ransom?
Mr Davis
The phrase, “holding people to ransom” is mightily unhelpful to the whole argument. Our whole strategy is designed to avoid holding anybody to ransom and to ensure that everybody who should have rights gets them recognised at the same time. I am afraid that the arguments in the European domain in the last week have reinforced that viewpoint. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, it demonstrates that we are taking the right approach. If it were up to us, we would have this resolved in months, but we have to get agreement with the European Union, too.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
Last week, the Chancellor delivered the autumn statement and, thanks to work done since 2010, the fundamentals of the UK economy are strong and we approach EU exit negotiations from a position of strength. Of course there will be ups and downs during the process, but the hard data since the referendum have been far better than many expected or predicted, and growth is forecast to be steady. In the third quarter, UK GDP grew by a half per cent., employment reached an all-time record high, business investment rose by 0.9% and retail sales grew by 1.9%. In the three months to October, companies from Jaguar Land Rover to GlaxoSmithKline have increased investment. The UK is well placed to deal with challenges that may arise from exiting the EU, and ready to seize the opportunities, too.
George Kerevan
At the annual general meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on wholesale financial markets and services on Tuesday night, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a very public endorsement of a transitional regime for the financial sector beyond the two-year Brexit negotiations. On a scale of one to 10, how closely does the Secretary of State agree with the Chancellor?
Mr Davis
On a scale of one to 10, I will give that number when I hear what the Chancellor says myself, rather than hear that routed through the hon. Gentleman. The substantive point—transition—is material. We have said that the first thing to determine is the endpoint and the outcome. Whether we need a transition will be dictated by that in the first instance. As I said earlier to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), what transition means is itself a moot point.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
May I return to the question of EU nationals? Home Office figures released this morning indicate that the number applying for permanent residency in the UK has increased by 50% in the quarter since the referendum. The Brexit Secretary keeps returning to the question of people’s opportunity to apply for leave to remain. Does he not recognise that that process is not automatic, costs money, is complex and is not guaranteed? Will he not simply do what the British public want and give them the right to stay?
Mr Davis
Frankly, the hon. Gentleman allows me to reiterate the important point I made earlier. [Interruption.] I will get to the issue of leave to remain. By the time we get to the end of the process, five out of six European nationals who are here already will have the automatic right. The hon. Gentleman got that wrong—when it comes down to it, it is effectively automatic. After six years, people get the right to citizenship, which is important.
The hon. Gentleman is right that we would like to resolve this in a fast, expeditious and comforting manner for the individuals concerned, but we have a responsibility to 1 million British citizens abroad, and we must protect them as well.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government fully recognise the contribution that tourism makes to our economy and communities in all parts of the UK. Foreign visitors contribute £22 billion to our economy. There were record numbers of overseas visitors each month from July to September—10.7 million in total. I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for hosting a roundtable with some of the key players in the hospitality sector, which I attended last week shortly after attending the Tourism Industry Council. As the Prime Minister has said, we are confident that our exit represents opportunities for growth in tourism, and we will work closely with the industry to achieve them.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Mr David Davis
That will be part of the great repeal Bill. If there is any amendment, I would think it would be done through primary legislation in the House.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
My hon. Friend is entirely right: there will be no second referendum.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Mr David Jones
Our intention is to seek the best possible access to the European market, and to provide similar access for Europeans to this market. That is the basis upon which we are approaching the negotiations.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Mr David Davis
I recommend to the hon. Gentleman the comments of the shadow Chancellor, who said that Britain should grasp the opportunities available and use Brexit to transform society. Sadly, the shadow Brexit Secretary does not help.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
On the question of the port services regulation, does my right hon. Friend accept that it is opposed by the Government, the Opposition, the trade unions and all port employers? The issue is about to be decided by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Does he agree that it should be voted against?
Mr David Jones
My hon. Friend is entirely right. The regulation is not designed for the British system. We intend to oppose it, but sadly it will be carried by a qualified majority vote.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The OBR, the IMF, the Bank of England, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the London School of Economics all say that Britain’s share of world exports will fall post-Brexit. Does that not show how empty the Government’s rhetoric is about us being a global leader in world trade?
Mr David Davis
The hon. Lady should be very wary about taking economic assumptions underpinning a forecast as a statement of what is going to happen. The outcome after the Brexit process is over will depend very much on the deal we strike. That will be a good deal and there will be an increase in the amount of world trade we take.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Major pharmaceutical investors, such as Eli Lilly in my constituency, use a common EU system for medicine regulation in clinical trials to help British patients to gain access to the best treatments in the world. What work is the Minister doing to ensure that the decades-long co-operation with the EU is maintained after Brexit not just for the benefit of companies but for the benefit of patients?
Mr Robin Walker
I assure my right hon. Friend that we will be looking very carefully at that. As I said earlier, no decisions have yet been made about the future location of the European Medicines Agency. Until we have left the EU, the UK remains a member with all the rights and obligations that membership entails. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency continues to play a full role in all procedures of the EU medical device regulatory framework.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
What priority has the ministerial team given to achieving continued tariff-free access and continued membership of the single market?
Mr David Davis
Those are two different things. As I said earlier, we give very high priority to both tariff-free access and access without tariff barriers, at least no more than there are already—there are plenty. That may or may not include membership of the single market, but it is achievable by a number of different methods.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The fishing industry has never fully recovered from the sell-out in the original negotiations to enter Europe. Can Ministers assure me that the fishing industry will have a much higher priority in this set of negotiations?
Mr David Jones
I can assure my hon. Friend that the fishing industry is at the forefront of our considerations. We have already had several meetings with the industry’s representatives and will continue to do so.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Businesses across a range of sectors in my constituency are concerned about their ongoing ability to attract and retain skilled labour as a consequence of Brexit. Will the Secretary of State say what he is doing both to reassure businesses that in future there will be the opportunity for skilled labour to migrate to this country, and to retain people who are already considering leaving now?
Mr David Davis
The function of my Department and this strategy is to bring back the control of migration to the British Government and the British Parliament. That will be exercised in the national interest. That means that we would expect to see pretty free movement of highly talented labour and, in other aspects of the economy, it is not in the national interest to cause labour shortages. Therefore, businesses should be aware that this is not shutting the door; it is taking back control.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
On reciprocal rights for United Kingdom and EU citizens, does the Secretary of State agree that the Prime Minister is absolutely right to be seeking an early resolution, and to be already speaking with individual member states?
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Since 2014, Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises have received over €21 million in funding through Horizon 2020. What assurances can the Minister give that firms will be eligible for equivalent funding before and after 2020?
Mr Robin Walker
As the hon. Lady knows, the Treasury has already given strong assurances up to 2020, beyond the period of our exiting the EU. That is an important signal to SMEs, universities and others that they should continue bidding for the scheme. The current EU budget and the framework for Horizon 2020 runs only up to 2020.
Mr Speaker
On the principle of humanitarian assistance to the involuntarily delayed, I call Mr Henry Smith.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Mr David Jones
My hon. Friend is entirely right. On the day we leave the EU, we will be in perfect alignment with the rest of the EU regulations, directives and so on, which gives us a strong, solid base for moving forward with negotiations.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The Prime Minister, in an attempt to set the right tone for negotiations, has offered an early agreement on the status of EU nationals living in the UK. Is the Secretary of State disappointed that, in a petulant post-referendum response from the EU Commission, this offer has been refused, and will he assure us that, should this hard line continue, there will be no lack of resolve on the Government’s part to detach us from the chains of the EU?
Mr David Davis
The Government will not be so easily put off, although the hon. Gentleman is quite right. It would have been better if we had got a better response from the EU—but I will not say anything rude about those involved. One of the interesting disciplines of the next two years is that I will be polite to everybody.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The agricultural and food sectors are incredibly significant in the Corby and east Northamptonshire economy, employing thousands of local people. What steps are Ministers taking to engage fully with these sectors to make sure that their needs are totally understood?
Mr David Jones
My hon. Friend is entirely right. We hold regular meetings, both with our colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and with the various stakeholders in the industry. Only yesterday, I and the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), held a roundtable at my Department to discuss these very issues.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Ind)
A major retailer has raised with me whether they would continue to invest in the north-west because of potential tariffs. What comfort can the Minister give to such businesses?
Mr David Davis
Interestingly, one of the first business meetings I had was in Blackburn, at the invitation of the former MP for the area, Jack Straw. We are clear that we are seeking tariff-free, barrier-free access, and we—I certainly, as a northern MP—have the interests of industry throughout Britain, particularly the north, very much in mind.
Several hon. Members rose—
Business of the House
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
The business for next week will be as follows:
Monday 5 December—Second Reading of the Children and Social Work Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 6 December—Remaining stages of the Health Services Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill.
Wednesday 7 December—Opposition day (15th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
Thursday 8 December—Debate on a motion on UN international day for the elimination of violence against women followed by a general debate on cancer strategy one year on. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 9 December—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 12 December will include:
Monday 12 December—Remaining stages of the Savings (Government Contributions) Bill.
Tuesday 13 December—Remaining stages of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill.
Wednesday 14 December—Opposition day (16th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
Thursday 15 December—Debate on a motion on the creation of a commercial financial dispute resolution platform followed by a general debate on UK negotiations on future co-operation with EU member states on scientific and university research projects. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 16 December—Private Members’ Bills.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 8, 12 and 15 December will be:
Thursday 8 December—Debate on the fourth report of the Scottish Affairs Committee on post-study work schemes followed by general debate on the UK ivory trade.
Monday 12 December—Debate on an e-petition relating to the closure of retail stores on Boxing day.
Thursday 15 December—Debate on the fourth report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on air quality followed by a debate on the second report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on greyhound welfare.
Colleagues will also wish to know that subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the Easter recess on Thursday 30 March 2017 and return on Tuesday 18 April 2017.
The House will not sit on Monday 1 May.
Subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the Whitsun recess on Thursday 25 May 2017 and return on Monday 5 June 2017.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for those dates. I press him to be a little bolder, because he still has to come up with one date—for the summer recess. If he could do that for next time, it would be great.
Members want a vote on the boundary Bill. What progress has been made on the money resolution for the Bill?
On this day in 1942, the Beveridge report was published. It showed us what it meant to be a caring society in which people are supported when they most need it as a safety net. Saturday 3 December is International Day of Persons with Disability, but the Government have still not confirmed whether they will end the humiliating and harmful reassessments of people with long-term conditions who have applied for personal independence payments. May we have a statement, following yesterday’s report from the National Audit Office showing that sanctions on welfare payments have been handed out without any evidence that they work? The figures for 2015 show that £132 million was held back in benefits; £35 million was paid in hardship; and the cost of administering the scheme was £50 million. It is going to be worse next year, because the Government have lowered the benefit cap. The NAO concluded that there was no evidence that sanctions provide value for money for the British taxpayer.
The Leader of the House mentioned the debate on science that was arranged by the Backbench Business Committee. I ask the Government to make a further commitment to UK science—more than just an injection of funding. The Prime Minister recently said that our competitors are not standing still but investing heavily in research and development. On UK science and research, we are standing still—frozen by Brexit. Damage is done to networks of collaboration. Over 60% of the UK’s international co-authored papers involve partners in the EU, so may we have an urgent debate in Government time on support to UK science and research to ensure that the promised £2 billion will protect those collaborations and networks that form the foundation of world-class science? This is about preserving a shared culture and intellectual heritage.
We also celebrate a Labour Government commitment, made on 1 December 2001, to keeping museums free. On the 10th anniversary, research carried out found that audiences became more diverse after the introduction of free admissions. The number of visitors from ethnic minority backgrounds to Department for Culture, Media and Sport-sponsored museums rose by 177.5%. That all adds to our education—widening our horizons; fulfilling our potential; understanding each other and the world around us; and providing us with lifelong learning.
We also celebrate last month—we are only a day out—the birth of Jennie Lee on 3 November and, sadly, on 16 November her death. She was a fantastic Member of this House, who introduced the Open University —another Labour Government success. However, the number of part-time students aged 21 and over has declined by 57%. Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and the Open University have shown that the lost part-time students correlate to the highest participating age group in the UK labour force. That not only affects social mobility but makes it vital to fill the UK skills gap, driving up international competitiveness and productivity.
This Government are not a Government of education, and neither are they a Government of law and order, with 47 magistrates courts shut and 45 to follow in 2017. These courts deal with 90% of criminal cases. Many magistrates are resigning—75 of them over the issue of criminal courts charges. Neither are they a Government of business. Business wants transitional arrangements, but we know from the memo that was shown to the whole world that the Government have said no to such arrangements after Brexit.
This is not the Government of unity. The Prime Minister has her three backing singers, like the Three Degrees: the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union—whose Department is now known as DExEU—and the Secretary of State for International Trade, who, apparently, is allowed to deal only with international trade outside the EU, the rest being done by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
We also need an urgent debate, which was promised by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. The Government cannot just have turf wars; they must also deal with the sovereignty of Parliament and accountability to the House.
This is not the Government of the national health service, either. It is a case of “Social care crisis? What crisis?” Only recently, NHS England lost a case in the High Court. Today is world AIDS day. The drug Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, has been shown to reduce the risk of infection by 90%, and it can now be commissioned by the NHS as a result of that ruling.
Both you and the Leader of the House, Mr Speaker, have received a letter from the World Wildlife Fund about Earth Hour. May I ask the Leader of the House to use his best offices to ensure that the lights in the Norman Shaw South building can be turned off? They have been on constantly since last December. We in Norman Shaw South want to take part in Earth Hour day.
Mr Lidington
Let me begin with the hon. Lady’s final question. I will certainly make inquiries of those in the relevant part of the House’s administration department about the lights in Norman Shaw South.
The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the importance of world AIDS day. As far as the Government are concerned, this country remains committed to ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030. We recently pledged a further £1.1 billion to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which will provide essential retroviral therapy for 1.3 million people who are living with HIV. That, of course, is in addition to the £2.4 million national HIV prevention and sexual health promotion programme.
The hon. Lady mentioned the recent court case on PrEP. I think it is good that we have legal clarity about where responsibility lies. Clearly, in the light of the court judgment, NHS England will now consider through its normal process of assessment whether and how PrEP should be made available to patients on the NHS.
Given that we have just had an hour of questions to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the House has been able to discuss the matters raised by the hon. Lady in some detail. However, the importance of ensuring the strength and vitality of the country’s science base—including, critically, its important relationships with universities and scientific institutions—in Europe and globally will of course be an important element of the Government’s approach to the forthcoming negotiation.
I join the hon. Lady in saluting the work done by our great museums, both our great national museums here in London—and, I should add, in Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff—and our regional and local museums, which do tremendous work. I remember, as a small child, being taken off on rainy half-term days to some of the museums in London, and I agree with the hon. Lady that they perform an important educational and cultural role.
In the spirit of these weekly occasions, I am more than happy to pay tribute to the work of the late Jennie Lee. There have been formidable champions of the arts on both sides of the House over the years, but I think that Jennie Lee was the first Arts Minister to be formally designated as such, and she has an important place in the history of public policy on the arts.
The hon. Lady referred to skills. The Government are committed to creating 3 million new apprenticeships during the current Parliament, and to continuing the work to drive up the quality of education that our children receive in schools. It should be a point of remark—not of complacency, but of some celebration—that more children than ever before attend state schools that are categorised by Ofsted as either good or outstanding.
The hon. Lady referred to magistrates courts, and all of us who have been through this process in our own constituencies know it can be a painful one, but in an age when quite a lot of routine court work can now be done more effectively, swiftly and cheaply online, doing away with the need for as many personal appearances—particularly when there is not actually a trial—there is not the need for quite so many individual courtrooms as there used to be. That is why my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is looking realistically at how our justice and courts system is best equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st century and the digital age in an effective fashion.
I was disappointed that the hon. Lady made no reference in her comments about benefits to the recent announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that he will do away with the need for reassessments of people who suffer from the most serious disabilities and chronic and degenerative medical conditions. I would have hoped the entire House welcomed that.
I think the hon. Lady is playing to the gallery a bit, frankly, when it comes to benefit sanctions. As the National Audit Office itself pointed out in its report, our current sanctions system has existed since 1996; it was in operation throughout the 13 years of the Blair and Brown Governments, because the Labour party in government recognised that a sanctions system, properly applied, was a necessary part of a fair benefits system. In any month, fewer than 1% of employment and support allowance claimants and fewer than 4% of jobseeker’s allowance claimants are now sanctioned, and we have seen a halving of sanctions in the past year alone. So I think the Department for Work and Pensions is showing it is trying to address genuine concerns, but we do not flinch—as the Labour party in opposition appears to flinch from its record in government—from accepting that a sanctions system is necessary for the fair functioning of our welfare arrangements.
The hon. Lady asked for a debate on the EU-Canada trade agreement. [Interruption.] Of course, under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, that treaty will have to be laid before Parliament in the normal way, so there will be an opportunity for such a debate.
While I enjoyed the hon. Lady’s little jibe about music—[Interruption.] I was given a long list of questions by the Opposition. She asked about a serious point in respect of the private Member’s Bill on boundaries. The Member promoting the Bill published it only three days before it was down for its Second Reading debate, and it was not accompanied by any kind of statement or analysis of the costs associated with it. So the Government are now going through the normal process of trying to establish what those costs are before coming forward further to the House.
Finally, the hon. Lady talked about a discordant band. [Interruption.] I have to say that if I were looking for dissonance and atonality, I would be looking at Members on the Benches opposite, who are members of a party—
Mr Lidington
It is always good to have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). Some 70% of Labour party Members of Parliament have expressed no confidence in their current leader; that strikes me as a party that is engaging in experimental music of the most dissonant kind.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Leader of the House is a renowned intellectual, noted not merely for carrying books around the place, but even for being seen reading them. However, may I gently say that, in accordance with my usual practice, I do want to accommodate all would-be contributors to the business statement, but I remind the House that there are two subsequent debates to take place under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, both of which are more than adequately subscribed and all of the contributors to which I am very keen to accommodate, too? So there is a premium on brevity from Front and Back Benches alike, now to be brilliantly exemplified by Mrs Maria Miller.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Government acknowledge that the level of sexual harassment and violence in our schools is worrying, but they have not yet embraced my Select Committee’s recommendation to make sex and relationship education compulsory. Will the Government make time for an urgent debate to demonstrate the support for that measure not only in the House but from nine out of 10 parents in this country?
Mr Lidington
It is important that all schools should be safe places and that no young person should fear, let alone suffer, harassment or violence, and we want all schools to put high quality personal, social, health and economic education, including age-appropriate sex education, at the heart of their curriculum. We are looking again at the case for further action on PSHE and sex education, not least in the light of the views that my right hon. Friend and her Committee have expressed, with particular consideration to improving quality and accessibility.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I also thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. May we have a debate on cake, and on the perennial question of whether it can be consumed simultaneously? Apparently, that conundrum is now at the very heart of this Government’s clueless Brexit strategy. Meanwhile the Foreign Secretary has expressed the view, over a generous slice of Battenberg at the ambassador’s residence, that he is simultaneously for and against freedom of movement. I am pretty certain that the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister would like the Foreign Secretary to have his cake and choke on it.
The English votes for English laws shambles continues apace, with the Constitution Unit concluding that its procedures are opaque and that no one understands them. Apparently, there are only three people who understand them: you, Mr Speaker; the chief Clerk; and someone who is now dead. I have checked Hansard, and I now hold the record for speeches made in the English Legislative Grand Committee. Following the great demand in the shires of England during the last election for English votes for English laws, I am pretty certain that no one was expecting the Scottish National party Member for Perth and North Perthshire to hold the record for contributing to this English quasi-Parliament.
Finally, no sane person is expecting the Government to be successful in the Supreme Court on Monday. In fact, everyone is expecting them to get a gigantic gubbing at the hands of our judges. So how quickly will we see the legislation on article 50 being brought to the House? Will the Leader of the House at last confirm that the Bill will be amendable, and that there will be an appropriate amount of time for all Members to contribute to the debate?
Mr Lidington
On that last point, it is obviously up to the Court when it brings in its judgment, and the Government will, as always, abide by the rule of law. If we need to bring forward legislation, we will do so. I have never come across a Bill, long or short, that has been incapable of being amended—when the amendments are in order—given sufficient ingenuity on the part of hon. Members. Whether a particular amendment is in order will of course be a matter for you, Mr Speaker, rather than for me.
I have looked at the report on English votes for English laws, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and I found in it some proposals for certain procedural changes. I will take those into consideration as part of the review of EVEL that the Government are currently carrying out.
I always enjoy Scottish cake, be it a Dundee cake, a clootie dumpling or anything else coming from north of the border, but it is absolutely clear that what the Government are seeking to achieve in the forthcoming EU negotiation is the best possible deal in terms of economic opportunity and of future political relationships between ourselves and the other 27 countries that will work in the interests of the prosperity and security of the people of every single part of the United Kingdom.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
The Supreme Court will be making an important decision in the next few days. It is now very much part of our constitutional structure, but there is a lack of parliamentary accountability in relation to its appointments. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate about the appointment of Supreme Court judges and the approval of such appointments by Parliament?
Mr Lidington
I hope that we do not go down the route in this country of allowing political considerations to play a part in the appointment of judges. In our current system, their appointment depends on a balance—embodied in numerous conventions over the years, rather than written into law—with Parliament and the Government respecting the judiciary’s place in our constitutional settlement, and I very much hope that that will always continue to be the case. There will be Justice questions next week—on Tuesday, I believe—when my hon. Friend may have the opportunity to question the Lord Chancellor on this directly.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
Ahead of the Christmas recess and what seems likely to be a dangerous winter in the NHS, is there not an overwhelming case for the Government to come to the House in their own time to explain what is happening with the funding of social care? Councils had been led to believe that there would be an announcement in the autumn statement and they were left stunned, as were Members on both sides of the House, when the Chancellor could not even mention the words. I am told No. 10 blocked a deal on social care—a funding package had been prepared—calling for more work on funding options. I do not know whether that is true, but I know that people working in the NHS have a right to know because they need to plan. Ministers need to come to the Dispatch Box and tell us what the hell is going on.
Mr Lidington
The Government, as the Secretary of State for Health has made clear, are engaged in some very serious and co-ordinated winter planning, and the NHS has winter plans in place at national, regional and local level to manage the increase in demand that we always expect at this time of year. The right hon. Gentleman referred to social care. Yes, all of us are aware of the pressures that exist in our constituencies. That is why the Government have made available the social care precept and the better care fund to make sure that additional resources are available to local authorities.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Last week, the all-party group on peninsula rail, of which I am the chairman, published its report on the future of the rail network in the south-west. May we have a debate, or for that matter a statement, about the Government’s reaction to it, especially on the pilot scheme for signalling?
Mr Lidington
I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised this matter, because the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement an additional £450 million to trial innovative digital rail signalling technology. The peninsula rail campaigners may be able to seek to benefit from that pot of money. I hope he will very much welcome, as a token of the Government’s commitment to the south-west, the £10 million of additional development funding announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the railway line from Exeter to Newton Abbot via Dawlish. I am sure all colleagues from the south-west will welcome that much needed work.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
May we have a debate in Government time on openness and transparency within the BBC, so that we can explore its London-centric, anti-regions and anti-countries of the UK approach? Such an approach is exemplified by its nominations for the sports personality of the year, all but two of whom are from England and from which Carl Frampton—he has been recognised as the greatest boxer of the year, as a double world champion at two different weights—has been excluded, causing outrage across the communities in Northern Ireland. A debate on people’s ever growing concern about the BBC would be very timely.
Mr Lidington
The right hon. Gentleman makes the point powerfully. As he would expect me to say, the BBC is and rightly should remain independent of ministerial direction. However, I think the entire House will want to salute the contribution that sportsmen and women from Northern Ireland make to our national success, and long may that continue to be the case.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
North East Lincolnshire Council is currently involved in putting together a number of regeneration projects that will attract private sector investment. Such investment is essential to the regeneration of our provincial towns. Similar schemes have been put together up and down the country. Will the Government find time for a debate on this important issue, and on how the Government can support local authorities with these projects?
Mr Lidington
Such initiatives are important and it is right that they should be locally driven and therefore reflect the particular circumstances of individual towns, cities and counties. My hon. Friend may have the opportunity to seek a debate in Westminster Hall to highlight his area’s particular needs, but my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will welcome the initiative. I am sure that the Government will do what they are able to do to give support to local authorities and the private sector, which are rightly taking the lead.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
With reference to the Leader of the House’s answer to my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House regarding the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, will he indicate what date is pencilled in for the money resolution to be brought forward?
Mr Lidington
As I said, the Government are working through the Bill’s costs and carrying out the legal checks to ensure that it is properly compliant. There are recent examples of private Members’ Bills having eight, 12 or 15 sitting days between Second Reading and the securing of the money resolution, so what is happening is not at all extraordinary.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Local authorities up and down the country are publishing their draft budgets for spending over the next year. Most have welcomed the Government’s commitment to a long-term financial settlement. May we have a statement in Government time on the number of authorities that have agreed a long-term funding settlement and, more importantly, on those that have not?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a good point that I will relay to Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Mr Speaker
I was going to call Mr Spellar. Where is the right hon. Gentleman? Oh dear. The fellow has beetled out of the Chamber. It is a great pity.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
The board of Seqirus, a major vaccine-producing company, is to make a decision this month on whether to invest millions of pounds in the Liverpool site in my constituency or in another site in mainland Europe. I have been seeking a meeting with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but I do not yet have a date. The matter is now urgent, so may we have a debate in Government time on what the Government are doing to support the manufacturing industry given the uncertainty that our leaving the European Union is causing around such decisions?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Lady will acknowledge that if she looks at the list of significant inward investments into this country since 23 June, she will see that international businesses from both the manufacturing and the services sectors see the United Kingdom as a great place in which to invest for future growth. I am sure that that would be a most powerful argument to raise with the company in her constituency, but I will draw the particular case and its urgency to the attention of the Secretary of State to ensure that a Minister gets back to her.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Members will be avid readers of my “Westminster Life” column in the Peterborough Telegraph, which is published today. The latest edition recounts my useful round table business meeting to discuss illegal Traveller incursions. May we have a debate on that issue? Will the Leader of the House encourage his colleagues in the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government to write to police and crime commissioners and local authorities to remind them that they have strong legal powers to deal with this distressing, persistent issue?
Mr Lidington
I can barely contain my patience to read my hon. Friend’s latest column. The problem that he describes is one that many of us have faced at various times in our constituencies. He rightly says that significant powers already lie in the hands of police forces and local authorities. Those powers are there to be used. Home Office questions are on Monday 5 December, which will give my hon. Friend a further opportunity to press his case.
Mr Speaker
I am sure that the column will be a literary hit of the very highest quality. I expect nothing less from the hon. Member for Peterborough.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House not only for the business statement, but for being so accommodating in helping the Backbench Business Committee to plan ahead. He announced this morning the Backbench Business up to and including 15 December. I hope I am not trying his patience if I ask him for an early indication of whether we will get any time in the week beginning 19 December and in the week immediately after the Christmas recess.
Mr Lidington
First, let me say that I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s opening comments. He is always the soul of courtesy in representing the views of his Committee and I will do my utmost to accommodate him.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The announcement this week by Ofcom on BT Openreach provides opportunities to improve broadband services to rural communities such as Glendevon, Cleish and Rhynd in my constituency. May we therefore have a debate in Government time on the minimum service improvements we can expect to see following this decision and how this decision will make Openreach more accountable to customers, particularly in rural areas in my constituency and beyond?
Mr Lidington
We are clear that we need a more independent Openreach, and it needs to offer genuinely fair and equal access to telecoms infrastructure to BT’s competitors. I know that Ministers, particularly those in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, will want to explore how this Ofcom ruling can help us to get broadband to rural areas as well as to those towns where fast broadband coverage is still inadequate. I am sure the hon. Lady will continue to put the case for her own constituents strongly.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
The midlands engine plays a significant role in our economy. In the autumn statement it was announced that the Government will publish a midlands engine strategy shortly. May we have a debate on that strategy, so that the region can reach its full global potential?
Mr Lidington
In our commitment to the midlands engine, the Government are demonstrating in their policies that we are intent on building an economy that works for all. When the Business Secretary went to the US and Canada earlier this year, he saw at first hand the opportunities that there are for investment and economic growth on the part of midlands companies. The autumn statement confirmed the arrangements for the midlands engine investment fund. The British Business Bank will make its first investments from the northern powerhouse investment fund in early 2017, and the first investments from the midlands engine investment fund will follow very shortly thereafter.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Our NHS and social care services are in crisis. One local accident and emergency consultant told me that this is the most unprepared our NHS has been in the three decades since he first qualified. Council leaders from across our country were led to believe by Department for Communities and Local Government Ministers that urgently needed funding for social care would be forthcoming in the autumn statement. In answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the Leader of the House told us that the precept and the better care funding would fill this gap. I must let him know that that is just a fraction of what has been cut from social care since 2010. May we please have an urgent statement from the Chancellor about why this funding for social care was missing from his autumn statement and how he expects our services to cope over the coming winter months?
Mr Lidington
I simply disagree with the hon. Lady that the Government are approaching the winter ill-prepared. A Health Minister is chairing regular cross-Whitehall meetings to make certain that the NHS at the national, regional and local levels is adequately prepared for the challenges it is going to face. No one pretends that there are no pressures on the NHS or on social care, but I think the hon. Lady would have given a more balanced view had she noted that we have more doctors, more nurses, more accident and emergency attendances, more diagnostic tests and more money going into the NHS now than when her party was in office.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
May we have a statement following the Foreign Secretary’s timely visit to Cyprus on Tuesday and the Prime Minister’s conversation with the President of Cyprus last week to reassure my Cypriot constituents that the stalled talks will resume and that we will have a just settlement for Cyprus at long last?
Mr Lidington
The Government remain very committed to doing all we can to support the UN and the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus in trying to bring about that settlement, which would be so much to the advantage of everybody living on the island. There is an historic opportunity, with leaders in both communities who are utterly committed to trying to get that settlement, in the common interest, and the Government will continue to do all they can to help foster the climate that might bring that agreement about.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
May we have a debate entitled “The Bumbling Incompetence of the Foreign Secretary”? The Leader of the House has long experience in the Foreign Office, so can he give the House a single previous instance when the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom has been reduced to demanding from four separate diplomats evidence that their recollection of a meeting with him is correct?
Mr Lidington
The right hon. Gentleman really should not get carried away by the odd newspaper story. The Foreign Secretary, like the whole Government, is committed to getting the right deal in the negotiations on all fronts. Part of that, as the Prime Minister has set out, is accepting that, following the referendum result, freedom of movement as it exists at the moment cannot continue. There will be a need for a national immigration regime when we leave the European Union. Obviously, the exact relationship of this country to the other 27 in terms of the movement of workers, trade, investment and so on is a central part of those negotiations but, at the risk of repeating lines that the right hon. Gentleman has heard from Ministers so often, we are not going to give a running commentary on that detail.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) who speaks for the Scottish National party was slightly wrong. There is a Bill before Parliament now—the Withdrawal from the European Union (Article 50) Bill. That Bill is expected to get a Second Reading on 16 December but, as the Leader of the House knows, there is one slight problem if it progresses: Standing Order No. 84A(5) requires the Government to table a motion so that the Bill can proceed to Committee, because the Committee stage of another private Member’s Bill is taking place. Has the Leader of the House given any thought to that, and will he make a statement about when he will bring forward that motion?
Mr Lidington
At a time when the Supreme Court is about to consider all these matters relating to the triggering of article 50, it would be premature of me to speculate about possible future legislative needs.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Once again, I find myself speaking at business questions as a result of the utter, confounding confusion that exists between Government Departments over leaving the EU. This time it is the Secretary of State for Scotland, on last week’s “Sunday Politics” programme, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who have made contradictory statements. The former tells us that Scotland will benefit from the powers being repatriated from the EU, but the latter tells us that there will be a UK-wide approach. Can we have a statement from the Leader of the House, or from an appropriate Department, to clarify the doublespeak of this Government?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman is, uncharacteristically, oversimplifying the process of the negotiation. Let us look at one of the key areas of policy that is largely devolved—fisheries. Clearly, at the moment, fisheries policy within the common fisheries policy is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. There is also the issue of the United Kingdom’s future independent membership of UN conventions regarding fish stocks, and agreements with third countries that have the character of international treaties. External relations—the right to sign and negotiate treaties—is explicitly a reserved power under the devolution settlement. Therefore these matters do need to be resolved in the negotiations, which is why we are ensuring that Scotland and the other devolved Administrations are intimately involved in the preparation of our negotiating position. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union is visiting Edinburgh in the very near future and will be talking directly to Scottish Ministers and parliamentarians about that matter.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
On Saturday morning, I was out knocking on doors in Corby, and one of the key messages that constituents asked me to relay was the importance of infrastructure keeping up with new homes. May we have a debate at some point in the next few weeks to discuss this matter, because it is incredibly important that we have the public services and infrastructure in place to support the new homes that are being built?
Mr Lidington
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Like him, I represent an area that is willing and able to provide a significant amount of additional housing, but where there is understandable local concern about the pressures on infrastructure. I am sure that he, like me, welcomes the Chancellor’s announcement of a housing infrastructure fund, which will make money available to local authorities that want infrastructure improvements so that they can unlock additional land for new homes.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Today’s damning report from the Work and Pensions Committee condemns both Concentrix and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for a gross failure in customer service over the tax credits fiasco. My constituent Nicola is one of the many thousands who have been failed and left to deal with the aftermath, with bank charges, overdraft fees, credit card interest and phone call charges. While the Government consider their response to the report, may we have a debate in Government time on fair compensation for all people who, like Nicola, have been left in dire straits?
Mr Lidington
On the point about compensation, there are existing arrangements whereby people can seek redress if there is maladministration. I agree with the hon. Lady, as the Select Committee report shows that there are important lessons that need to be learned. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary and her colleagues will reflect on that report and there will be a full Government response in due course.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Like right hon. and hon. Members on both sides the House, I am always very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for your generosity, understanding and forbearance, as was evidenced earlier when you allowed me, although I was late, to ask a question on exiting the European Union. Not for the first time, and despite allowing plenty of time, I have been late for business in the House this week because of problems with Southern railway and Network Rail. May we have a debate on the unnecessary industrial action by the RMT and ASLEF unions, which has been making many of my constituents and people across the south-east late for work and late getting home again to see their families for almost 12 months?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend speaks on behalf of a large number of hard-working men and women whose lives are regularly being disrupted in the way in which he describes. Positive industrial relations should be part of the backbone of a productive economy, but that needs to involve people being able to go about their business and to get on with their lives without unjustified disruption. Of course trade unions can and do play a constructive role, but we did need to introduce modernising reforms to ensure that strikes such as those that my hon. Friend describes happen only as a result of a clear positive decision by union members entitled to vote. Under the Trade Union Act 2016, we have provided for a 50% turnout threshold for all industrial action ballots and an additional 40% support threshold for key public services. We will shortly bring forward the secondary legislation to implement those reforms. That is evidence of the Government’s determination to tackle the problem.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Small businesses are often best placed to take advantage of new opportunities, and they are crucial in creating the good well-paid jobs that all our constituents so desperately need. I will be visiting many of the excellent small businesses in my constituency on Small Business Saturday, which was brought in by Labour. May we have a debate about the need to maximise the support for small businesses so that we can help entrepreneurs, their staff and the wider economy?
Mr Lidington
I am happy to endorse the hon. Gentleman’s tribute to small businesses, and I welcome the fact that he has highlighted Small Business Saturday, which falls this weekend. There will be questions to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the week after next. I hope we can build a consensus across the House in support of measures that will make it easier for small businesses to grow and employ more people. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, for his part, will persuade his party to cease its criticism of the Government’s reductions in corporation tax, which greatly benefit small businesses.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
On 12 September, 18 October, 7 November and again on 17 November, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), told the House that the national shipbuilding strategy would report by the time of the autumn statement. On Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Defence made available Sir John Parker’s report, which will inform the national shipbuilding strategy, and said that the national shipbuilding strategy would not report until the spring. May we have a debate in Government time, or at least a statement, on why the House has been so badly misinformed regarding the national shipbuilding strategy?
Mr Lidington
The Parker report was delivered to Ministers ahead of the autumn statement, which was what, as I understand it, the Government’s pledge had consistently been. The report, as the hon. Gentleman says, was published earlier this week. It is a wide-ranging report making 34 different recommendations covering both Government and industry. It is only right that Ministers, having received the report themselves only last week, should want to consider those recommendations before coming forward with the strategy the hon. Gentleman wants. I hope he will acknowledge the Government’s continuing commitment to Scottish shipyards, which we have seen through the strategic defence and security review, and the placing of additional contracts.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, many parts of Greater Manchester were badly hit by flooding, but especially Stalybridge, Mosley and Hollingworth in my constituency. The reaction of the emergency services and the community was absolutely commendable. Understandably, people want to know that the same damage will not happen again, and the adequacy of local drainage has been questioned in particular. Last April, amendments were tabled to the Bill that became the Housing and Planning Act 2016 that would have given more support to local authorities to improve drainage, but those amendments did not go through. May we have a debate on whether enough is being done to protect people from the risk of flooding and whether our drainage systems are fit for purpose?
Mr Lidington
I think everyone in the House would want to join the hon. Gentleman in his tribute to the emergency services in his and other affected constituencies, and would also express their sympathy to those householders and businesses that have gone through the awful experience of seeing their properties flooded. The Government are investing record amounts in flood protection and recently published their long-term strategic flood resilience review. I hope that review will provide some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, but I will highlight his concerns to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I am sure the Leader of the House will be as delighted as I was to learn that Rouken Glen park was awarded the accolade of the UK’s best park in the Fields in Trust awards last night. I am also sure he will want to join me in endorsing the view that Rouken Glen is a fantastic place, in congratulating everyone involved on working so hard there, and in encouraging people to visit Rouken Glen. May we have a statement from him on that, please?
Mr Lidington
I think the best statement I can make is that the hon. Lady has encouraged me to think about a visit to her local park the next time that I am in Scotland.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
It is 10 years since the collapse of Farepak, when thousands and thousands of people lost their Christmas savings, but we still do not do enough to protect consumers who prepay and often find themselves at the back of the queue when companies fail. Will the Leader of the House urge the Business Department to get on with making a statement on the Law Commission’s recent report on protecting consumers who find themselves in these circumstances, which includes excellent input from my constituent Deb Harvey?
Mr Lidington
I think all of us who were Members at the time will recall the agony that constituents who lost their—usually modest and hard-earned—savings in that way went through. Obviously, my colleagues in the Department will want to consider the Law Commission’s report carefully. I note that questions to the Business Secretary fall on Tuesday 13 December, so the hon. Lady might be able to press her point then.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was sent proof that Paul Newby, the adjudicator, has existing loans and shares that are dependent on income from the pubcos he is supposed to adjudicate, yet it took four months for the Secretary of State to respond to the then Business, Innovation and Skills Committee’s recommendation that the appointment be rescinded and to say simply that he was not going to look at the matter. That is not good enough. People are being denied the right to the market rent-only option that this House voted for, and Mr Newby is doing nothing about it. May we have an urgent debate in Government time on this matter?
Mr Lidington
That appointment, like all other Government appointments, is made through a process that is designed to ensure that all due diligence is adhered to when putting forward a long list and then a short list of candidates. My understanding is that, following the criticisms that were made, a look was taken at the appointments process in this case, and it was found that absolutely nothing untoward took place in making that appointment.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
On Saturday, I was among a congregation of hundreds at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Acton to mourn the up to 10 million people who died in Stalin’s forced famine of 1932-33. The atrocity was exposed by British journalists, yet the British Government still fail to acknowledge it as genocide. Could we have an urgent statement on why we have not followed other countries in doing that? There was progress under the Blair and Brown Governments, but that seems to have stalled, like so many other things. These people feel like they have been swept under the carpet and they need our solidarity. They are under attack again.
Mr Lidington
With respect to the hon. Lady, it was not recognised formally as a genocide under those Governments. The principle that the Government follow, as I think she knows, is that, because the term “genocide” carries certain potentially criminal implications in respect of those alleged to have carried out genocidal acts, we believe that such decisions should be made by judges rather than by Governments. However, that should not diminish in any way our sense of horror at what happened in Ukraine during the 1930s. I remember going to see the memorial in the centre of Kiev, and the folk memory of that harrowing experience is still central to Ukrainians’ conception of themselves as a people and as a nation. We are right to remember the horror that took place then, and to do all in our power to try to make sure, through our foreign policy, that such events never happen again.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The situation for Christians in Iran has deteriorated markedly. Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was acquitted in 2012 after being charged with apostasy and sentenced to death, was recently re-arrested and charged, along with three church members, with “action against national security”. The church members are also appealing against a sentence of 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service. That is unbelievable. Given that the UK has re-established ties with Iran, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on human rights in Iran so that this House can urge Iran to ensure rights and religious freedom for all its citizens?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman, as he does so often, speaks passionately for religious freedom all around the world. I think that no one here would say anything other than that the Iranian Government have an appalling human rights record. That is a matter of great sadness, given the richness and diversity of Iranian civilisation and culture, and the fact that the best Iranian cultural traditions actually accord respect to religious minorities. We will do all we can, through our diplomatic work, to encourage the Iranian Government to adopt the kinds of human rights standards that we would expect from a country with the rich civilisation that they have inherited.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
There are positive aspects to two major reviews issued today by the Department for International Development, but there are also revelations that billions of pounds of our aid spending are being diverted to richer economies such as India, China, Malaysia and Mexico. When can we have a statement on that? Given that the reviews also praise our humanitarian aid, when can we expect a Government response to the cross-party calls from more than 200 Members for humanitarian aid drops to Aleppo, where the conditions are currently appalling?
Mr Lidington
On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Department has said today that it has ceased funding one of the international organisations that was criticised. Our work with the others is now subject to a programme to make sure that aid money goes to, and is effective in helping, the poorest, as is rightly DFID’s remit for all its spending.
Aleppo was raised in the course of exchanges on an urgent question earlier this week. No one here can avoid confronting the horror of what is happening in Aleppo—it is the most merciless slaughter of civilians. We should not, however, conceal from ourselves the complexity and difficulty of an airdrop operation of the kind the hon. Gentleman describes, given the presence of Syrian and Russian air defences, and the implications of what even a humanitarian airdrop in the face of opposition from Syria and Russia would mean in terms of a requirement for force protection, and considerable risk to UK and other personnel involved.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Last week in the autumn statement there was reference to a rise in insurance premium tax from 10% to 12% in June next year. That will undoubtedly have a detrimental impact on many businesses, families, young people and older people. May we have a debate about this, combined with the impact of Brexit?
Mr Lidington
I am sure that the hon. Lady will find opportunities to question Treasury Ministers about this, or to raise her concerns by way of an Adjournment debate. Of course, any tax rise is going to hit certain people and certain businesses, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was quite open in his autumn statement in saying that this particular tax increase was needed to raise revenue so that the Government can maintain their fiscal stance, and in order to free additional money for other spending priorities, which were largely welcomed in the House.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
A 20-year-old constituent of mine made an indelible and unforgettable impression on my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and me with the tragic story of his half a dozen abortive attempts to get the organ transplant that he desperately needed. Six months later, I attended his funeral. He died because of a lack of donors. Yesterday, the Welsh Government announced that, as a result of their pioneering and courageous legislation on the new law of presumed consent, 39 patients in Wales had had organ transplants. When can we get the Government to accelerate in this House a law that will allow the same process and the same advantage to be enjoyed throughout the rest of the United Kingdom?
Mr Lidington
I will certainly make sure that that point, which the hon. Gentleman and others have made, is considered by the Health Secretary and his team. Very many of us, myself included, know friends or family members who have literally been given a new lease of life through a successful transplant. All healthy adults need to consider whether they should make arrangements to make clear their wishes in advance of their death. It is also important that our medical professionals are trained in how to make an approach to families at a critically emotional moment when a relative is at the point of death, to ask them sensitively to consider whether to give consent for a transplant to take place.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
May we have a debate or a statement in Government time about the use of agency workers to burst industrial action? I am thinking in particular of media reports and early-day motion 748, which names new Labour-controlled Glasgow City Council as having recruited agency workers to try to burst today’s industrial action about ICT privatisation. Can the Leader of the House confirm that such actions are illegal and that we should be enforcing stricter penalties on such rogue employers?
Mr Lidington
I am not going to get drawn into commenting on whether a particular action by Glasgow City Council is illegal. That is for the Scottish courts to determine.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Tomorrow will be exactly two years since the European Scrutiny Committee first asked for Members to be able to debate the proposed European ports regulation. That request has been made 10 times and ignored 10 times by the Government. In its eighth report of the current Session, the Committee described that behaviour as
“a remarkable refusal by the Government to pay even lip service to accountability to Parliament.”
What is the response of the Leader of the House to that comment?
Mr Lidington
I have seen that. Indeed, I have had a conversation with the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee about the matter and I am taking up the matter with Transport Ministers, though the hon. Gentleman will have noted that, during the exchanges at Exiting the European Union questions, the Minister of State said that the Government would vote against the regulation when it came before us for a final decision.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
When Scottish National party Members compare the Government’s austerity choices with the £205 billion cost of Trident, we are told that that is inappropriate because the figure is the whole-life cost of Trident. Yet last night, when we debated the SNP’s proposals on the pension arrangements with regard to the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, the Government tried to confuse matters by talking about the cost in 2026. What is the right fiscal approach for the Government?
Mr Lidington
The right fiscal approach is to ensure that we can continue to command the confidence of the international markets from which we borrow money to fund our deficit and our national debt, while paying down the deficit that we inherited in 2010—we are now two thirds of the way through the task—and at the same time, following tax and structural reform policies that will make our economy more productive. Many challenges still face us, but we should all welcome the following facts: that we have more people in the United Kingdom in work now than ever before; that UK living standards are at an all-time high; and that the statistics for both inequality and poverty are on a downward trend.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). The Department for International Development has published substantial policy documents today about which we need Ministers to come to the Dispatch Box and answer questions. However, I also noticed in today’s written statements that the Prime Minister has moved responsibility for the Britain is GREAT campaign from the Cabinet Office to the International Trade Department. Will a Minister from that Department come to the House and explain how it manages its Twitter policy and how it will advise the Foreign Office on the difference between the Queensferry crossing and the Forth road bridge?
Mr Lidington
Any of us who have visited Scotland, if only at intervals, will be aware of that important distinction. The Britain is GREAT campaign spans the international work of several different Departments, and I think that it has proved successful at highlighting the strengths of this country in investment, scientific opportunities, education and culture. That helps to attract more tourists and more investors to the United Kingdom, and we should welcome that.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson is currently finalising a duty of care in sport review at the behest of the sports Minister, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). Given the ongoing allegations of sexual abuse in football, will the Leader of the House ensure that Members can fully scrutinise and debate the review on its publication by granting a debate in Government time?
Mr Lidington
My understanding is that criminal charges are being brought against an individual and there are therefore sub judice issues that have to be taken into account, but I am sure that there will be opportunities to debate the policy strategy in detail. Although investigation of allegations of historical abuse is clearly a matter primarily for the sports governing bodies, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has assured the Football Association in particular that the Government will give it any support that is appropriate, and my hon. Friend the sports Minister has written to all sports governing bodies to make clear the importance that the Government attach to taking seriously and investigating allegations of historical abuse and also ensuring that they have in place adequate modern safeguarding arrangements.
Points of Order
Thursday 1st December 2016
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Gender Identity (Protected Characteristic) Bill 2016-17 View all Gender Identity (Protected Characteristic) Bill 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I happened to notice at business questions a few moments ago that 18 Members of the Scottish National party were present, with most standing, and that only 16 Members of the combined Labour and Conservative parties were present, including the Leader of the House. With your long experience of such matters, is there any procedural device that the SNP could employ to take advantage of our new-found numerical superiority?
Mr Speaker
No. However, I know that Members of the Scottish National party attend in large numbers principally because of the vast range of issues that they perfectly properly wish to raise on this occasion and secondly, doubtless because they enjoy my company.
Brendan O’Hara
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would appreciate your advice on how I can get the record corrected. I believe that the Leader of the House inadvertently misled the House by suggesting that the Defence Secretary’s announcement on the national shipbuilding strategy on Tuesday was always the Government’s plan. However, on four occasions, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), has told us that the national shipbuilding strategy would report by the autumn statement. There can be no doubt that the strategy has not been delivered to the House as promised.
Mr Speaker
Members are responsible for the veracity of what they say in the House, but I have a sense—I may be mistaken but I doubt that I am—that the hon. Gentleman on this occasion is less interested in what anybody else has to say to him, and rather more interested in what he has to say to them. He has made his point in his own way with his usual force and alacrity, and it is on the record. Doubtless it will be communicated ere long to large numbers of his constituents, which I imagine will cause him to go about his business with an additional glint in his eye and spring in his step that would otherwise perhaps have been lacking.
Valerie Vaz
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise that my point of order is so long, but I have to make it clear and use words carefully.
I seek your guidance on a matter of importance that affects my reputation and that has implications for other Members. Following my presentation of a petition on behalf of my constituents, there was confusion between the Department for Communities and Local Government and Walsall Council on whether it was a planning application call-in, despite the fact that the petition did not ask for a call-in, and that DCLG guidance makes it clear that a call-in must be expressly asked for.
It appears that the Minister for Housing and Planning has decided to treat petitions opposing planning applications as requests for call-in, and that he has instructed his staff to contact planning authorities but not Members in accordance with that decision. Walsall Council blamed me for its decision to delay consideration of the application, which it said was caused by the petition. The council was wrong as a matter of planning law.
The Minister’s policy, if that is what it is, to treat petitions as requests for call-in has not been communicated to Members or to the House, and appears to treat each request from Members arbitrarily and in a way that is inconsistent with procedures that are set out in a previous written statement, and that are helpfully described in the Library guidance. That has resulted in reputational damage to me by Walsall Council and DCLG. So far, only the head of the planning casework unit has apologised to me. The Minister has made up that policy in breach of his own guidelines. He has not communicated it to the House, so the Journal Office, on which Members rely for advice on petitions and which is extremely helpful, is unaware of it. I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I presented a petition, but in that case the Department contacted me first before deciding to call it in. In my case, the call-in was not automatic: the Department contacted me first.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman’s experience was obviously different from and, according to his own lights and probably those of the hon. Lady, preferable to hers. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order as well as for its substantive content. I appreciate her concern. She is of course right that the petitions procedure is quite separate from planning law. Furthermore, it is a matter of public record that the petition she presented on behalf of her constituents did not request that the application be called in.
In setting out the facts of the case today, the hon. Lady may well feel that she has achieved her objective of putting the record straight. Moreover, I have little doubt that her concerns about the process will have been heard on the Treasury Bench, and that they will be conveyed to the relevant Minister. I hope that that is helpful.
Bill Presented
Gender Identity (Protected Characteristic)
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mrs Maria Miller, supported by Jess Phillips, Mrs Flick Drummond and Ben Howlett, presented a Bill to make gender identity a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 in place of gender reassignment and to make associated provision for transgender and other persons; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February, and to be printed (Bill 106).
Backbench Business
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
11:50 - The House divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 106 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Speaker
We now come to Backbench business. The first item is a motion in the name of Ian Blackford.
Since this is only the second occasion upon which these procedures have been invoked, it might be helpful to the House if I explain what is happening. This is an identical motion to that which was debated in Westminster Hall on Tuesday 15 November. When the question was put in Westminster Hall, the Chair’s opinion as to the decision of the question was challenged. As the motion has now been brought before this Chamber, under Standing Order No. 10(13) I am required to put the question on the motion without debate.
State Pension Age: Women
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 10(13)),
That this House has considered acceleration of the state pension age for women born in the 1950s.—(Ian Blackford.)
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Now that the House has unequivocally declared that this matter was not considered in the Westminster Hall debate a couple of weeks ago, what mechanisms are open to us to make sure that we can have a debate in this place so that Members can be heard and we can stand up for the 2.6 million WASPI women?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I presume that the hon. Gentleman might have raised the issue at business questions, and there is always the opportunity at the next business questions to highlight the result. Actually, there was a debate here yesterday, so the debate has already taken place. However, it is not for the Chair to decide future business; it is for the Government to decide. I am sure that through the hon. Gentleman’s good offices, the matter will not rest there. I am sure that he will be pressing once again for another debate.
Transgender Equality
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the UK’s status as a pioneer in legislating for equality for LGBT people; welcomes the Government’s announcement of a new trans equality action plan; and calls on the Government to review its response to the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Committee’s report on Transgender Equality to ensure that the UK leads the world on trans equality rights, in particular by giving unequivocal commitments to changing the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in line with the principles of gender self-declaration and replacing confusing and inadequate language regarding trans people in the Equality Act 2010 by creating a new protected characteristic of gender identity.
The motion stands in my name, those of the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and many other hon. Members. I know many wanted to speak here today, but their other commitments in the House have precluded them from doing so. Their names are listed on the Order Paper.
The Backbench Business Committee has been most generous in allocating the time for this debate, which was inspired by the transgender report published by the Women and Equalities Select Committee in December 2015. I would like to thank, too, the hundreds of people and organisations who gave written and oral evidence to the Committee—evidence from more than 250 people and organisations. We were fortunate in having our specialist advisers, Stephen Whittle and Claire McCann to advise us. Indeed, we had an incredible Select Committee staff, particularly David Turner, Gosia McBride, Sharmini Selvarajah and Helena Ali. I also thank my fellow Select Committee members, particularly those in their places today to speak in the debate.
This is a first—the first ever debate on the Floor of the House on transgender issues. The report published by the Women and Equalities Select Committee was the first ever parliamentary inquiry into transgender issues. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Select Committee itself is the first ever such Committee charged with scrutinising the Government’s policies on equality issues. It was established by the House because of the pivotal role that these matters must play in creating a fairer society for us.
When we published our first report and chose to focus on transgender, a few people said to me, “Why are you choosing to focus on that above all other issues? Why use such an important platform to tackle the issues faced by such a small group? Surely there are issues that are higher on the list of priorities.” Others said that they had never met a trans person, and were not aware that they had any trans constituents. Well, it is estimated that more than 650,000 people in this country can identify with being trans: it equates to 1,000 people in every constituency, and that is probably a gross underestimate.
The evidence that the Select Committee received gave us an opportunity to gain some sort of insight into the prejudice, discrimination and ignorance that trans people endure every single day of their lives, but also the great joy that they experience when they are able to be recognised by the gender with which they identify. That is why this debate is important.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
I welcome the debate, because it is vital for us to consider the issue of transgender rights, but should we not also be wary of creating gender-neutral environments that may prove more of a risk to women themselves? A recent case involving my old university, the University of East Anglia, which has gender-neutral toilets, revealed that a man had been using those facilities to harass women. He was charged and convicted. How does the right hon. Lady think we can protect women from male violence in gender-neutral environments?
Mrs Miller
That point is often raised when we debate the rights of trans people, but it is not a zero sum game. Giving rights to one group, or enforcing those rights, does not mean that rights must be taken away from another group. We must be careful in this place not to appear to undermine the rights of trans people to enjoy the protections that they are afforded under the Equality Act 2010. As for gender-neutral toilets, many organisations have had them for a great many years. An aeroplane does not have a men’s and a ladies’, and we do not see any significant problems on aeroplanes. We must ensure that people do not use, or perhaps misinterpret, the serious problem of threats to women in environments of that kind to undermine—even, perhaps, inadvertently—the rights of transgender people, which are important and which we, as parliamentarians, should uphold.
John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Does the right hon. Lady not agree that the point raised by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) is a matter for criminal law, and has nothing whatsoever to do with transgender equality?
Mrs Miller
The hon. Gentleman has made an important point, but I think the right hon. Member for Don Valley has the right to make the assertion that she did. I know that some organisations may be at risk of misinterpreting the rights that transgender people have, in the belief that they somehow undermine the rights of women. We need to get the balance right. As the hon. Gentleman says, if criminal behaviour is taking place, it should be dealt with by the criminal law.
This debate is important because it is our job to stamp out prejudice wherever it lies, and to ensure that, as a nation, we are fair to everyone. I think we should judge our success as a Parliament by the way in which we treat the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups in society, and, given the issues with which transgender people must deal, they certainly fall into one of those groups. In striving for the recognition of equality rights that trans people need to enjoy, we reject prejudice, and by doing that, we improve the ability of all who are struggling to be treated equally to achieve their aim.
Attitudes are not static. I think it incumbent on us in Parliament to continually re-evaluate what equality means—what it means to have a free and fair society that gives everyone the opportunity to succeed. If attitudes towards equality were static I would not be standing here today, and the hon. Ladies on our green Benches would not be sitting here today; the civil rights movement in the US would not, in the year I was born, have outlawed segregation in schools and public places; Nelson Mandela would not have been democratically elected in South Africa; homosexuality would not have been decriminalised here in the UK in 1967; and we would not have equal marriage for same-sex couples. We need to continually challenge these norms and things that might be accepted, so we can be sure that equality evolves over time.
Trans people have not been dealt with fairly in this country—they have been marginalised. We know that is wrong, and the motion challenges us to consider what we can do better in the future.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Lady is making a strong speech, and I wholeheartedly support it. Will she join me in praising the work of many public sector organisations, including South Wales Police and the British Army, which has been praised for its work with trans communities and the wider LGBT community? It is by showing leadership in the public sector and through such organisations that we can deliver real equality.
Mrs Miller
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point, and our Select Committee inquiry report looks carefully and closely at the challenges that public sector organisations face. I have to say that we found some were able to cope with them better than others. I particularly have been impressed by the way in which the Ministry of Justice has accepted the challenge around trans prisoners. I note the comments the hon. Gentleman makes about the police as well, and I hope other police authorities are able to follow suit.
The Select Committee report covered a huge range of issues, because that is what was required of us, making recommendations on hate crime, gender markings, prisoners and probation, media representation, schools and social care. I welcome the Government’s very positive responses to our report. Perhaps the Minister in her response today can indicate whether the Government have been able to look further at the issues on which the responses were perhaps a little less positive, because Committee members felt very strongly that every single one of the recommendations we put forward had merit and needed to be looked at, although there was a large number of recommendations—more than 70—so it was clearly difficult for the Departments to respond to them all in the time available.
Today is about looking at progress, so I will focus particularly on the strategic and legislative aspects of the Select Committee report, in the full knowledge that the great number of other Members here today will pick up on progress on the recommendations made for the NHS, child protection, offender management and schools.
The Government have committed to a new trans equality action plan to include a review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and a cross-Government review of removing unnecessary requests for gender information. All these steps are hugely welcome, but particularly the undertaking to look at training for specialist NHS staff to work in gender identity services, and tackling harassment and bullying of transgender people in education.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady mentions health, and the constituents who have contacted me felt that was an area of great inequality. Does she think it is a disgrace and very worrying that 54% of trans people have been told by their GPs that they do not know enough about trans-related healthcare to even provide it?
Mrs Miller
One of the problems we uncovered through the evidence we gathered was that many doctors felt as disempowered as the hon. Lady implies, owing to a lack of training and, perhaps, continuous professional development in this area. However, I should say in response to her intervention that there were also some people who said that whenever they went to the doctor, even if it was somebody who had just a little knowledge, their transgender identity was always at the heart of the response they got from the NHS. We need to make sure that doctors understand the health issues transgender people have to deal with, but also acknowledge that not every health condition they have will be related to their trans identity. That is an important point to make at this juncture.
Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
A constituent of mine came across a particular problem because she had reassignment surgery before the Gender Recognition Act 2004 came into effect. Fifteen years later, when she tried to get a gender reassignment certificate, she was asked for a great deal of information that was no longer available. The surgeon who had performed the operation was dead, the records were no longer available, and she had a terrible time trying to get the information. Surely that is unfair.
Mrs Miller
The hon. Gentleman highlights one of many problems with the Gender Recognition Act. That is why our Committee asked for an urgent review of it, and I am heartened to note that the Government have indicated they understand the sort of problem he outlined, and many others as well, and the very medicalised nature of the process people are asked to go through. That process is talking about something very personal, which is an individual’s identity. It is not something I would particularly like to be discussed by medics and lawyers in some room and in a very technical and quasi-judicial way. One of the recommendations of our report was self-declaration in that respect.
The other part of the Government’s response that I was heartened to read, as it is important for us in terms of planning for the future, was about the need to get the data right in this regard by better measuring the number of trans people in the UK, and also better monitoring people’s attitudes. If we are really going to tackle inequality in this area and really ensure trans people are able to enjoy the equality we all voted for in the Equality Act 2010, we need to make sure that we take the public with us and that there is the cultural change that is needed.
Perhaps today in her response, the Minister—who has been extremely generous with her time, thinking about these issues and talking to the Committee about them—will tell the House what issues in the 2011 action plan remain unaddressed, and what the status of the new plan is—when will it be published and how will the Government monitor its implementation? If we start to see this sort of certainty, trans people will have more confidence in the fact that not just the Government but public services are starting to get to grips with the issues they have to tackle on a daily basis.
The Gender Recognition Act was pioneering in its time. We criticised it slightly a few moments ago, but it was put on a pedestal as being pioneering—albeit a little late for the constituent of the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir). Now it needs updating, however. In particular, concern was voiced to us about the medicalised, quasi-judicial application process that is used. The Government have undertaken to conduct a review of the Act, and perhaps to de-medicalise the process and, as the previous Equalities Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), said, to
“overturn an outdated system and ensure the transgender person’s needs are at the heart of the process.”
Again, I was very heartened by that very positive response from the then Equalities Minister in July of this year.
Where is that review at the moment? Has the process been streamlined and de-medicalised, as indicated in the response to our report? Will the Government be considering again the Committee’s recommendations around the principle of self-declaration, which I believe would again put this country at the forefront of trans rights on the global stage, so that again we will be leading, as I believe we would like to as a country, on all LGBT rights?
Finally, I want to talk about primary legislation underpinning the rights of trans people. In our report, the Select Committee made the simple recommendation to change the terminology in the Equality Act by making the protected characteristic “gender identity” rather than “gender reassignment”. The Committee was concerned that, based on the evidence and on the legal advice that we took, the current wording does not adequately protect wider categories of people. It provides for trans people in the process of undergoing gender reassignment, but not the many people who may not have clear legal protection—those who do not live full-time in their preferred gender, non-binary or intersex people, or perhaps children whose gender identity is less well-developed than that of an adult.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended that a broader definition would be clearer and give more certainty. The current wording is outdated and confusing, and we believe that our proposed change would be in line with the Yogyakarta principles and with resolution 2048 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Government have not yet accepted this recommendation, but the Minister has undertaken to keep it under review. Will she update the House today and look carefully at the Bill that I have just presented to the House with the support of other hon. Members?
To get things right, we need the right laws, the right strategy and the right culture. The report we published in December 2015 revealed serious shortcomings in legal protection for trans people and in the delivery of public services. We need to have a clear direction of travel. Our Committee has set out more than 70 recommendations, and the Government have undertaken a considerable body of work as a result of that. I hope that today’s debate will give a flavour of their direction of travel, in order to provide clear optimism for trans people in this country. I hope that it will also remind Ministers of the human cost of not taking the actions that are needed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I want to set some parameters for the debate. The second debate is twice as heavily subscribed as this one, but both debates are important to the House and to those listening to them. I suggest that Members, including those on the Front Benches, speak for up to 10 minutes in order to try to bring this debate to an end by 2 o’clock.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for accepting this debate, which gives us an opportunity to discuss the Government’s response to the “Transgender Equality” report. I should also like to thank LGBT Youth Scotland, Stonewall, the UK LGBT Consortium on Trans Organisations, the Equality Network and the Scottish Transgender Alliance. I also want specifically to thank Tim Hopkins from the Equality Network and James Morton from the Scottish Transgender Alliance for their invaluable briefings and their work with the Scottish Government to continue the progress of LGBTI equality.
As an advocate for LGBTI equality, I am very proud that the first report from the Women and Equalities Committee focuses on the problems faced by the trans community. In the spirit of true equality, every sector of society should feel truly equal and it is our responsibility as members of the Committee and in life to ensure that that is the case. I believe that the Government’s response to our report is woefully inadequate. We need to ensure that the individuals who contributed to the inquiry and those who experience daily discrimination feel that the Government are heeding their calls for more equality. Trans equality must be the priority of every Government across the UK. I know that the Minister shares my passion for equality and I hope that today’s debate will give her an opportunity to respond, to hear the cross-party calls and to take action. I should also like to thank my friends and fellow Committee members, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), for securing this important debate and for their continued commitment to the cause of transgender equality.
We have only to look at the statistics from any mental health charity to understand why this debate is necessary. When one in four of the children in Scotland who identify as trans face bullying, discrimination and hate crime on a daily basis, we must do more. Statistics from Mind indicate that more than 40% of trans individuals have contemplated suicide and that, tragically, some of them have ended their own lives as a result of their experiences. This group of people is among the most marginalised in society. Trans individuals face disproportionately high levels of mental health problems and very high suicide rates. Discrimination against members of the trans community is an everyday aspect of their lives. Transphobia is endemic in the workplace, when accessing healthcare, in public services, in schools, in the media, in the criminal justice system and online. A sizeable percentage of individuals face this discrimination and prejudice on a daily basis.
The existing legislation provides some protections, and they are to be respected and admired. There was a time when the UK was a world leader in its approach to transgender equality. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 allows a trans person the right to a gender recognition certificate, should they wish their affirmed gender to be recorded as such on their birth certificate. This was applicable whether or not someone had undergone surgery or hormone therapy. However, this does not allow for people in the trans community who do not identify as either male or female to be recognised and protected within the law. During our inquiry, we heard from non-gendered and non-binary people who felt that they had been forgotten in the legislation. Additionally, we heard that the Act was rooted in clinical methods, requiring consent through a psychological diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The criticisms levelled at the legislation reinforce how outdated it has become. The Government must make changes to the Act to allow an approach of gender self-declaration.
Similarly, the once world-leading legislation for the trans community in the Equality Act 2010 is fast becoming outdated. It gave members of the trans community protection from discrimination, but we have heard that its provisions are routinely breached in relation to the trans community. The Act uses outdated terminology such as “gender reassignment” and “transsexual”; these are now considered inaccurate descriptors. Such terms have given rise to the misapprehension that the Act provides only for trans people who have undergone medical gender-reassignment treatment. To clarify, the protected characteristic should be amended to “gender identity”.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the essence of today’s debate is that gender is a social construct, and that that should be recognised in law? It is not primarily a biological construct, but because the law is based on that outdated concept, it is failing us.
Angela Crawley
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I reiterate that the law must be updated to recognise an individual’s gender identity, which has nothing to do with their birth gender and everything to do with the gender that they believe they are.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and other hon. Members on securing this important debate. Since 2007, the Scottish Government have been using the Yogyakarta principle, a fully inclusive definition of gender identity, in all their trans equality policy work. Does she agree that the use of that principle is desirable because it was devised by an international commission of jurists in recognition of the fact that gender identity is a human right?
Angela Crawley
Yes, and I will clarify again that the protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010 should be amended to “gender identity”, which explicitly covers the whole spectrum of trans identities. This point was rejected in the Government’s response to the Committee’s report. Ministers believe that the current terminology is adequate, contrary to the testimony of the very people it affects.
I am prone to mentioning the word “Scotland” often in debates, and I shall do so again now. In 2017, we will mark the year of trans equality and the progress that has been made on this issue. In Scotland, we have committed to reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in line with international best practice in countries such as Malta and Ireland. In Scotland, we have committed to ensuring that all trans, non-binary and intersex individuals feel protected, because it is their human right to have their gender identity recognised in law and in life. I urge this Government to follow the example not only of Scotland but of the many other countries that are leading this best practice.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The United Nations International Civil Aviation Organisation recognises M, F and X as gender markers on passports. A number of countries, including Denmark, Malta, New Zealand, India and even Australia—which is sadly not known these days for a liberal and open approach to border control—issue and accept gender X passports. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is high time the UK followed suit?
Angela Crawley
I wholeheartedly agree. One area that is not currently devolved to Scotland is the ability to change passports. I urge the UK Government to consider this important aspect of recognising a third gender—gender X—on passports. That could be done, and the Committee heard that it would be beneficial and would make a sizeable difference to individuals who travel for work, life and general leisure purposes. This is an opportunity to amend and correct that error.
I call on the UK Government to match the Scottish Government’s commitment: 2017 marks the year of progress on transgender equality in Scotland, and the UK can continue that progress. This debate highlights the need to address transgender equality and the remaining challenges that trans and non-binary people face. Although Scotland has made huge progress towards achieving LGBTI equality in recent years and is now rated the best country in Europe for LGBTI rights, the SNP is not complacent. We are determined to tackle the unacceptable levels of prejudice and discrimination that trans and non-binary people continue to face. I hope that, as we move into 2017, we can make it a year of progress for transgender equality not just in Scotland but across the UK. In Scotland, the SNP has pledged an important step forward for transgender equality by reforming the gender recognition law to meet international best practice, so that all trans and non-binary people are fully recognised and can access their human right to a legal recognition of their gender identity.
Scotland is the best country for LGBTI equality, and the UK can continue to lead on this agenda, too. One of the distinctive parts of our equal marriage law is its more progressive approach to transgender recognition, and the UK could follow that example as well. I am not simply preaching to the choir; a multitude of countries across the world are leading on this agenda.
I wish to finish with the words of Reina, one of many trans women who wrote to me before this debate. She wanted to give testimony about what it is like to be trans in a rural community in Scotland. She said:
“Being trans is not a choice. It isn’t something where the person wakes up and just decides to be a particular way. Being this way is something that a person is born with, and which they have to try and struggle with throughout their lives, in a society that hates diversity and constantly attacks them”—
and their friends and family, and
“even kills them, for not conforming to the restrictive ideals of control freaks. Life is hard and usually short for someone who’s trans. There is a lack of respectful education and health care. There is a lack of support and understanding.”
Her words exemplify just why we need to take action: life is incredibly difficult for trans people, and the changes we can make in this place will make a huge difference to their lives. The Government must today commit to the recommendations of the “Transgender Equality” report, and offer the support and understanding that this community definitely needs. I urge the Minister to join me in making sure that 2017 is the year of transgender equality not just for Scotland, but for every transgender individual across the UK.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), who is a great champion on trans issues and LGBTI issues in general, and the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who has championed this issue by making it the subject of the Committee’s very first report.
I say a massive thank you to the Backbench Business Committee. For the transgender community in the UK, this is the first time such a debate has been held on the Floor of the House of Commons, and it marks a very special day for the 650,000 transgender or non-gendered people in the UK. Just as we celebrated 50 years of Schools Out in the Speaker’s apartments yesterday, I hope that in 50 years’ time people will look back at this day and say that it marked a remarkable change in how people in the transgender community were considered in the UK. I am very pleased that this debate has been brought to the Floor of the House of Commons.
Although there is a lack of good data on the number of trans people in the UK, as my right hon. Friend stated, estimates currently suggest that 650,000 people in the UK are likely to be gender incongruent to some degree. This is an issue that has an impact on a significant number of our constituents. A number of constituents who came to see me as a result of our Select Committee’s inquiry suggested that this was the first time they could come out and say they were a member of the trans community. People often hide that and do not necessarily want to stand up and talk about it, but the inquiry has given them a huge opportunity to say that they are represented in this place and in the rest of the country.
As colleagues will know, I am a prominent supporter of LGBT rights. I have to say that the LGB part of the community has not always gone out and celebrated the T or the T+ parts of the community. This is also a huge opportunity for us to say that they are part of our friendship group. We must make a big apology for the fact that we have overlooked them as part of our community for a very long period. In her time as the new chief executive of Stonewall—she is not that new to the post—Ruth Hunt has been a huge advocate of the trans community. Following her apology to the trans community, the work she has done as chief executive has gone some way to repair the distrust and segregation within the LGBT community.
I have been a member of the Women and Equalities Committee since its creation in 2015. The report on transgender equality was its first report. The Committee received about 250 written evidence submissions, many from individual trans people who wanted to tell us about their own experiences, and there were five oral evidence sessions. I am not speaking on behalf of the Committee, but it is worth noting how it came to its conclusions. The Committee took evidence from a range of organisations conducting representative and advocacy work within the trans community, as well as from service providers of various kinds, academic experts and six Ministers in a variety of Departments. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who gave evidence throughout the inquiry, particularly those from the trans community, which enabled the Committee to produce meaningful findings and recommendations.
The report states:
“A litmus test for any society that upholds those values”—
fairness and equality—
“is how far it protects even the most marginalised groups.”
I welcome the Government’s commitment to equality. I recognise that, as a country, we have led the way on lesbian, gay and bisexual equality. Despite the welcome progress, however, we are still failing that test for the trans community. We know that trans people face continuing transphobia, increased mental health issues, discrimination in the provision of public and private services, and bullying in our schools. The report made several recommendations for the Government to consider. I thank the Minister for the Government response, but I want to highlight a number of areas that need further consideration.
The report made it clear that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 need to be amended. At the time, the GRA was a world-leading piece of legislation, but it is now outdated and in need of revision, as the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke have said, and we are falling behind many other countries. The process for applying for a gender recognition certificate is bureaucratic, expensive and even humiliating, and the burden of providing documentation can cause people significant distress. The process should be administrative, not a medicalised, quasi-judicial one. It should be underpinned by the principle of gender self-declaration, which would allow for a dignified approach that maintains the personal autonomy of applicants. After all, as Ashley Reed, who created a petition on this subject, has said of a person’s gender identity:
“You are the only person who can come to that realisation, not a panel.”
I welcome the Government’s commitment to review the GRA, but I urge them to commit to adopting the principle of gender self-declaration as well as to commit to changing the process.
As the Bill my right hon. Friend presented earlier today makes clear, the current wording of the Equality Act 2010 is fundamentally outdated and, ultimately, confusing. Terms such as “gender reassignment” and “transsexual” have resulted in significant confusion over whether trans people who have not undergone a medical intervention are entitled to the same protection. The report recommended that the protected characteristic should be changed to “gender identity”, bringing the wording in line with the Yogyakarta principles and resolution 2048 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Government’s response to that recommendation was that they believe the current wording of the 2010 Act is adequate because people are protected through the provision on discrimination due to perception. However, that response is inadequate and I hope the Minister will clarify that statement. The 2010 Act bases the protection it provides for transgender people on the process of undergoing gender reassignment. Many trans people, such as non-binary, intersex people or young people whose gender identity is less well developed than that of an adult, may not have legal protection. I urge the Government to reconsider their rejection of the Committee’s recommendation. What steps have been taken to keep the matter under review, which the Government promised to do?
Away from the legislative changes, I now turn to some specific areas that need improvement, the first of which is the treatment of trans prisoners. Until recently there were no official statistics on the number of transgender prisoners in the UK. In November 2016, however, the Ministry of Justice published the results of a data collection exercise conducted in March and April of this year. It was reported that 70 transgender prisoners were held in 33 prisons in England and Wales at that time. The Committee argued that there was “clear risk or harm” when trans prisoners are not located in a prison
“appropriate to their acquired… gender”.
The report also said that holding trans prisoners in solitary confinement was not fair or appropriate, and I am sure that the whole House agrees.
Last year, there was the example of Tara Hudson, a transgender prisoner from Bath, who was born male but had lived her entire adult life as a woman. Tara was sent to an all-male prison. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), for supporting me in helping Tara to get into a prison appropriate to her gender, but lessons still need to be learned. Tara, who has lived as a woman her whole adult life, has undergone six years of gender reconstruction surgery and I, like many in the Chamber, would define her as a woman. Her detention in a male environment was not only physically damaging but dangerous from a security perspective.
In summary, we are a forward-thinking and progressive country and have led the way in ensuring that marginalised groups receive protection under the law. We have made huge strides over the decades in improving the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. However, we must do more for the trans community. The Women and Equalities Committee report is groundbreaking and I hope its publication will be celebrated in 50 years’ time as a day of huge change for the trans community in the UK and around the world.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate—the first on trans issues in this Chamber. It was a privilege to have been a member of the Women and Equalities Committee for the inquiry, although I subsequently stood down due to my Front-Bench role.
Many of us have been strong supporters of LGBT rights for many years, but until the Committee’s inquiry I knew relatively little of the extent of the issues facing transgender people. We heard moving accounts of people’s transitions and subsequent experiences and also from parents who have supported their children through the process of transition. It was also helpful to hear from service providers, academics and health specialists and from those providing representative and advocacy work within and for the trans community. I thank all of them for providing extensive evidence and for responding to our questions.
A cultural shift is going on in this country around issues of gender. There is greater acceptance of gender differences among young people. Our report identified the need for changes in the law and significant cultural, policy and process shifts in the fields of health, criminal justice, education and others. It also revealed that individuals experience high levels of harassment on a daily basis. That harassment can undermine careers, family life, incomes, living standards, access to services, quality of life and physical and mental health. It is no secret that a disproportionally high number of trans people have reported attempting suicide—an extremely sobering and distressing fact. The sooner we advance trans equality through legislative, policy and cultural change in our public institutions, the sooner there will be fewer trans people in the position of wanting to take their life because they are not getting the necessary care and support and the respect they deserve.
Mrs Miller
Does the hon. Lady share the concern I felt when I read that the number of hate crimes against trans people has trebled over the past five years? Does she, like me, hope that more will be done on education to ensure that that intolerance is stamped out?
Ruth Cadbury
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is an awfully long way to go in the recognition of trans people’s rights. Education is an important part of that. On that issue and others, the Committee discussed the need for adequate, high quality, universal, age-appropriate sex and relationship education in all our schools.
We have seen some progress in trans equality over the past few years. Trans and non-binary characters are actually being played by trans and non-binary actors.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is making a powerful and heartfelt speech. Does she agree that a challenge facing the LGBT community is having people from all parts of our community, particularly the transgender community, represented in the media and getting proper coverage? The Press Gallery is sadly quite empty today, but we need the media to be better educated so that they can properly represent the transgender community.
Ruth Cadbury
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We must congratulate those media organisations that are doing this. With Laverne Cox playing Sophia in “Orange Is the New Black” and Riley Carter Millington acting as Kyle in “EastEnders”—the first trans actor to play a transgender character in British soap history—things are moving in the right direction. Trans people are becoming more visible and that is something to be celebrated.
If we look at America, however, any advances made in trans equality there have been threatened by state legislatures introducing bathroom Bills, which have been described as a solution in search of a problem. Such Bills are malicious, misinformed and directly threaten transgender people. The election of Donald Trump does not fill me with much joy for the future rights of transgender people in the US. A bathroom Bill would never be passed here in the UK, but we must keep an eye on the situation abroad and ensure that the British public are well informed so that harmful attitudes do not form here.
It is time for the law and our public services to catch up. On education, the Committee recommended:
“More needs to be done to ensure that gender-variant young people and their families get sufficient support at school. Schools must understand their responsibilities under the Equality Act.”
A survey this year in further and higher education found that bullying and harassment of trans students and staff appear to be commonplace. Furthermore, with nearly half of non-binary gendered respondents to the survey reporting that they are considering dropping out of their course and three quarters stating that they did not find their place of learning supportive, it is clear that we have to do more.
Ruth Cadbury
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I need to make progress.
Will the Government assure the House that steps are being taken to create a more trans-inclusive environment in post-school education for trans students and staff? The Government’s response to the Women and Equalities Committee report on trans equality said that the Minister for further education would be writing to sector umbrella bodies highlighting the need for specific gender identity training and the need to ensure trans equality. Has that happened?
On health, we know that there has been a massive increase in the number of people, particularly young people, wanting/needing to transition, and many are identifying as non-binary, yet the delay they face in getting access to health and support services is far too long. Furthermore, GPs are too often acting as gatekeepers, preventing people from even entering the transition pathway. I was moved to hear of the experiences of trans young people who were denied support at the crucial time as they approached puberty. It has been clear from our inquiry that trans people encounter significant problems in using general NHS services that have nothing to do with their trans status due to the attitude of some clinicians and other staff when providing care for trans patients; we heard of the “trans cold”. That is attributable to a lack of knowledge and understanding, and in some cases even to out-and-out prejudice. It is therefore essential that there is sufficient training for GPs and a range of other clinicians to understand trans identities, so that people get the treatment that they want and need and that is appropriate.
Turning to criminal justice, with every news story that a transgender woman has been sent to a men’s prison, our frustration grows further. Our report made it clear that there is a clear risk of harm when trans prisoners are not located in a prison appropriate to their affirmed gender, and that they should get the right support there. It is unacceptable that in 2016 we have a criminal justice system that does not protect all groups on an equal basis, especially as this is costing lives.
In conclusion, I am proud to now be a Member of Parliament in the country that has gone further than most in recognising lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, but the UK is not the leading country in the world on the rights of trans, non-binary and intersex people. There has been progress, but not nearly enough. Time has not allowed me to cover all the issues raised in our report, but the Government’s delayed response—it took seven months—to our report raises concerns for us. The coalition Government’s 2011 advancing transgender equality action plan remains largely unimplemented. I repeat the Committee’s recommendation: the Government must take trans equality seriously and draw up a comprehensive strategy, with an action plan that addresses the full range of issues covered in our recommendations—and soon.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I have listened with real interest to the arguments made by Members about how the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010—the first legislation I ever whipped—ought to be amended to better protect transgender equality rights. I hope the Government take these arguments seriously and respond appropriately, even if it takes them a further couple of months to do so.
I want to focus on the health aspect of the excellent report by the Women and Equalities Committee: the services provided for transgender people by the NHS. Trans people experience worse health, both physical and mental, than the general population. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has found that a higher proportion of transgender people say that their physical health is “poor or very poor” compared with other LGBT communities and non-LGBT communities. Levels of poor mental health are also higher in the transgender population, with about half of young trans people and a third of trans adults reporting that they have attempted suicide. It is therefore imperative that transgender people have full access to general medical services—appropriate ones.
Transgender people also have specific health needs; untreated gender dysphoria, which, as Members will know, is medically defined as when a person experiences discomfort or distress because of a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity, can and does take a real toll on someone’s mental health. Dr John Dean, the chair of the NHS national clinical reference group for gender identity services, has said that
“not treating people is not a neutral act—it will do harm.”
I could not agree more with Dr Dean. Some trans people’s health and wellbeing would be greatly improved by gender confirmation treatment through our specialist gender identity clinics. Trans people have to be able to access those treatments on our NHS if they need them.
Angela Crawley
The Committee heard from individuals who had gone through harrowing experiences. They had gone to quite extreme lengths to receive the treatment that they wanted in order to have their gender identity recognised in countries where the practices were not as safe as they would be here in the UK. Does the hon. Lady therefore support the aim that the UK must ensure that we can cater for everyone who needs to access these health services?
Lyn Brown
I do indeed. The Committee’s report demonstrated that our NHS is not providing even a basic service, let alone a good service for trans people. The Committee report found:
“The NHS is letting down trans people”.
One of the first problems identified by the report was discrimination faced by trans people when they tried to access general medical services. Dr James Barrett, president of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists, told the Committee:
“The casual, sometimes unthinking trans-phobia of primary care, accident and emergency services and inpatient surgical admissions continues to be striking.”
CliniQ, a specialist sexual health and wellbeing service provider for trans people, told the Committee that
“there is at best considerable ignorance and at worst some enduring and mistaken and highly offensive stereotypes about trans people among the public at large, amongst whom we must unfortunately number some health professionals.”
Sadly, this discrimination has real consequences. Terry Reed, of the excellent Gender Identity Research and Education Society, told the Committee that trans people were often nervous about accessing services because they were “not treated sympathetically” or even “politely” by doctors and staff. Brook, an organisation that provides sexual health and wellbeing services and advice for young people under 25, told the Committee that
“prejudice against trans people among medical staff”
was one of the reasons for poor health outcomes in trans people.
In addition, trans people report real difficulties in accessing specialist treatments and gender identity services. GPs have a legitimate role in acting as gatekeepers to NHS specialists, but I am afraid there is evidence that prejudice and ignorance among our GPs is preventing those who experience gender dysphoria from receiving the services they need. Dr James Barrett has said that there is a “persistent refusal” on behalf of some GPs to make referrals to gender identity clinics. The Beaumont Society has heard of one trans person being told by their GP at their first assessment—and let us think about how much courage someone needs to go to their first assessment:
“You’ll be taking money away from more deserving cancer patients.”
How wicked is that? It is a complete disgrace.
Where someone experiencing gender dysphoria is referred to a gender identity clinic it can take a very long time for them to receive specialist services such as hormone therapy or genital surgery. The process requires an independent assessment from two separate consultants, and a large amount of information needs to be gathered by the consultants about the individual before they can begin to proceed. That process typically takes months and spans several consultations. An additional precondition for genital surgery is that the patient must undergo at least a year of “real-life experience” of living “in the role” of their affirmed gender—it is an enforced pause. I have read the guidelines that explain the rationale behind this enforced pause, and I understand that the social aspect of changing one’s gender role is challenging and that clinicians do not want people to take on surgery until they are fully aware of those challenges, but that does not explain why the pause is often much longer than 12 months. The Government should assess the arguments made by some in the trans community that decisions over whether to go ahead with surgery should be based on the informed consent model. Under that model, doctors could immediately approve medical interventions if they are satisfied that a patient is fully aware of the implications of their decision. It is my understanding that the model is already used in parts of the United States of America. Given that it has already been tried and tested, the Government should be in a position carefully to assess its strengths and weaknesses, and bring that back to us.
It is important that the Government understand that delays in receiving treatment can, and do, cause real suffering. In the 2012 trans mental health study, one trans person said:
“Not having had my gender confirming yet has a constant effect on undermining my self-esteem and self-confidence as well as social transition—I hate every day that I have to live with ‘boy parts’ and I can’t wait to get rid of all recognisable ‘boy bits’.”
Another person told the same study:
“Permission for my chest surgery was delayed and I waited double the usual waiting time...This caused me to go into a deep depression. I had panic attacks when I left the house. I lost my job and then found I couldn’t leave the house.”
Such suffering could be prevented if we improved the speed at which our NHS works for trans people. Delays should not be any longer than is strictly necessary from a clinical point of view.
As a result of the problems that I have outlined, the Select Committee recommended that the Government conduct a root-and-branch review of how NHS services can be improved to better serve trans people and completely stamp out transphobia in our NHS. I am disappointed—I am sure that I speak for many Members here today—that the Government did not accept this clear recommendation. Instead they responded by stating that they will look into broadening the terms of reference of NHS England’s existing task and finish group for gender identity services. When such systematic failure has been identified, the Government should question the governance arrangements that are in place, rather than relying on them even more. I say that gently to the Minister and hope that she has had those conversations with her opposite numbers in the Health team. I invite the Government to give fresh consideration to a root-and-branch inquiry as part of their commitment to the cause of gender and transgender equality.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and other hon. Members have secured this debate. It is important that transgender equality is discussed and understood, because it is central to who we are as a society.
People who are in this position might be vulnerable by virtue of the fact that their path in life is very different from that of the majority. Given the proportionately high levels of mental ill health and suicide that we have heard about today, it is our responsibility to acknowledge that, and to recognise that we are all different—people are people—and that we need to make the path for transgender people as smooth and easy to negotiate as possible.
One of the things that I love most about my constituency is its diversity. I have no particular insight into the gender identity of our local people, but just as I absolutely value the huge variety of faith groups and our excellent community groups, such as East Renfrewshire Disability Action, which supports people with disabilities, it is vital that I stand up and be counted as someone who supports every effort to deliver protections and real equality for people of all gender identities. That is the least that they should expect.
Equality, community and standing up against prejudice are the responsibilities of all of us. Scotland is an open and tolerant country, and it is my job, and the job of my Scottish National party colleagues, to work every day to achieve those principles. We must continue to push towards being that better nation that is committed to delivering gender recognition laws to ensure that we have increased protections and equality for transgender people. I encourage the Minister to recognise the importance of the fact that people must have the ability to define their gender identity.
I am pleased that ILGA-Europe—the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association—rates Scotland as the best country in Europe for LGBTI equality, but it is essential that we put in place practical steps to make the lives of transgender people better.
Before I came to this place, I was responsible for making sure that diversity, equality and inclusion were at the heart of every aspect of life in my workplace. It has been useful to reflect on that experience when considering how best to move forward in this area. I was focused on equality and employment law, and on how we could push on to do more and to make more things possible. The legal frameworks are vital in providing a roadmap for organisations and for Governments. We need to make the process easy and explicit so that there is a clear understanding of what is needed and expected. Legislation in this area should be aspirational and forward-looking. That is what we seek to put in place in Scotland as we reform gender recognition laws, and it is vital that we do so.
In my previous role, it was evident that providing an environment where young people could flourish and be whoever they were, with confidence, had a material impact on their lives. The fact that we had a very explicit, non-negotiable outlook on equality had a positive influence on how people behaved and on the discussions they had. That allowed young people of all gender identities to thrive and to succeed. We need that explicit framework from the Government, including clear terminology, so that confidence and understanding can continue to develop in all our communities.
Carol Monaghan
As a teacher, I know that much of the bullying that young people experience is due to their being excluded. The bullying can be subtle, so it is very important that we are explicit about what is happening. Simply excluding someone from activities or friendship groups is a form of bullying. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to call it out as that?
Kirsten Oswald
It is incredibly important to make such points. They are vital for education and society at large. We all need to call these things out when we see them.
The Scottish Government’s positive and unwavering stance of supporting LGBTI equality has been incredibly influential and has made a significant difference. That is a great starting point as we aspire, as we must, to go further and ensure that we do everything that we can to eradicate prejudice and enable everyone to achieve their potential.
The young people who thrive in situations where success and equality are at the fore are also influential. They take their outlook into the world—their peer groups, families and communities. Just like the young people whom I heard about on Radio Scotland earlier in the week, they will influence and inspire those with whom they come into contact. I was blown away by their stories, and by their mums, who were powerful and passionate advocates of their transgender children. Their voices and experiences shone through. No one could fail to be moved by their stories—stories of brave, strong people who are different and facing up to the world, and of all the worries and concerns that go with that.
I was pleased to hear one mother say that we have come a long way over the past few years. That is undoubtedly true, but there is more to do and it takes all of us here to stand up to be counted and to push further. We all have a responsibility to challenge those who treat people differently, or who marginalise them, because they do not fit into the boxes that society has traditionally tried to fit people into.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Given that there are relatively few transgender people in the population, a family with a transgender child in a rural community might well feel that they are only people in the world who have to address this issue. That is why it is so important that events such as this debate are publicised as widely as possible, and that there is enough support to ensure that nobody feels that they have to be transgender on their own.
Kirsten Oswald
That is an incredibly valuable comment. This is about all of us. We must all support people who need our support and are entitled to it. After all, there may come a time when we need the support of others. We do not need to look too far away to find that intolerance and misinformation can be spread by people who are in positions of power and should know so very much better than to peddle nasty, divisive nonsense.
I was interested by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) about schools. The influence of education and supportive schools was key to the experience of the young women I talked about. Their support for the TIE—Time for Inclusive Education—campaign interested me. Inclusive education pays off hugely by advancing equality and making sure that all our children—and, by extension, all adults—have opportunities to achieve their potential. For far too long, transgender, non-binary and non-gendered people have experienced discrimination, disbelief and far, far worse. Young people are the key to transforming our society, and we need to support them fully to do that.
I end with some wise words from one of the ladies on the radio programme: no one size fits all. We do not expect that to apply to any other aspect of our identity, so why on earth should it apply to gender? That is what this comes down to. We are all a sum of our parts. All our identities are complex, but fundamentally people are just people. We are all different and our legislation must reflect that. Those principles are set out in Scotland’s national plan for human rights, which actively defends the right of everyone in society to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee and right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House for securing this important debate.
Transgender people make an enormous contribution to our society. As well as allowing us to discuss the difficulties that transgender people face each day, I hope that this debate can be used to celebrate transgender people across the UK. The hate and prejudice that lurks in our society is sickening, but what is remarkable is the positivity that shines in contrast to that. Ranging from the brilliant author and historian Jan Morris, to the late businesswoman and documentary star Stephanie Booth, some of our most remarkable people in Wales identify as transgender.
The obstacles standing between transgender people and equality, however, should be a cause of concern for all of us. In this House and in wider society, we often talk of working towards a more equal community, but in practice that is a distant future for transgender people. The lack of awareness and education about the issues that transgender people face is shocking, and the lack of action to tackle the problem is more so. In recent months and years, efforts have been made to increase awareness of the difficulties that transgender people face. Although there is still a long way to go, the contribution made by organisations ranging from news outlets to film production companies has been incredibly important.
Channel 4’s “Born in the Wrong Body” season raised awareness of how life is for transgender people before, during and after transition. The BBC has made similar productions, including “Just a Girl”, which tells the powerful story of young trans people. There have also been great initiatives by public bodies and institutions. I was proud to march at Pride Cymru this year and saw South Wales Police—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned this—marching with special shoulder patches to demonstrate their support for the LGBT+ community. Similarly, the British Army recently won the PinkNews public sector equality award for its work supporting LGBT personnel, including those who identify as transgender.
Such schemes are incredibly important to contrast with the discrimination and prejudice that is part of day-to-day life for transgender people in the UK, which at their worst can create unimaginable danger and put transgender people in immense harm. In 2015, 582 incidents of hate crime against transgender people were reported in the UK. This figure has trebled in the past five years, as was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), the Chair of the Select Committee. Those incidents included harassment, threatening behaviour, sexual assault and other violence, yet of the last year’s 582 incidents, only 19 led to prosecution. That cannot be acceptable.
Transphobic violence is a global problem. So far in 2016, it is estimated that at least 26 transgender people have been murdered in the United States, whereas in Brazil, it is estimated that around 60 were murdered in the first month of this year alone. Free & Equal, the UN campaign for LGBT equality, has claimed that such reported numbers account for only a fraction of the true figure as victims often do not feel safe enough to come forward.
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend is making a very strong speech. He, like me, is wearing a World AIDS Day ribbon. On the global context for trans people, is he aware of the challenges for trans people who have HIV? Men who have sex with men are 19 times more likely than others to have HIV, but trans women are 49 times more likely to have HIV. Special attention needs to be paid to the provision of HIV services globally for the trans community.
Chris Elmore
I thank my hon. Friend. His contributions in the House are always of interest and I am glad that he has been able to raise that important point.
The UK, like every other nation, has a long way to go to ensure that transgender people are safe from violent crime. A start would be to ensure that everybody feels safe and secure in reporting a crime of which they are the victim. Organisations such as Stonewall have been working relentlessly to encourage transgender people to report the violence that they face, but many victims say that they are concerned that they will not be taken seriously. Both the police and the Government must work harder to get the message across that if victims of violence report a crime, they will be taken seriously, and will be safe and secure.
For many transgender people, finding and maintaining work can be far more difficult than it is for others. A survey by the Gender Identity Research and Education Society in late 2000 found that, post-transition, two in three transgender people had left their job, either because they were forced to do so or because they felt there was no other choice. Although it is thought that conditions have improved since the date of that survey, there is still far more work to be done. More recently, to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility 2016, a less varied poll revealed that around 36% of transgender people left their job due to their transition.
The Equality Act 2010 states that people cannot be discriminated against in the workplace because of their gender reassignment, though far too often the Act is ignored. Thousands of transgender people each year in the UK are made to feel uncomfortable, intimidated and subjected to unwanted comments. The trade unions Unison and PCS have both been campaigning to make transgender people aware of their rights at work, and have worked alongside transgender people to fight cases of unlawful discrimination. Unfortunately, there is only so much that trade unions can do to protect people when discrimination can be so rife. In the same way as victims of transgender hate crime often do not come forward, many who are discriminated against in the workplace are afraid to report the fact, though this is unsurprising considering the lack of support they often receive. Unlike other forms of workplace discrimination, there is a lack of high-profile cases of transgender people being discriminated against, meaning that many are not fully aware of their rights or the procedures to make a claim.
Unfortunately, for many transgender people, discrimination does not begin only in the workplace. The education system in the UK is often woefully inept at accommodating transgender people. It is estimated that currently only 5% to 10% of transgender people begin transitioning under the age of 18, but those who do are often failed by their schools, colleges and sixth forms. A report earlier this year by Susie Green, chair of the Mermaids charity, claimed that transgender pupils are more likely to have poor attendance and attainment records, and are often seen as a problem for schools to overcome. Although schools often want to do their best to accommodate transgender pupils, most are not equipped with the right knowledge or resources to do so.
Addressing the difficulties that transgender people face in school often focuses on physical accommodation. Efforts may be made to provide gender-neutral facilities but, although that is incredibly important, there is often not enough focus on why transgender people fall behind academically. A number of local authorities now produce guidance for head teachers, but equally important are the NGOs and charities that deliver awareness training for school staff. In and around Bridgend county, which includes my constituency, the group A Brighter Future Altogether, Benefiting Bridgend provides crucial workshops to ensure that schools are better prepared to help transgender pupils to excel.
Those who begin transitioning at university can face similar issues. A 2014 report by the National Union of Students showed that 28,000 transgender students were studying in the UK, yet more than half had seriously considered dropping out. The same report also found that one in three transgender students had faced some form of bullying or discrimination. Student unions across the UK have been fighting to make campuses more welcoming for transgender students, and universities themselves have usually been willing to learn and adapt. I pay tribute to those universities that have adapted to support people who identify as transgender.
From school to university to the workplace, transgender people face discrimination at each turn in their life, and the persistent prejudice and danger can manifest itself in mental health issues. A recent study in the US journal Pediatrics claimed that these issues can arise if a trans person is not able to express their identity or if they do not feel accepted. PACE, the LGBT mental health charity, claims that 48% of transgender people under the age of 26 have attempted suicide, compared with only 6% of all adults under 26.
Similarly, as other Members mentioned, reports by Mind have claimed that LGBT people in general are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, with other studies demonstrating that transgender individuals are particularly at risk. That in turn can lead to people abusing alcohol and recreational drugs. Although there is little research into the prevalence of substance abuse among transgender people in the UK, the US national transgender discrimination surveys of 2008 and 2009 showed that over a quarter of participants had abused drugs or alcohol.
Unfortunately, the high rate of mental health issues in the transgender community is a problem that can be exacerbated by a lack of sufficient mental health facilities. The truth is that there is a serious lack of facilities for those with mental health issues in the UK. According to the King’s Fund, 40% of trusts saw a cut to their mental health budget in 2015-16, which has led to
“widespread evidence of poor-quality care”.
Mental health charities have voiced their concerns about these cuts, with Mind recently expressing concern that they fall squarely on patient care. Better mental health services would benefit everyone who finds themselves needing them, but considering the high proportion of transgender people needing help with their mental health, better services would specifically help those who are the focus of our debate.
The discrimination and prejudice that transgender people are met with for living their lives is a stain on our society. For these people, simple everyday tasks that we take for granted can be laborious and tiresome when they face unequal treatment at every turn. Our schools and workplaces are often woefully inept at accommodating transgender people, and the protection that they receive from harassment and violence is far from sufficient.
We owe it to the transgender people in each of our constituencies to come together to take concerted action to help to deliver equality for everyone, and we must start by recognising the scale of the problem. In this week alone, around 10 to 15 incidents of hate crime against transgender people will be reported to the police. Over the course of the month, more and more transgender people will leave their universities and places of work. We cannot claim to be working towards an equal society if we do not include transgender people in that vision. I sincerely hope that today’s debate will help to raise awareness of the issue and mark the start of a journey to make the UK inclusive for everybody.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
I am hugely grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. I am also grateful to all the right hon. and hon. Members who brought this issue to the House and to all those who have spoken. As the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) identified, this is an historic moment: we are standing here today raising an issue that is very important to equality and to transgender people across the UK and, indeed, the world.
According to the International Bar Association LGBTI law committee:
“Trans persons are arguably the most marginalised constituent within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender…society. While considerable media attention has focused on the global debate for marriage equality, trans-specific issues are often largely not considered.”
That reinforces the importance of ensuring that gender identity is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
The contributions on both sides of the House have been incredible. My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) has been an incredible champion for equalities: she has worked tirelessly with other members of the Women and Equalities Committee, she hosts regular briefings for the SNP group and she sheds light on the various issues. We are all busy people, and it is very important that we work with our colleagues on both sides of the House to understand them, and she does an incredible job of helping us to do that.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about gender equality training, which is also important. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) mentioned that she was a teacher, and it is important that teachers, doctors and practitioners across society have the proper information so that they can support transgender people who come forward, in whatever context that may be.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) spoke passionately about mental health, the diversity of her constituency and our being the sum of many parts. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) spoke of the worrying figures in the US, and another Member spoke about President-elect Trump. The make-up of his Cabinet, and the views that he and they have expressed, should worry us all, and we should speak out against such views at every turn.
As a modern and allegedly forward-thinking democracy, we simply cannot afford to leave any section of our society forgotten or marginalised. The people of the nations of the UK—whatever their race, gender, religion or sexuality—must be able to play a full part and have a full life in our society.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a very passionate speech. Does she agree that there are sometimes various levels to transgender people? They could have disabilities and also be from black, Asian or minority ethnic communities, and it is incumbent on all of us to make sure all those equality layers are protected.
Hannah Bardell
I could not agree with my hon. Friend more, and she is a doughty champion for equalities. The issue of intersections in our society—how they meet, how they interact with each other and how we support them—is hugely important.
As a relative newcomer to the LGBTI community, I have to say that one reason I am particularly glad we are having this debate is that it is of the utmost importance that we better familiarise ourselves with the language surrounding this topic. I will be honest: I was not wholly familiar with all the language and terminology. As someone who came out relatively recently, I felt there was almost an assumption that people would be totally familiar with all aspects of the LGBTI community and LGBTI life. However, like many, I am on a journey of discovery and learning, and I have to say that, after the research I did today, and having listened to the contributions from both sides of the Chamber, I feel more enlightened, and I hope others do, too.
When I was growing up, there were not enough LGBTI role models for me, and others have spoken about powerful role models, particularly in the trans community. We are now seeing actors and others coming forward—people such as Jack Monroe—and speaking so openly and passionately about their lives. There are also people taking on roles in various soap operas and normalising members of the LGBTI community and representations of them.
I read one of Jack Monroe’s interviews when I was preparing for the debate, and the passion about confusion and experimentation with identity came across. Fox Fisher has also been a fantastic role model, and has made some incredibly pioneering and powerful films about transgender issues and people’s journeys. We should take a moment to congratulate and commend all those in the transgender community who fight on a daily basis, as well as all the charities and other organisations, many of which my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East mentioned, because they are at the forefront every day of the battle for equality.
Language is very important, because the truth is that correct language is not being normalised in our society and particularly, as has been said, in our media. We should be working towards a day when all our names can be preceded by Mx, because people should not have to choose their identity. For example, whether I, as a woman, am a Ms, a Miss or a Mrs defines my marriage status, which seems ridiculous. Why is it that, on the most mundane forms, we are still required to identify our gender and our marital status? I find it maddeningly unnecessary.
Beyond language, there is a huge amount of work to do, as many have said, on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is time to simplify the procedure for the self-declaration of gender and to put an end to the requirement for medical or psychiatric evidence. It is time that we allowed 16 and 17-year-olds access to the same process granted to 18-year-olds and up. It is time to fully and properly recognise trans, including non-binary, people in the Gender Recognition Act.
The LGBT Consortium provided some excellent briefing ahead of today’s debate and crystallised some of the really worrying challenges facing the trans community. It explained:
“When someone applies for a gender recognition certificate they are assessed by a panel…they never meet”.
Imagine someone who has perhaps spent years struggling to work out who they are, facing that panel process to be assigned. They do not meet the panel and, worst of all, there is no appeal. This is not like applying for a job; this is about people’s lives and identities. We must make sure that any process anyone has to go through is properly sensitive to their situation and to the challenges and battles they have had to go through.
The Scottish Government are publicly committed to all those changes to the Gender Recognition Act, and I hope the UK Government will now follow suit, because countries such as Australia, India, Denmark and Nepal are actually ahead of us on this front. They have the option on their passports to place an “X” next to the holder’s gender. Of course, no one’s gender makes them any less or more of a citizen of a country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East said, the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation has an internationally acceptable gender marker for passports.
Angela Crawley
Ireland, Denmark, Malta, Norway, Argentina and Colombia—and soon Scotland, I should add—already recognise the process of self-declaration. Will the UK follow their example?
Hannah Bardell
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She has helped me move my speech along and come to my closing remarks, because I was going to make that point. I hope that the Minister will alight on it.
I want to speak briefly about a recent encounter that I had with a local organisation called Glitter Cannons, a West Lothian LGBT group. I spoke to a young person who had gone through the process of coming out as trans in high school. She spoke movingly about the experience of PE and of which changing room she was going to go into and how that was managed at school. She said that, after some education, her teachers were able to give her good support, but the challenge was incredible.
Our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has pledged to radically reform gender recognition law for transgender people and those of non-binary gender. I hope that if Scotland can do that, the UK can do it as well. At the end of the day, the UK has a long way to go before it treats transgender people properly, with the dignity and equality that they deserve. Mr Deputy Speaker, you and Mr Speaker, who is not in his place, have done a huge amount. I appeal to you and all of those in the House authorities to make this place, though it seems very much in the dark ages at times, as forward-thinking, progressive and open as possible for people across the LGBTI community and beyond. This is not just about dignity and equality, but about doing what is right for all our citizens, whoever they are, so that they can live their lives as they choose, freely and fairly.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is genuinely a pleasure to speak in this debate. Although some of it has been harrowing to hear, it is absolutely appropriate that we do hear it. I was shocked to hear that this is the first debate we have had on the subject in this Chamber.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate. I want to put on the record my thanks and gratitude to all members of the Women and Equalities Committee for their continued sterling work, not only on transgender issues but on championing equality across the board. The quality and depth of the Committee’s inquiry are evidence of the very best work of this House.
The Committee’s report makes clear the extensive list of issues that must be addressed if we are to tackle existing discrimination and transphobia, and ensure that trans people can live fulfilling lives. I was shocked to hear the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) say that there are 650,000 transgender and transfluid people. Both he and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke are right to say that we need to get proper data so that we can have a properly resourced response.
The UK has come a long way on LGBT rights, and I am proud to be a member of a party that achieved the equal age of consent, repealed the vile section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 and paved the way to equal marriage. I also thank the right hon. Lady for the incredible work that she did on that. We have further to go—there is always further to go—but I think that this House can be proud of the progress that we have made on LGB rights. However, to our collective shame, the same cannot be said about the rights of the transgender community.
Transgender people form a highly diverse community, with a number of different trans identities, including those who define as non-binary and non-gendered. Sadly, however, more often than not, what brings the trans community together is stark experience of inequality, discrimination, transphobia, abuse and violence. The consequences of that relentless hate are clear to see. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth for giving concrete examples of the living hell that some people endure. Almost half of trans people in Britain have attempted suicide at least once, and 84% say that they have thought about it. Those, of course, are the people we know about.
I want to make a plea from the Dispatch Box: whatever you believe about the issue of trans and gender identity, however strongly held your beliefs and however much you may morally disagree, please recognise that there are people in this country who are facing daily abuse and who are dying, all because of their self-declaration. Please, just see them as people.
This House either leads in improving the lives of trans people, or it is responsible for standing by and allowing intolerance, hate, violence and vilification to continue. I am sure that that is not the House that we are part of. Challenging the discrimination and transphobia that have resulted in almost half of trans people attempting suicide is not just a moral imperative; it is fundamental if we are to really create a tolerant and equal society. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for outlining so passionately and emotionally the violence that trans people face on a daily basis.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights LGBT survey found that two in five trans people have been attacked or threatened with violence in the past five years. The Women and Equalities Committee identified a significant issue of under-reporting of transphobic abuse and violence. It recommended that the Government focus on building trans people’s faith and trust in the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for mentioning the good work that South Wales police are doing.
Fundamentally, if the perception persists that the police are biased against trans people—to be fair, that perception is largely because of the way in which they have been dealt with in the past—it will be impossible to build faith in those institutions. If a trans person is not heard or taken seriously when they report a crime, there can be no justice. If a trans person never even makes a report, for fear of the police response or of being exposed during the criminal justice process, we cannot punish the perpetrators.
The Government’s own hate crime strategy “Action Against Hate”, which was published in July, recognises the need to work closely with the transgender community to ensure that solutions are put in place to increase faith in the police and the CPS and that they meet the needs of the trans community. Will the Minister update us on that work? Which community organisations have the Government met, and what changes are they planning as a result?
The Government have also indicated that they will look to strengthen hate crime legislation. Will the Minister update us on the progress on that work and on the new guidance on how prison services are to treat trans people with regard to self-definition? I thank the hon. Member for Bath and my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) for their work on that. Will the Minister confirm whether the new guidance also covers immigration and detention facilities?
As we have head, discrimination and transphobia start at a young age. According to the “Youth Chances” survey, more than four in five young trans people have experienced name-calling or verbal abuse, and three in five have experienced threats and intimidation. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore, who said that we need to look at the underlying reasons that trans children are failing in school, rather than just at the logistical infrastructure issues. More than a third of young trans people have experienced physical assault.
The Women and Equalities Committee called on the Government to ensure that transgender issues should be taught as part of personal, social, health and economic education, and that teachers should be trained to feel confident in delivering it. That will go some way to ensuring that children grow up with a commitment to tolerance and an understanding that all people should be free to live with dignity and self-expression.
Labour and many campaign groups outside this Chamber have been calling on the Government to reintroduce a statutory, high-quality PSHE curriculum for all children in primary and secondary schools. I am pleased to say that, yesterday, the Chairs of five Select Committees did the same. To date, the Government have refused to do so. How long do they plan to go on ignoring the sheer weight of evidence that early intervention, through statutory PSHE, is a necessary tool in preventing hate crime and transphobia and in supporting children to grow up with respect for themselves and others? The Children and Social Work Bill will come to the Floor of the House on Monday, which presents the Government with the perfect opportunity to do the right thing and protect all children by tabling an amendment to that effect.
I now want to focus on the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and to reinforce what was said by the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East. There remains a fundamental lack of understanding and awareness of the experiences and lives of trans people, and I echo the pleas that have been made—let us actually get some data on this. We need to understand the implicit and explicit discrimination that is happening against the trans community. That is compounded by the existing gaps in trans people’s legal rights and protections under the 2004 Act and the Equality Act 2010. The 2004 Act fails to provide an option for people who do not wish to undergo a formal process of gender reassignment, who do not conform to gender stereotypes and who do not wish to follow a different pathway from the one set out under the Act. The process of facing the gender recognition panel set out in the Act can cause distress and humiliation, and it is based on outdated medical concepts. The process is totally impersonal and unaccountable, and there is no right of appeal.
One campaigner spoke to me about her experiences. Sick of waiting for between five and seven years to receive treatment on the NHS and to follow the stipulated pathway, she went abroad for medical procedures. When she returned, the gender recognition panel insisted on gynaecological examinations and psychological tests, all at her own expense, in order for her to receive a gender recognition certificate. In the end, they refused her certificate—twice. Fundamentally, the process set out in the 2004 Act medicalises trans identities, strips individuals of personal autonomy and denies the trans community of the recognition that they can determine their own lives.
As part of the Government’s response to the Committee’s Report, they have committed to a review of the 2004 Act to de-medicalise the gender recognition process, and that is welcome. Will the Minister update the House on the Government’s progress with that review? Will she indicate whether the Government plan to take forward the Committee’s recommendation about self-declaration and self-determination?
The Equality Act 2010 is another fundamental piece of legislation that Labour is proud of, but that Act, too, needs updating. Terms used in the Act, such as “gender reassignment” and “transsexual”, are outdated and considered by some to be offensive and misleading, and they may not cover all members of the trans community. The Women and Equalities Committee report recommended that the Government amend the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to ensure that the largest possible number of people are afforded protection. The use of language such as “gender reassignment” and “transsexual” is both too vague and too specific, and it fails to provide clarity about who the public sector equality duty applies to. What plans do the Government have to update those terms?
The problems are compounded by the significant cuts that have been made to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which upholds the public sector duty of equality. Recommendations in the report refer to the ability of the EHRC to look into complaints, but the Government imposed a 25% cut to the EHRC’s budget in the November 2015 autumn statement, having already imposed a 67% funding cut over the course of the coalition Government. That drastically reduces the impact that the EHRC can have in fulfilling its duty. Will the Government urgently halt further cuts to the EHRC, and will they produce an analysis of the impact of the cuts on the wellbeing of those with protected characteristics and on the commission’s ability to fulfil its roles properly?
I want to speak briefly about the NHS. To be honest, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) has spoken so powerfully about it that all I want to do is to ask a couple of questions. Gender identity clinics that provide specific healthcare for trans adults and young people are stretched far beyond capacity. That is leading to dangerous waiting times that regularly exceed the statutory 18-week limit and, in some cases, to poor quality of care. We have been told that all gender identity clinics are out to tender. Can the Minister confirm whether that is true, and can she tell us how many clinics are currently breaching the 18-week limit?
Fundamentally, this debate is not just about trans people; it is about the sort of open, tolerant, supportive country that we want to live in. This debate is an opportunity for the Government to set out their plans to help one of the most vulnerable and vilified communities, and I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to do so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to take part in this incredibly important debate on transgender equality—indeed, it is the first debate on transgender equality—and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing it. I put on record my welcome for the passionate and thoughtful contributions of hon. Members from across the House and add my voice to the praise for the Women and Equalities Committee report, which was a really important milestone in Parliament’s consideration of trans rights. I thank the Committee for its thorough and groundbreaking review, and we welcome its recommendations on how we can further tackle trans inequality.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government’s mission is to make Britain a country that works for everyone. We want a society where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow. That, of course, includes members of the trans population. We want them to be safe, healthy and free from discrimination, and we want a Britain that works for trans citizens.
I am proud of the UK’s strong legislative framework that protects trans people, but I am aware that progress in the acceptance and recognition of trans people has not kept pace in any way, shape or form with that of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community. I am also aware that transgender people suffer particularly high levels of inequality—from mental health to hate crime, and from bullying in schools to discrimination in employment—and we have heard many hon. Members speak passionately about all those things today. As the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) mentioned, mental health and suicide are big concerns. A young trans person in England today is nearly twice as likely to have attempted suicide, and nearly three times as likely to have self-harmed, as are their non-trans peers. That is utterly unacceptable. It has been said that trans issues are too difficult to tackle and too marginal to take notice of, and that it is too hard to implement change. We say that that is wrong. Trans people deserve dignity, respect and a life without discrimination.
I welcome the words of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore). As he says, we should take this opportunity to celebrate our trans community, especially the brave and inspiring individuals—from within the trans community and outside it—who do so much to fight against the prejudice, discrimination and disadvantage that we have heard about so movingly and passionately from so many hon. Members.
Tackling transgender inequality is a not a new initiative for us, and we continue to be recognised as one of the most progressive countries in Europe for LGBT rights by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. In 2011 we issued the world’s first transgender action plan to address the real and everyday challenges faced by trans people, and the majority of the commitments in the action plan have been completed. We are in the process of collating progress updates, and we will publish a summary next year. Recently we invested £2.8 million to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools that have no measures, or ineffective measures, in place to deal with it. We have also published practical and clear guidance for employers and service providers on how to deal fairly and sensitively with transgender employees and service users. We have absolutely no intention of ending our commitment to tackling transgender inequality.
In July we responded to the Women and Equalities Committee report and set out a further set of ambitious actions. One massive and key commitment was to review the Gender Recognition Act 2004. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) has said, it was a groundbreaking measure when it was introduced—I think we sometimes forget how groundbreaking it was—but the world has moved on incredibly since then, and it is right that we review how it is working now. We have begun a stakeholder engagement programme to look at how the gender recognition process can be improved, and at the legislative and non-legislative means that we would need to use to do that.
The Committee recommended that we move towards self-declaration of gender. We recognise that, as the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) rightly pointed out, the gender recognition process needs to be quicker, less bureaucratic and definitely less medicalised. However, we want to see more evidence on the case for change to a self-declaration model. A couple of other jurisdictions have just began to implement such a model. We will continue to monitor the implementation of the alternative gender recognition process in other countries, and we will analyse the very good evidence that the Committee published to inform our work.
Hannah Bardell
Briefly on gender recognition, will the Minister engage with those countries that are at the forefront of progressive policies, take evidence from them directly and work with them to see how we can implement their models?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes. Some of the legislation is very new, including that of our friends in the Republic of Ireland. We will keep it under review and we are determined to learn all the lessons of best practice from around the world, as indeed we always have.
Angela Crawley
On that specific point, will the Minister meet Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities in the Scottish Government, to have that discussion, given that Scotland is now embarking on that process? Perhaps there could be a shared learning experience to ensure that we take matters forward for trans equality.
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, I am more than happy to do that and I am keen to collaborate in any way with those from whose experience we can learn.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke presented her Bill today. We have not yet heard a convincing case for introducing gender identity as a protected characteristic. The Equality Act, and criminal, hate crime and employment legislation all offer protection for trans people. However, we will continue to keep an open mind, listen to testimony and monitor evidence to find ways to improve the lives of trans people.
My opposite number, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), asked about hate crime. We have improved the recording of hate crimes against LGBT people to support more effective prevention and action. Police forces are now required to collect those data, and the first set of data was published as official statistics in 2013. We have committed to review legislation on hate crimes and we are currently considering the options. The Crown Prosecution Service also recently launched a consultation on draft guidance on prosecuting cases of offences involving transphobic hostility.
The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East spoke about gender markings and gender X on passports. As she pointed out, UK passports currently recognise only male and female genders. Legal recognition is more broad than just changing passports and would need to be considered across Government. Introducing a third category, such as that denoted by an X in a passport, would require a change in UK primary legislation. However, on gender markings, as set out in the response to the Select Committee report, the UK has agreed with the International Civil Aviation Organisation to lead on a survey of member states on gender and passport markings. The gender questionnaire was circulated in October and member states had until the end of November to provide their views. We will review the responses, compile a report and submit it to the working group early in 2017.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Recognising that it is only 51 years since “transgender” was first used, I think the Government’s words on page 23 of their response to the ICAO are important because, as they rightly point out, we are now identified more by facial recognition and other things rather than by asking, “Is this person wearing trousers or a skirt?”
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend never ceases to amaze me with his encyclopaedic knowledge of all manner of important issues, and this is no exception. He is right that we must keep pace with modern technology and always keep it in mind when we make Government policy and change legislation.
Several hon. Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Bath, who has campaigned hard on the issue, talked about managing offenders. When I was a Justice Minister, my hon. Friend and I worked closely on a number of particular incidents that he raised. Managing transgender offenders has been a major concern and we have taken action. A number of events involving transgender prisoners in autumn 2015 highlighted the need for the policy on their treatment to be given a more fundamental reappraisal. When I was in the Ministry of Justice, I led on that work and last month the Government published their review and confirmed the position. That is why we will, from now on, manage anyone received into services run by the National Offender Management Service in the gender with which they identify rather than the sex assigned to them at birth.
Sarah Champion
Will the Minister confirm whether that includes immigration detention centres?
Caroline Dinenage
I will come to that. Detailed guidance has been provided to staff on how to implement the changes. An advisory board has been set up to inform policy and establish best practice on the treatment and care of transgender and non-binary offenders in prison custody and under the supervision of the national probation service. I will write to the hon. Lady about immigration detention services. I know that the advisory board had its first meeting on 25 November.
Several hon. Members spoke passionately about health, particularly the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). As she said, ensuring accessible and prompt health services for trans people is of continued concern. I am pleased that good, collaborative, progress is being made. Discrimination against trans people in the NHS is not allowed and is unacceptable. NHS England has convened a number of multi-agency symposiums to begin to address this issue. The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) will be pleased to know that NHS England and the General Medical Council have acted on the Select Committee’s recommendations by publishing new guidance on GPs’ responsibilities in treating trans people. We are also tackling the very long waits to access gender identity services, and we are beginning to see results: the average waiting time for patients to receive reconstruction surgery at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has dropped from 94 weeks to 61 weeks, and is getting better.
Lyn Brown
The Minister is doing a remarkable job on the Front Bench at the moment, so I thank her. May I ask her to push her colleagues in the Health team on a root-and-branch review of transgender and LGBT health, as the Select Committee requested? That is fundamental, rather than having small working groups working on small bits of the matter.
Caroline Dinenage
I will of course pass that sentiment on to my colleagues in the Department of Health.
NHS England has increased financial investment in gender identity services from £26 million to £32 million this financial year. In addition to funding, we need to increase capacity in this specialism. That is why a joint initiative between NHS England and Health Education England was launched on 20 October to develop a programme of work to address national workforce and training constraints in that specialty. The planned outcomes will be recommendations for the future workforce, and will include curriculum development, continuing professional development and general awareness training among NHS staff.
The GMC and NHS England are also currently considering piloting a formal process for accrediting competencies in gender identity. To provide a better service nationwide, we will revolutionise service provision. We are seeking new providers to host gender identity clinics, and we will tender for them via national procurement in 2017. We will ensure that they can deliver the requirements of the updated service specifications for adult services. That means not only clinics offering better services, but ensuring better geographical spread.
Deidre Brock
Will the Minister confirm that she will review spousal consent, which puts a person’s right to have their true identity recognised in the hands of someone else? It does not happen in Scotland. Will the Minister look to the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 to see how the issue might be sorted out?
Caroline Dinenage
It sort of happens in Scotland, but it is a different legal process. We will continue to monitor cases whereby married trans people are victimised by spouses with malicious intent. However, it is important to say that marriage is a contract between two individuals and it is right that both partners should have an equal say in the future of their marriage when there is a fundamental change.
NHS England’s new service specification will reflect the standards of care and will be out for consultation in the new year. NHS England has already published a new service specification for children, and a clinical commissioning policy for prescribing cross-sex hormones to gender-variant young people. The new policy is consistent with international guidelines and best practice.
Having a positive experience of childhood is vital, especially for trans children as they come to realise who they truly are. A number of Members, including the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, said that schools have an important role to play in ensuring a positive experience.
My Department is commissioning research to understand whether social work training has sufficient coverage of gender variance. The initial research will be concluded by the end of March 2017, and we will use the findings to decide whether additional training materials should be made available. Outstanding and remarkable work goes on in some of our schools to support our trans students, which I have seen myself. I personally intervened to make changes after visiting a school where a headteacher raised the issue of recording pupils’ desired gender on school records. New guidance was subsequently issued in April—pupils can now sit their exams and receive certificates in their correct gender, which not only reflects who they are, but reduces the risk of their being outed in later life.
Other work that was not in the Select Committee report is under way. We are funding questions in the British social attitude survey on public attitudes towards trans people; issuing guidance on the provision of gender neutral toilets; and publishing guidance in the civil service on how to survey trans staff within Government Departments.
I hear the comments that the Government have not gone far enough or fast enough on trans equality. My response is to watch us as we deliver sustained and embedded change. We have shown that we can achieve major social reform—after all, we are the Government who introduced same-sex marriage, a defining milestone in equality. We will achieve the same milestone for our trans community by revising the Gender Recognition Act, and through other major initiatives.
I thank the Women and Equalities Committee for its report. We will continue to listen to all the voices on this important matter and deliver positive change for the trans community.
Mrs Miller
This has been an historic debate and I thank everyone who has taken part for making it such a positive one. Better protecting trans people does not mean diminishing the protections in place for women. It is not a zero-sum game and we should not allow those who attempt to paint it as such, and who try to undermine the position and legitimate rights of trans people, to succeed.
The debate has given the House and the whole country an opportunity to hear about the progress that the Government are making on the treatment of prisoners; on passport gender identification, on which Britain leads the way; and on reducing waiting times for NHS services. My hon. Friend the Minister, a fellow Hampshire Member of Parliament, is to be applauded for the energy, action and positive approach she brings. I look forward to continuing to watch her work unfold, but I also look forward to continuing to press her in the Select Committee on the recommendations.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the UK’s status as a pioneer in legislating for equality for LGBT people; welcomes the Government’s announcement of a new trans equality action plan; and calls on the Government to review its response to the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Committee’s report on Transgender Equality to ensure that the UK leads the world on trans equality rights, in particular by giving unequivocal commitments to changing the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in line with the principles of gender self-declaration and replacing confusing and inadequate language regarding trans people in the Equality Act 2010 by creating a new protected characteristic of gender identity.
UK Fishing Industry
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the UK fishing industry.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate. The hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie) spoke alongside me before the Committee last month, and the hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) also put their names to the motion.
The debate has been an annual occurrence for some time, giving the Government an opportunity to hear MPs’ concerns and update them in advance of the December Council of Ministers. I thank the Committee for returning it to the main Chamber, as opposed to holding it in Westminster Hall, which unusually hosted it last year.
Giving the fishing industry such prominence in the European referendum reflects its importance. I can conclude only that our debate last year catapulted it to the front of people’s minds and made it central to the necessity to leave the EU. The only shame is that it was not given such high priority previously.
Many Members will know of my town’s history and of how big a role fishing played in it because I have spoken about it often. Although fishing has largely left Great Grimsby, the seafood industry continues to thrive. I take every opportunity to speak on the subject because fishing remains a big part of Great Grimsby’s identity.
The legacy of the post-cod wars industry demise still has victims, and the search for a solution to the Government’s failure properly to compensate fishermen who lost out on pensions because of maladministration remains on my radar for the widow of one such fisherman. The Great Grimsby Association of Fishermen and Trawlermen has been fighting for 40 years for justice for the fishermen of Great Grimsby. They are still fighting for James Greene, who sadly passed away this year having not received what I believe to be his full entitlement. The association continues to pursue the case on behalf of his widow. Will the Minister meet me and offer his assistance in the case? I appreciate that this is not the place for details, but for the ombudsman to insist that the compensation scheme will pay the maximum of £20,000 only to those who were at sea continuously for 52 weeks a year for 20 years is plainly nonsense. Given the experience of those fishermen of the original compensation scheme, and of the subsequent scheme to rectify the errors and oversights of the previous one, he will understand the association’s caution in accepting official agencies’ assessments.
The debate on the future of the UK fisheries industry is more pressing than usual owing to the decision that the country made in June to leave the European Union, which will surely have far-reaching consequences for the industry. As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said in our session in the Backbench Business Committee, fisheries may have more at stake than any other industry over the next few years of negotiations with Europe.
Those in the fishing industry have been given reason to be hopeful about the future. During the referendum campaign, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) came to my constituency for a Vote Leave flotilla along the Humber, when he said:
“If we leave the EU, we can help our industry recover, perhaps taking our cue from Iceland.”
The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said that Brexit would allow Britain to
“re-establish national control for 200 nautical miles”.
Those promises were not made by campaigners who had no prospect of being in a position to follow them through. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden is now the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union; the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth remains as the Minister with responsibility for fisheries; and the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), another leading light in the Vote Leave campaign, is his boss as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They could not be better placed to implement what they pledged just a few short months ago.
It is therefore disappointing that we have heard nothing in five months from the Government on their plans for the industry. Neither the Brexit Secretary nor the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary made any mention of fisheries in their party conference speeches. For the Government to achieve what the leave campaign promised British fishermen, they need to put the industry at the top of their agenda. I wrote to both Secretaries of State before the summer recess asking them how they planned to deliver on their promises. The Minister who replied had no answers to the questions I asked, and gave me no assurance that the Government have thought about how they can secure what communities such as mine expect.
The fact is that, although it is very easy for leave campaigners to blame the EU for the decline of the fishing industry, their version of history is partial at best. The sharpest fall in the employment of fishermen came between 1948 and 1960, which was before Britain joined the European Economic Community. Iceland has lost more fishing jobs than Britain since the end of the cod wars; the number of those employed in the Icelandic fishing industry has halved since the 1980s.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point about the nature of fisheries. One hundred years ago, about 24% of the Icelandic population were involved in fisheries, but it is now down to about 4.3%. I was in Reykjavik in June at a fishing firm that hoped to have even fewer people working in fisheries, such is the technological drive for improvement in the industry.
Melanie Onn
Fewer people are involved, and the hon. Gentleman shows that being outside the European Union is not necessarily a panacea for the fishing industry. The Government have a lot to live up to. The fact is that the common fisheries policy came about when fish stocks were falling, new environmental concerns were discovered, and new technologies reduced the number of workers per vessel, as he says. That is not to say that the common fisheries policy is perfect—I do not think anybody would suggest that—or that the UK will not benefit from no longer having to abide by it. My point is that selling false hope, by suggesting that we will return to the industry we had in the 1950s simply because the CFP will no longer apply to us, just is not fair.
We simply cannot assume that being free from CFP regulations and quotas will allow our fishermen to do whatever they want. There will still need to be restrictions on quotas and fishing zones to prevent overfishing and trawler wars. Look at what happened in Canada. It is in charge of its own waters and cod fishing has been a major industry there for 500 years. In 1992, overfishing had caused stocks to collapse to such a low level that the Government had to order a ban on catching cod. More than 20 years on, the moratorium remains in place. British fishermen understand this. For example, the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations’ model for the industry post-Brexit retains the landings obligation, albeit a reformed one.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. I wonder whether she noted the words of the Secretary of State for Scotland, who on 15 June said that
“the idea we would go back to a position where we were entirely in control of our own fishing is not one that is realistic.”
Melanie Onn
I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing that to my attention. I was not aware of that, but I have to accept that that position is not realistic. The fact that the idea was shared throughout the referendum campaign as a key point for fishing communities, which have really felt the brunt of economic decline and a collapse of their main industry, bordered on the irresponsible.
For the UK fisheries industry to see a good outcome from Brexit, it needs to be a Government priority. We cannot simply impose a 200-mile limit to achieve what the Minister promised. He will need to win it in negotiations with the EU. That will mean sacrificing other things. That is why the Government’s silence has been so worrying. It suggests that fisheries are not being given the importance required to secure what was promised. Nissan has already been given its own special deal. When can I tell the chief executive officer of Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises to expect his invitation to No. 10?
When I wrote to the Secretaries of State for Exiting the EU and for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs before the summer, I asked what conversations they were having with appropriate representatives of the Icelandic Government. There was no answer in the reply, but they will need to have those conversations to secure a 200-mile exclusion zone. Why have they not already begun discussing the new opportunities that will be available to British vessels once we have left the EU? We cannot return to the conflict of previous years, but that is the risk if they do not start speaking to our neighbours.
The fisheries Minister visited Cleethorpes and spoke to my local paper during the referendum. He knows what an emotive subject this is for people in my area. He sought to give them hope that Great Grimsby’s fishing fleets of the past could return. I was therefore genuinely angered to read his comment in the press a month ago that it will be fishermen in the Channel and the west country who will benefit from post-Brexit reforms to fishing quotas. How convenient that he omitted to mention before the referendum that he did not foresee Brexit benefiting fishermen in the Humber!
I am also very concerned about the effect of Brexit on the fishing industry that exists today in Great Grimsby, which is mainly food processing, manufacturing and trading. Grimsby fish market is the largest in the country, and huge quantities of fish are imported from Iceland and Norway to be processed and then sold in Britain or exported to mainland Europe. Because of the global nature of these businesses, they are vulnerable to changes in the value of the pound. Many businesses in Grimsby are based outside the EU, but pay no tariffs on fish imported from Norway and Iceland because of their membership of the European economic area. Of course, no tariffs are paid on the £900 million of seafood Britain exports to the rest of Europe. If we no longer enjoy tariff-free trade with these countries, I fear the fish processing industry will really suffer. Many manufacturers in Grimsby are already working to fine margins, so any increase in cost could force them to reduce staff numbers, or well-paying employers, such as Icelandic Seachill, may have to reduce their wages and worsen conditions for staff. The other likely outcome is that families across the country who have been feeling the squeeze for a decade will be asked to pay more for fish. They will choose cheaper, less healthy alternatives instead—I know that the Minister is very keen to encourage people to eat more fish.
Businesses, as well as the thousands of people employed in the fish trading and processing industries in Grimsby, need reassurance from the Minister today. Fishermen want to hear that the Government understand the need to prioritise their industry, so that they can deliver on what has been promised.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), who made a good and passionate plea on behalf of fishing and fishermen in this country. I will begin by talking about the present situation and then expand a little on the direction of the fishing industry after we leave the EU. The Minister has the unenviable job in the very near future of spending probably nearly all night in Brussels as our fishing levels are thrashed out.
Neil Parish
Several I expect. I think that the right hon. Gentleman partook in such meetings when he was fisheries Minister.
The current Minister will have the unenviable task of sitting down with Ministers from across the whole of Europe to thrash out in great detail how much and where we can fish cod, sole, hake and so on. Our fishermen throughout the whole country, and especially those in the west country, will expect a very good deal from him because he is such a magnificent Minister. We expect him to come back with more fish in his pockets and in his suitcase, and to ensure that we have those opportunities. We have to remember that we will still be fishing under the common fisheries policy for another two to three years. For our fishermen, with their quotas and all the things that they need to do, we need to sustain the fishing industry in the years ahead.
Many crews on our fishing boats are central and eastern Europeans. Their labour is needed, so we need to ensure that everything is in place.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman mentions eastern Europeans, and this is a sore point for Hebrides fishermen at the moment because we cannot get the numbers of them in and boats are left tied up. There is a boat for sale in Scalpay because it has lacked a crew since August. We are dying to get people in from the Philippines, but blockages put in place by the London Government are choking the Scottish fishing industry.
Neil Parish
It is perhaps not quite the British Government who are “choking” the industry, as the hon. Gentleman says. I do accept, however, that there is a perception among those coming to work from central and eastern Europe about whether they are welcome here, and therefore whether they want to come. The value of the pound has also made working here not quite as lucrative, so there has been a knock-on effect.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
This issue has an impact on fishermen and the fishing industry in the west of Scotland and in County Down, where we have three fishing ports. We rely, by and large, on the efforts of non-EEA fishermen. We have found that the blockages are coming from the Home Office. We urgently need statutory regulation to address this issue, otherwise our fishing industry will die.
Neil Parish
The hon. Lady puts her powerful point on the record. We cannot necessarily hold the fisheries Minister responsible for everything that the Home Office does, but the hon. Lady makes the very good point that we need support and labour not only from inside the EU, but from outside it, so that we can man our fishing boats.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
To reiterate the hon. Lady’s point, the Scottish and Northern Ireland fishing industry is in crisis. Will the hon. Gentleman use his position to help us to speak to the Home Office and build a case for allowing non-EEA fishermen to work in the west of Scotland and Northern Ireland fishing industry? We face a crisis and we need all the help we can get.
Neil Parish
I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, although there is a limit to my influence and power. That said, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee will be carrying out an inquiry on fishing, which is probably more urgent now. Part of that inquiry will involve looking at and taking evidence about all these things—support, labour and how we run our fishing industry. I can give him a commitment about that.
Neil Parish
I give way to the hon. Gentleman for Northern Ireland; I am not sure of his constituency.
Jim Shannon
It is Strangford. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not know that—I thought that everyone in the House knew of Strangford. It must have slipped his mind.
The hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), two SNP Members—I am sorry, but I cannot remember their constituencies—and I met the previous Minister to make a definitive case for the retention of the Filipino fishermen to ensure that the boats in Scotland and Northern Ireland could survive, but it was not agreed to. Responsibility therefore lies not with Europe but—I say this with the greatest of respect—with the Immigration Minister. There is a scheme for seasonal—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make a speech later, if he leaves enough time after his intervention.
Neil Parish
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I knew his name, but not his constituency—for his point, which I am sure that the Minister has registered. We are hearing the strong view that this is about not just how and where we fish and what we catch, but the labour to man our fishing boats. The situation in Scotland and Northern Ireland shows how integrated and inter-reliant our fishing industry is.
As we move into this new world, securing access to other waters will be a great challenge, but we will probably also have to share our waters with those who have historically had rights here. Perhaps we can use that fact in our trade negotiations as we move towards a new policy. The adage is that when we entered the EU in 1972, we gave correct figures on the size of our catch, but others inflated theirs, meaning that when the catches were cut back, Britain ended up with very low quotas. From Grimsby to Scotland and all around the country, we can start to put that right.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman suggests that the fishing industry could be used as part of trade negotiations. The Scottish fishing industry learned a sore lesson when it was previously sold out in negotiations. We need assurances that that will not happen again, and that the industry will not be a pawn in trade negotiations.
Neil Parish
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We must make clear our ability to take our fishing rights out to the 200-mile limit, as well as where exactly we will have those rights and how we will deal with others’ historical rights. If we can get the whip hand—if we can secure 200-mile rights—we can get a very good trade deal, as well as a very good deal for Scottish fishermen. It will be interesting to see how we unravel what has been in place for 40 years. I know that the Minister is confident of getting these rights back to 200 miles. It will take some doing, but if we can achieve it, we will be in a very good position.
Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman talked earlier about the prospect of the fisheries Minister facing long nights in Brussels, but it strikes me that we have to negotiate with the EU and other nations. We already have talks with Norway about fishing quotas. The process will be extremely complicated, so how confident is he that post-exit trade talks will produce a better deal than that which we get from the CFP?
Neil Parish
I think that the hon. Gentleman was asking that question of the Minister rather than me. We look forward to hearing from the Minister how he believes this will work. It can work, however, and if we secure these rights, it can work extremely well.
As we move forward with fisheries policy, we will have to put in place conservation measures. It must not be open season to fish everywhere all the time. Norway can close a zone within 24 hours if it is being overfished. It can react much more quickly than other nations because it is one country reacting for one area, so there are some positive aspects even with conservation.
If I may, I will throw a few ripples into the pond, as I am not averse to doing. In the future, might we move from a system of quotas to one of fishing effort and days at sea? How will we control fishing in the future? We do not want discards—a lot of work has already been done about that, but there is still more to do. We want to land all the fish that we catch and to promote different species of fish in the country so that we eat much more of what we catch. One problem now is that 70% to 80% of what is landed on Newlyn harbour in Cornwall goes straight to France or Spain because we do not eat those types of fish.
There is a lot of positive work that can be done. I want the Minister to carry on fighting in Brussels to secure a good deal for our fishermen that will see us through the next few years. Then, yes, let us get these rights back, but as we get them back, let us manage our own fishing sensibly. If we let others into our waters, let us get something back under reciprocal arrangements. That is the way we can build this key industry back up. In Ireland, where there are open borders between Northern Ireland and the Republic, these things will have to be dealt with even for fishing. I will die in a ditch over the need to keep open the border between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland, not only on land but on sea, because there is no doubt that that is the future for Ireland. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak and thank Members for their interventions.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I hope that we will not need to apply a formal time limit, because this is a good-natured debate in which I expect all hon. Members to be courteous to others by limiting their speeches to just under 10 minutes. That way, everyone will get a fair chance.
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
I will attempt to do exactly that, Madam Deputy Speaker, with a brief contribution.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) not only on securing it, but on her speech. In our annual fisheries debate, we remember those who have lost their lives at sea over the year in what is still the most dangerous peacetime industry. We thank those who work to keep fishermen safe, particularly the volunteers at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and those who work with and support fishing communities, such as the Fishermen’s Mission.
In my experience, fisheries debates follow a familiar pattern: we bring a shopping list from the fishermen and fishing organisations in our constituencies, and then the Minister responds to the debate and goes off to the Fisheries Council. In all honesty, we are often more interested in what he brings back from Brussels than in what he says at the end of the debate—I mean no disrespect to the Minister, but that has been the pattern of fisheries debates for as long as I can remember. Today will be very different, however, because this is the first post-referendum, pre-exit debate, and we and the wider audience outside the House, particularly fishermen, will be looking carefully for signs of what exiting the EU will mean for UK fishing.
I know that the Government are reluctant to share their exit plans for fear of damaging negotiations, and it might be that in some policy areas they do not actually have a plan, but they cannot say that about fishing, because in every one of the five general elections I have fought, my Conservative opponent has stood on a platform of getting out of the common fisheries policy. In 2010, the Conservative candidate in my constituency, who is now the excellent hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton)—I imagine her seat does not have a big fishing fleet—launched her campaign on Fish quay in North Shields with the slogan “A Fresh Face for the Future”. I remember that because I launched my campaign the next day holding a rather large fresh salmon under the slogan “Fresh Fish for the Future”. That was the end of the sloganising for that campaign.
The serious point is that Conservative policy has for two decades been about getting out of the common fisheries policy, so surely the Minister must have worked out what that means. As well as fishermen, the public, especially those who voted leave—I voted remain, but if I had been a fisherman, I would have voted leave—were encouraged to believe that the UK would have greater control of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone. They were also encouraged to believe that there would be a 12-mile limit, which is essential to protect the inshore fleet, which is the mainstay of the North Shields fleet in my constituency.
If the UK has more control of our waters, we should have control of—or at least a fairer share of—what is caught in those waters. We need a fit-for-purpose management system that is based on proper science, with scientists working alongside fishermen, as far as possible in real time. We need environmental standards that are at least as high as those we enjoy inside the European Union. I do not think fishermen should have anything to fear, because someone who is a fisherman has to be conservationist and an environmentalist—that is their livelihood. Given that much of the prawn and shellfish landed at North Shields are put on to lorries and taken to the continent for consumption, we also need to make sure that we get a fair trading agreement. When the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he will at least begin to sketch out what such a policy will look like. That is what we are looking for, and all the people he is going to meet at the Fisheries Council will be looking for those signs, too.
I want to raise two local issues. I make no apology for having raised them before, because we are now working and thinking in a different context. The first is about access to the Farne Deeps, which is the most important prawn fishery. The prawn fishery is the most important element of the viability of North Shields. I thank the Minister not just for the action that he and his Department have taken to protect and safeguard stocks, but for the action he has taken, and plans to take, to deal with the twin-rigged trawlers that are doing a great deal of damage to the marine environment. Does the Minister believe that exiting the common fisheries policy will strengthen his ability and that of the UK Government to act in such situations? If the Minister prefers to write to me about that, I am happy for him to do so.
My second local issue relates to access to funding, and the need to repair and regenerate North Shields port. North Shields is virtually alone on the east coast in retaining a sustainable fleet. It has a fish market—ironically, it was paid for by EU funding—and an integrated port structure. It is at the central part of the North sea and the heart of the prawn fishery, acting as a hub for the east coast.
The port is profitable—anyone speaking to fishermen would be told that it was profitable—and sustains somewhere in the region of 1,200 jobs, but it does not have access to resources for either large-scale repair or long-term infrastructure investment. Work has been completed on the west quay, but the part of the quay that is nearest to the fish market, where the boats land the catches, needs urgent work.
The interested parties are already working together—the Port of Tyne, the company that runs the fish quay, the local authority and many others. Often, however, when it comes to the question of money, there is a lot of shuffling of papers and staring at the floor, because the reality is that the resources are not available to carry out repairs of such size and cost. Infrastructure investment is therefore needed, for which the area has traditionally looked to the European Union. It beggars belief that the EU will agree to make a large amount of money available if we are going to exit at some point in the near future, so I ask a simple question: if not through EU funding, where will the funding come from?
We were told—we saw it on the side of a bus—that we would save £350 million a week if we exited the EU. I work that out at £50 million a day, so the amount that North Shields needs for such important work is equivalent to the contributions that we would make in the length of time allowed for this debate. I want to know from the Minister what help we will get in the future. Will the Government guarantee funding where the EU in the future cannot? Unless we get that guarantee, the viability of North Shields—and, I imagine, other ports—will not be guaranteed, and the jobs that depend on the port will not be guaranteed either.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), and, like him, I am going say a few words about my local fishery in a moment. We have been the beneficiaries of the expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), and I agreed with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and, indeed, the right hon. Member for Tynemouth when they pointed out that fishing is a dangerous profession. Every year, lives are lost at sea. The fishermen in our constituencies are going out, day after day, in some of the most demanding conditions imaginable.
Before I come on to the CFP and the future, I would like to say something about the Wash. The Wash fishery is one of the most successful in Europe. More than 100 boats fish out of King’s Lynn, Boston and the smaller ports such as Brancaster and Wells. About 40 boats fish out of Lynn, and for every job on the boats, there are probably five onshore—engineers at a small boatyard, for example, and specialist businesses dealing with re-equipping and re-fitting fishing gear. Some engineers specialise in hydraulics, but there is an entire onshore industry that supports the fisheries. There are some important fish processing businesses, as well, including John Lake Shellfish Ltd and Lynn Shellfish. Between them, they employ a significant number of people.
Fishing is very much part of Lynn’s heritage, as superbly portrayed in the True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum in King’s Lynn, which depicts the story of the old North End fishing quarter of Lynn. It was, of course, Queen Elizabeth I who granted Lynn fishermen the right to
“free and uninterrupted use of the Fisher Fleet for ever and ever”
and a day. King’s Lynn was, in fact, the first port in the UK to join the New Hansa, a consortium of ports in Europe that were originally members of the Hanseatic League.
Fishing is thus an incredibly important part of my constituency, and the mainstay of the Wash shell fishery is the shrimp harvest. There are other target species, including cockles, whelks, mussels, some crabs, lobsters and some whitefish. Let me say a few words about the shrimp fishery first.
Shrimp is an all-year-round fishery, so it is incredibly important to keep the processing plants open all year. One of the leading fishermen in King’s Lynn is John Lake, who said to me the other day that it was “the glue” that holds “the entire fishery together”. The Minister will know that the 2016 harvest was a record one. There were superb catches. The Wash shrimp fishery is now the best in Europe, and quite a lot of the catch is exported, so the lower pound has been highly beneficial. On average this year, exports have been between £350,000 and £400,000, which is obviously good for the balance of payments. This is bringing in a great deal of resources and money to the fishermen.
As the Minister also knows, a potential crisis is looming. Already 40% of the original fishing grounds in the Wash are no longer available because of the RAF bombing range and the exclusion zone around the 1,000 or so offshore wind turbines. The number of conservation areas has been increased, and there has been an increase in sand extraction. For those reasons, fishermen have lost 40% of the fishing grounds that were available about 20 years ago. That makes it even more remarkable that we have had a record shrimp harvest.
There is a potential problem coming our way, and I should like the Minister to look into it. The Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority is consulting on the introduction of a permit scheme that could lead to a significant reduction—about 14%—in the shrimp grounds. There have been suggestions of possible damage to soft, muddy or mixed sediments. However, one fisherman told me that beam trawlers have been going out into that part of the Wash for 200 years, and one really strong north-east gale will do far more damage in one day than they could do in a year.
This is coming from the European Union: EU regulations are putting pressure on EIFCA. I urge the Minister to look at this matter urgently, especially given that we are leaving the EU. Perhaps he could call a meeting with members of EIFCA and talk it through with them. We want proper evidence. We want a peer-reviewed survey, and we want a proportionate, common-sense approach to the problem. The Minister has already made a pledge to look at it, but I urge him to look at it again, because the fishery will be under a great deal of pressure if that does not happen. One of the great jewels in our crown will be lost, and that is an incredibly important consideration in my constituency.
The cockle fishery has a shorter season, but the stocks have been prolific recently, and the fishermen have been helped by the fall in the pound. In this case EIFCA raised the quota from 2 tonnes to 3 tonnes per vessel, which has been beneficial. We have therefore had a good season. However, there has been an ongoing debate about methods of cockle fishing. The suction dredging technique is preferred by the bigger commercial fishermen, but the artisanal fishermen use prop washing: they anchor the boat and turn the engine on, and the boat then goes round in a circle stirring up the sediment. When the tide goes down, the boat will alight and the hand-raking will commence. That is the traditional artisanal way of fishing, and because it is successful and is popular among the artisanal fishermen, suction dredging has been banned for the last few years.
However, there are parts of the Wash where prop washing cannot take place, because the stock of cockles is too sparsely distributed. The technique only works in areas where there is a concentration of cockles that can be stirred up. In recent years, significant amounts of stock have simply gone unfished. Let me give the Minister an example. Fishermen told me the other day that in the Boston main fishery, on the western side of the Wash, between 9,000 and 10,000 tonnes of large cockles—which are worth roughly three times as much as the smaller ones—went unfished, and went to waste. That is between £9 million and £10 million worth of stock, at about £900 a tonne, so it was an appalling waste. Had suction dredging been permitted on an ad hoc, one-off basis, the harvest could have been extended and a great many extra cockles could have been brought in, to the benefit of the fishery.
I hope that the Minister will deal with those points when he winds up the debate, but if he does not have time to do so, perhaps he will write to me.
Let me end by saying that I think there are massive opportunities post-Brexit, although things will not be in any way easy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton pointed out, difficult and challenging negotiations lie before us, but surely, with a certain amount of imagination and innovation, we can ensure that those bilateral and trilateral arrangements are put in place, and we can reset our fisheries policy so that we have a UK fisheries policy and can get the best possible deal for UK fishermen, particularly those in Scotland. I remember that, in my youth, every single port in Scotland had a fisher fleet. The CFP has been a disaster for UK fisheries. We now have a huge opportunity to reconfigure it, and rebuild fishing policy for the future in the interests of UK fishermen. I know that the Minister cannot give away his negotiating position, but I hope that today he will spell out his vision of the future of UK fisheries. We wish him well.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Let me begin, like a number of other Members, by taking a moment to remember all the fishermen who have left their families, friends and harbours this year, not to return. The pain in those communities is always palpable, and we must do more than we have in the past to ensure that we do not begin our fisheries debates every year by remembering people who have been lost. Let me also pay tribute to the work done by the Fishermen’s Mission and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in helping to keep our fishermen safe.
On a happier note, there is good news in our fishing industry, which is often not reported. It comes after many years of decline. In 2005, for example, 90% of the stocks around UK waters were overexploited, but that has now fallen to 45%. A great deal of progress has been made in the last 10 years. The story of cod recovery in the North sea is thanks to some of the difficult decisions that we took when we were in government, and plaice and sole are doing well too. We need to spread that good news around the rest of our waters, because it translates into real people’s lives and incomes in regions such as mine. In the last 12 months, the markets of Brixham and Plymouth experienced record landings in terms of value.
First, I should like the Minister to assure all of us that he will continue the successful policies that have led to this improvement—policies which, to give him credit, he has continued since we were in office—whether from inside or outside the EU. Secondly, I should like him to reassure us that the overall environmental objectives that successive UK Governments have fought to achieve for sustainable fisheries will be continued and embedded in UK law. We need to complete the network in marine protected areas. We also need fully to embed the birds and habitats directive, the bathing waters directive, the urban waste water treatment directive, the water framework directive, and the marine strategy framework directive in UK law through the great repeal Bill that the Government are proposing. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that that will be done.
I also hope that when the Minister goes to the Council in December, he will take a very tough line on bass. The state of bass around our waters is catastrophic, although that was completely avoidable. We have done far too little, too late. I cannot understand why we in this country do not adopt the policy that operates in the Republic of Ireland, where bass is treated solely as a recreational species. Many Members may not realise this, but if we look at the big picture, it is clear that recreational angling contributes more to our overall economy than the commercial catching sector. However, it does not have such a loud voice in the negotiations. The commercial sector will be breathing down the Minister’s neck when he is in Brussels, but I hope he will remember the words of the millions of anglers in the country—as well as those who run bed and breakfasts, and all the other services that anglers support—who say that they want a better deal on bass. We need a complete moratorium on commercial bass catching with no exemptions next year, with some allowance made for the recreational catching need.
I hope the Minister will not forget about the good progress that the Government have made on marine litter. That may not appear to be a big issue, but it is a huge issue for the marine environment. I commend the Minister for his successful plastic bag charge and on the proposed microbeads ban, but that ban must include detergents and other household products, not just cosmetics.
I do not doubt that many catchers in the UK commercial fishing sector did vote to leave the EU, partly based on a long-time grievance that they got a terrible deal under the then Conservative Government when we joined the Common Market, but my fear, which I think is shared by many in the industry, is that just as they were done over on our way in, they may be done over on our way out. There are two main reasons why they worry about that.
First, there is the simple arithmetic of 26 against one in the negotiations, which will obviously make the Minister’s job very difficult. There will be an early test of that at the forthcoming Fisheries Council, where he knows as well as I do that it is those late night deals that matter, and the relationships built up with fellow Ministers over the years are what enable us to get the good deals for our own industry. I cannot help thinking that some of the chaos and antics and confusion around the Government’s messaging on Brexit will not be helpful in that endeavour. I wish him well in those negotiations, however, in a couple of weeks’ time.
The second reason why the industry is nervous is the level of priority the Government will be prepared to give this sector, which after all represents a relatively small part of our economy compared with all the other sectors referred to—the manufacturing sector, the financial services sector and even the farming sector. There is a real worry that the fisheries sector will lose out because the Government will not take it seriously enough.
Another interesting long-term trend in fisheries is that, as several other Members have pointed out, it is now more of an import-export industry than a pure catching industry. Both imports and exports have grown exponentially and steadily over recent decades, partly because of our taste for white fish—cod and haddock—and partly because of our relative lack of enthusiasm, which I regret, for some of our more exotic, but not terribly exotic, species, which we therefore export in large quantities to the continent. I do not know whether anyone can guess what the main catch in terms of value is in the south-west at the moment. It is cuttlefish, a non-quota species, and almost all of it goes straight to the fish markets of Italy, to grace the tables of our Italian friends and relatives, and I am sure they enjoy it very much. We catch the best crab and lobster in the world off the south Devon coast; it almost all goes straight to France and Spain in salt tanks—what a waste.
We need to eat more of our own produce, but the point I am making is that because the export of fish is in many ways more important economically than catching, and more jobs and livelihoods rely on it, the issue of tariffs is very important. I have asked several times in this Chamber already in recent weeks for some clarity from the Government about tariffs, because if we cannot have tariff-free access for those exports to the continent, what kind of future will there be, not just for the markets, merchants and processors but for the catchers themselves? I would like the Minister to give some clarity on how he will reconcile situations where the interests of the catching sector and the exporters are not aligned, which may sometimes arise. If, for example, we declare our unilateral 200-mile limit, how does he expect that to influence the mood of the 26 other countries we will be negotiating with over tariffs? I am rather nervous that it might antagonise them.
I want to ask the Minister about enforcement as well, as that is a matter of great concern that has not been raised yet in this debate. Regrettably, there has been a huge cut in enforcement under this Government. In 2010, there were 1,500 at-sea inspections; that figure halved by 2015. In fact there is less enforcement now than there has ever been. There were 40 foreign boats fishing off the coast of Devon and Cornwall this week alone, as they are perfectly entitled to, and of course under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea rules boats are entitled to come through our waters, but how is the Minister’s 200-mile limit going to be enforced when we do not even currently enforce the rules as they stand? What naval assets can he assure the House will be available to do this work? What access will we have to the vital EU monitoring system? Have we got guarantees that we will still be able to participate in that, or will we have to invent a whole new system or rely on a different sort of satellite system? This is crucial, because it is about fair play for the fishermen, and also confidence for the consumer that the fish being caught is caught legally and sustainably.
The point my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) made so excellently is that there are huge expectations, and hopes have been raised not just by the Minister but by the other Brextremists in this whole fisheries debate. My worry is that the recipe for what they are proposing is also a recipe for potential conflict, a race to the bottom and environmental degradation. I hope the Minister can give some clarity and demonstrate that he will have a sensible approach to the fishing industry that will not lead to that, and that he can give us some outline of a realistic long-term plan that recognises the need to collaborate over a finite and mobile resource, that catching will continue to have to be restricted in order for stocks to recover and thrive, and that that is what is really in the interests of our fishing industry, not conflict and a return to some mythical golden age that some imagine might be the case.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. We now have even more Members who are enthusiastic about taking part in the debate, so I ask hon. Members to speak for something under eight minutes, please.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to be called to speak in the debate, and to follow the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). I wholeheartedly endorse his opening comments, in which he paid tribute to the bravery of the crews and of their families who wait behind in terrible weather, wondering whether they are going to see those brave fishermen come back.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate. I pay tribute to her predecessor, who was a great stalwart of the industry but who drew a completely different conclusion from hers on these matters. Frankly, I think he was right.
Brexit offers the most wonderful opportunity for our marine environment and for those who work in it. We should not underestimate that. We said that we would leave, which will mean leaving the common fisheries policy and re-establishing our control right back to 200 miles and the full exclusive economic zone. I was the shadow spokesman on these matters 11 and 12 years ago, opposite the right hon. Member for Exeter.
Mr MacNeil
As a supporter of the UK remaining in the single market, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will spell out the importance of tariff-free access for shellfish and other goods from Scotland, the UK and elsewhere going into the European market, and into France and Spain in particular.
Mr Paterson
I am not recommending staying in the single market because, as the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU said, a couple of weeks ago 20 countries were accelerating their sales into the single market from outside faster than we were doing from within. However, I am fully in favour of zero tariffs.
Mr Paterson
I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I am going to carry on.
Eleven years ago, I spent a fascinating two years going all round the British Isles. I went to wonderful places such as Whalsay in the far north, Northern Ireland and right round the coast of Britain. I saw tragically damaged communities and marine environments. I also went to Norway, the Faroes, Iceland, Newfoundland, the east coast of the United States and the Falklands. I saw improving marine environments and prosperous fishing communities in those areas. I saw wealth being grown there. I drew conclusions from this, and I wrote a consultation paper, which I published.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman is right. The common feature of all the jurisdictions he mentions is that their fisheries management systems have the fishermen at their heart. This is not a question of where control is exercised; it is a question of what we do with it. Whitehall is just as capable as Brussels of excluding fishermen from fisheries management.
Mr Paterson
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. I draw his attention to the paper that I launched in Scotland in 2005, on which we fought the 2005 election. It advocated the establishment of national and local control, which is exactly what he is talking about. He is absolutely right. In that paper, I concluded:
“The Common Fisheries Policy is a biological, environmental, economic and social disaster; it is beyond reform. It is a system that forces fishermen to throw back more fish dead into the sea than they land; it has caused substantial degradation of the marine environment; it has destroyed much of the fishing industry, with compulsory scrapping of modern vessels and has devastated fishing communities.”
I am absolutely clear that leaving the CFP would give us the chance to change all that.
The first thing we would change is the craziness of the quotas. At the moment, we throw back more fish dead into the sea than we land. A Scottish fisherman told me this morning that he estimates that a 50% discard equates to 1 million tonnes of healthy fish being thrown back each year, worth £1.6 billion annually and the equivalent of 2 billion fish suppers. That is criminal insanity. We are across the gulf stream, and we have deep waters with a strong supply of food. The industry could have a tremendous revival if we revive our marine environment.
We must replace the current quotas and turn them into the equivalent of days at sea. I saw this happening with great clarity in the Faroes, where it is mandatory to land everything. The Minister in the Faroes told me, “We might not like what we find, but we know exactly what is going on.” Let us compare that with the problem that the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), will have when he goes to the Council next week. The EU fisheries policy is based on information that is guaranteed to be at a minimum 50% inaccurate and probably six months out of date.
Let us compare that with the Falklands, where—I saw this when I was there—the figures are transmitted to senior scientists in London overnight, and if a vessel collecting hake is taking too much bycatch, it is told to steam on.
Let us compare that with Iceland, where—I have been there, too—at an hour’s notice, vessels are told to steam on if they are catching too much of a certain species. That is proper control and, to go back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), it is the sort of power we could give back to our local fisherman and those with an interest in the local marine environment.
I am absolutely clear that we have to switch from the current quota system. If we have any quotas, it is inevitable that we will have discards. During the referendum campaign, I gave a speech in Looe and, on the harbour-master’s wall, there was a helpful tin sign with pictures of all the fish. I say all the fish, but, hang on, there was no picture of a haddock. What is the biggest thing fishermen are catching off Looe at the moment? It is haddock. They have not even got a quota, so they are chucking them all back. It is absolutely crazy. We should land everything, and everything with commercial value should then be sold. That is the only solution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) bravely got the discard ban through, but, unfortunately, it cannot work while we have quotas. As long as we have quotas, we will have a discard problem. We should move to controls based on days at sea, we should land everything, we should have accurate data—and no cheating—and it would be immensely cheaper and easier to administer. That would provide very accurate data for our local scientists, local fishermen, local recreational interests and local environmentalists to use in deciding how to handle the fishing.
I am looking at the clock, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will mention a few other points that were in my paper. Before I do so, will the Minister—if he will take a note—get a derogation and do a trial on the basis of days at sea? The Dutch have done a trial on electric pulse beaming, starting off with six boats in the first year and going up to 100 boats after six years. I would like the Minister to choose a mixed fishery area—possibly the south-west, where he comes from—for an immediate trial converting existing quotas into days at sea to see whether we can replicate the huge success of the Faroes in improving the marine environment, growing stocks and bringing back prosperity.
As part of our administration of fisheries, it is very important that we plan temporary closures. For boats taking too much bycatch, absolutely hourly management can, with radio, be given to local scientists and fishermen if we create the right framework. In my paper, I proposed having fisheries management authorities, which would be a combination of all the parties I have mentioned. I would have inshore authorities for out to 12 miles—in the channel, it would go a little further—and a smaller number of them for out to 200 miles. They would work on the basis of local knowledge, with local scientists, and adapt techniques to their area.
There is one issue that I find extraordinary. When I went to New England, I saw selective gear being developed at Manomet, but when I came back to the UK I found out it was banned. The hostility of the EU to modern technology is bizarre. I would like to have a regime in which we actively promoted selective gear so that we could take out certain species surgically when fishing. On that, the ability to control the system has been enormously helped since I wrote the paper, because there has been a great improvement in GPS tracking, satellite observation and communications. We can put cameras on nets and on boats, so it is now very hard to cheat.
One of the Labour Members mentioned improved supervision, and we will have to put more money back into this to ensure that people do not cheat. However, we will be in an enormously better position if we take back control, give power to local interests—not just the fishing industry, but scientists, councils and recreational fishermen—to decide what is good for their area, to adapt selective gear to that area and to agree permanent closed zones for spawning if necessary or temporary closed zones if there is too much fishing. If we do that, we will see an immediate improvement in the marine environment, and the jobs and prosperity will then come back. Leave means leave, which means going out to 200 miles and establishing local and national control.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who brings his customary clarity and simplicity to today’s arguments. However, I disagree with a great deal of his analysis of the problems. It must be stressed rather more than it has been that taking back control is only part of the answer. There is then the question of what we do with it.
If we are to construct our own domestic fisheries management system, there is an opportunity to put fishermen, conservationists and scientists at the heart of fisheries management—proper regional and local management—and to use scientific advice. The right hon. Gentleman said that 50% of such advice was wrong. I doubt that, but I do know that it is at least two years out of date by the time it informs the decision-making process. We need a better way of using that information to inform the process so that whether we use quotas, days at sea, closed areas or whatever, the information on which we rely properly and accurately reflects the stocks in the water.
We must not forget that even if we leave the European Union and even if we have control over the waters as others have suggested, that would not be the end of our interaction with the common fisheries policy. We share waters in the North sea, the English channel and the western approaches in the Irish sea, and other countries have historic rights of access to our waters. If they continue to mismanage stocks in a way that was unfortunately a feature of the past, that will have continuing impact on our fishermen, too.
I wish the Minister well as he goes to the December Council meeting. In the light of everything else, it will perhaps be a trickier negotiation than in recent years, but the environment will be slightly less febrile than when the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) was fisheries Minister. I go back 12, 13 or 14 years in such debates, and back then we thought it possible that the spawning stock biomass of North sea cod had reached a point from which there would be no recovery. In fact, we have a seen a quite remarkable recovery in North sea white fish stocks, but that has not happened by accident—a thought that occurred to me as the right hon. Gentleman was explaining the changes. I think around 47% of stocks are still overfished—too high, but a significant improvement on where we were. That improvement is a consequence of the changes made in fisheries management, in particular the creation of regional advisory councils, and of the significant pain that was borne by the fishing industry and communities during the decommissioning programmes of 10 years ago.
The attractions of this opportunity to the catching sector are pretty obvious, but there are concerns for the future beyond that sector. The processing sector heavily relies and has relied for many years on the availability of workers from other EU countries. Those people want to know what their future will be. If we are to have a set of World Trade Organisation rules and if there are tariffs on trade, that will have a seriously disadvantageous impact on processors, which will also hit the catchers. That is why it is crucial to get clarity as early as possible.
Like the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), I want to bring a few items from my shopping list to this debate. The Minister has already heard my worries about the Faroese deal on mackerel. There was enormous scepticism among the Scottish pelagic fleet, the Shetland pelagic catchers in particular, when the deal was brokered a few years ago. However, they did accept that they would give it a go. They gave it a go, and it is clear that that scepticism was, if anything, understated. This deal really is not working, as was highlighted recently by the report from Seafish, which pointed out that in 2015 Faroese boats caught almost 33,000 tonnes of mackerel in EU waters, mostly in Scotland’s, while Scottish boats got absolutely none from the Faroese waters. Worse, if the Faroese boats choose to land their fish in Scotland, they are then penalised by their Government. The Minister will know that the talks on the next iteration of this deal are to be held in Brussels on 6 and 7 December, so may I instil in him the strongest possible resolve in tackling this, because the imbalance of this deal becomes more egregious with every year that passes?
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about the fact that this document excludes the question of those parts of the fishing industry that I suspect would be of concern to him in relation to the joint management with Norway. The European Scrutiny Committee drew attention to that and I wonder whether it is a matter of concern to his constituents.
Mr Carmichael
Without actually knowing what “this document” is, I am not sure; I am afraid that my eyesight is no longer good enough to be able to read the title from here. Wittingly or otherwise, the hon. Gentleman has hit on a very important point, which is that although we always get excited about the December Fisheries Council meeting, the real deal is the one done with the EU-Norway talks. That is where the shape of the fishing entitlement of the fishermen in my constituency is determined, and we look forward to hearing from the Minister exactly how we will interact with those talks in the future. A trilateral discussion surely seems sensible, but we will wait to hear what he intends in that regard.
Mr Carmichael
I am sorry, but I want to keep within the time limit if I can.
The landing obligation also continues to be a source of concern, as a result of the so-called “choke species”. This year, stock levels of cod, haddock and whiting in the North sea are particularly healthy—they are there in abundance—but there is a real danger that they could be excluded as a result of having these choke species. Again, that is an example of why it is so important that when the science is used to inform the decision-making process and quota it is accurate and up-to-date. It would be utterly perverse if Shetland’s white-fish fishermen were to be punished for fishing in waters where the stocks were healthiest.
Other Members have also spoken about the position on non-EU crew members, which has been particularly acute in my constituency. The basic problem is not just the indifference of the Home Office; the way these rules operate, if they are allowed to operate, means that they are pushing fishermen into fishing where the immigration rules allow them, rather than where is safe or where the fish are to be found. Surely the Minister should be speaking to the Home Office about that.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
This annual fisheries debate provides the opportunity for MPs to reflect on the main issues confronting the fishing industry. The EU referendum result holds special significance for fishing in that, as we have heard, it affords the opportunity to leave the dysfunctional and, for the UK, highly disadvantageous common fisheries policy. Although I recognise that the pressing matter before us is the December Council negotiations, which will determine what fishermen in Newlyn and St Ives, on the Lizard and in West Penwith will be able to land next year, the 23 June referendum result gives the Government their best possible opportunity to build a sustainable and prosperous future for UK fishing. I understand why the Government generally want to keep their negotiating position on the EU close to their chest and I recognise that until article 50 is triggered formal negotiations cannot begin, but for UK fishing, our negotiating position could not be clearer: the EU should have no reason to doubt that we will take back our fishing rights under international law, and it is for the EU to negotiate with us its share of total allowable catch in UK waters. My personal view is that this is the kind of language that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should be using. It is only fair that fishermen, both in the UK and around Europe, are clear about the future of their industry in UK waters. The fishing industry in the UK is united. It sees the referendum result as providing the best chance to right the wrong that, over decades, has dramatically reduced our fleet—particularly in the west—and made an already tough job so much tougher.
I have a met a number of fishermen and fishing industry representatives since June, and their asks are straightforward: the UK must ensure full and absolute control of UK waters out to the 200-mile limit, which will mean that fishing opportunities, access and the regulatory regime will then be determined by the UK Government, not the EU; the UK must secure a greater share of total allowable catches in UK waters; the UK must secure the continued tariff-free and unrestricted access to European markets; and the fishing industry must be at the heart of Government negotiations and the future management of UK fisheries. To deliver a positive outcome for fishing, it is essential that the experience and knowledge of the fishing industry are harnessed and used during and after negotiations to leave the EU.
The UK must achieve a stand-alone fisheries policy that describes the regulatory framework that the UK fishing industry will come under post the common fisheries policy. It will have to consider issues such as access, fishing opportunities, technical regulations and landing obligation arrangements. This whole debate is about the future of fishing and I see no reason why a draft framework along those lines cannot be produced soon. That will help to give the industry confidence and stability for the future.
There are significant positive outcomes for the UK fishing industry and UK plc if we get this right. A commitment to regain control of, and manage, UK waters provides the foundation for a sustainable fishery, delivering superior long-term socio-economic returns to society. A sustainable and prosperous UK fishing sector would make a significant contribution to the regeneration of coastal communities, attract fresh blood into the industry, and make it a viable career option for young people. The increased supply of fish landed on UK shores will increase exports and place the UK consumption of fish as part of a nutritious staple diet back on the agenda and help to address food security concerns.
As the Minister considers those thoughts, I want to bring Members’ attentions briefly back to the December Council negotiations. The Minister, who is from my neighbouring constituency, will fully understand that the Cornish fleet is unique in its diversity. I understand that the ultra-mixed fisheries in the south-west present a real challenge in these negotiations. It is important that we view the outcome of this month’s negotiations as an overall package, as opposed to an isolated issue. Progress continues to be made towards maximum sustainable yields, which, in the end, will deliver the security that the fishing industry needs. However, in the Minister’s negotiations, it is essential to balance progress towards maximum sustainable yields with protection for the livelihoods of fishermen around the coast of west Cornwall.
While we are still in the EU, can the Minister please work hard to ensure that the maximum sustainable yield timetable is not allowed to become a dogma? It is better to take a little more time and safeguard the integrity of Cornish fisheries. With that in mind, proposals to cut monk by nearly 12%, megrim by 28% and pollock by 20% would cause considerable difficulty to fishermen in my constituency and it is not absolutely clear that the science supports such significant reductions. I particularly liked the suggestion from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) regarding days at sea. I am sure that the over-10s in my constituency would welcome that idea.
Finally, sea bass fishing is once again a hot topic and affects sea anglers, the inshore fleet and the over-10s. All agree that we need to achieve a sustainable supply of bass. I know what the Commission is proposing and accept that hook and line fishing offers the best chance to allow fish stocks to recover. However, I urge it please to consider the broader commercial fishing fleet. The Commission’s proposals are misguided and harmful. As they stand, every bass caught in a net will be discarded dead, every bass caught in a beam trawl will be discarded dead and any bass caught in a trawl over the 1% catch will be discarded dead. It makes no sense to penalise fishing vessels in west Cornwall that pick up bass as a bycatch by forcing them to discard this valuable fish.
There is much more that I could say, but, in summary, I ask the Minister to be bold about the UK’s fishing industry post our exit from the EU and to fight hard, as he has done and continues to do, on behalf of our fisherman, particularly those operating in mixed fisheries, at the December council.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) did very well on the time limit. He was well under the time limit and no discarded minutes—excellent—but I now have to ask hon. Members to take about seven minutes or everyone will not get in.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
These debates are difficult for many of us who are pro-European by nature. I am a pro-European but I concede that the common fisheries policy has ill served the fishing industry since its introduction. This is one area where the Scottish National party has tried over many years to get powers back—unsuccessfully, as it transpired. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), who at the time represented the constituency of Banff and Buchan, introduced his Fisheries Jurisdiction Bill, which was backed by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and others from parties around the House.
It has always struck me that the regulation of fishing was not one of the powers that the EU should have. However, during this time of negotiation, we should bear in mind the importance of the single market to our seafood sector. In 2015 Scotland exported £438 million-worth of seafood to the European Union. It is our second largest food and drink export after whisky, both of which are produced very well in North East Fife. We have the European maritime and fisheries fund, which is worth €107 million to Scotland, and the coastal communities fund. Maintaining our coastal communities goes beyond the fishing industry to include other industries as well.
Although we are pro-European to our fingertips, we have to be honest with ourselves about the European Union. I do not think that the fishing industry has always been best represented by the United Kingdom as a member state. It was, after all, the United Kingdom Government back in the 1970s who described our fishing industry as being “expendable” when we joined the European Union. [Interruption.] Indeed; my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is right that it was a Conservative Government who described the industry as expendable. As the powers come back, what is there to say that that attitude has changed since the 1970s? That is a concern for fishermen and fishing communities the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
It was not just the Conservative party. I sometimes fear that this place never quite got to grips with devolution in 2010. I sincerely hope, for the benefit of our fishing industry, that this Government get to grips with devolution and will respect the powers that have already been devolved to the Scottish Parliament and to those in Cardiff and Northern Ireland as well. I remember that in 2010 the Labour Government decided to send the Minister with responsibility for bees to a crucial fishing industry meeting, rather than sending the Minister who had the greatest responsibility for our fishing industry, Richard Lochhead. More recently, a Liberal Democrat Minister was sent to the salle d’écoute—that is, the listening room, for the benefit of Conservative Members—in 2006 during crucial negotiations.
Devolution has changed the context in which we have these debates. I sincerely hope that our fishing industry will be respected during the process of the UK leaving the EU.
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend is making a fine speech and a fine point. When we look at the UK’s exclusive economic zone and the 200-mile limit—just about only my constituency reaches that far—there are 773,000 sq km under UK control, but of that 462,000 sq km are Scottish and 311,000 sq km belong to the rest of the UK. That means that when we get the powers back from Brussels, as the Brexiteers have promised us, we must ensure that there is no grab in London and that the mismanagement of Scottish waters is not simply transferred from Brussels to London.
Stephen Gethins
As usual, my hon. Friend makes a good point.
Finally, as Conservative colleagues are thinking about this issue, I would like to refer to Conservative MEP Ian Duncan, who said Scotland should play a leading role in international fisheries negotiations post-Brexit. He said:
“All future negotiations between the UK and external partners such as Norway, Iceland, the Faroes or the EU must include Scotland not just as a full partner, but as primus inter pares”—
he went to St Andrews, so he could not help using a bit of Latin, and it means first among equals. He went on:
“It is clear that in the future, Scotland will need to play a key role on all external fisheries management bodies.”
When the Minister responds, I hope he will bear those words in mind, as well as the fact that devolved Administrations have certain responsibilities. There is fine produce in Anstruther and Pittenweem, as well as across Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and it deserves to do much better than it does under the common fisheries policy.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for securing this important Backbench Business debate. Her constituency includes one of the UK’s biggest ports, which has been badly affected by the CFP. I also pay tribute to her predecessor, for the reasons my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) gave.
As many of my right hon. and hon. Friends are saying today, the CFP is a fundamentally failed system. Any attempts to conserve our fish stocks through the CFP have always meant too little sovereignty for London and too little decentralisation from Brussels. To understand what the UK’s future fisheries policy should look like, it is important to examine what has happened over the last four decades.
The principle of equal access to the European Community’s fishing waters was agreed without any basis in the treaty of Rome. Fisheries became a common resource, and all member states’ fishing vessels were granted equal access. The 30th of June 1970 was also the day the UK handed in its application to join the Common Market, and because equal access had become EU acquis, the UK was obliged to accept that principle, even though it had no legal precedent. We abandoned our territorial waters when we became members of the European Community. As we all now know, joining the European Community also meant that we abandoned our sovereignty.
Many points highlight the absurdity of the CFP. First, there is the conservation policy of national quotas. The quotas, imposed in 1983, are a prime example of a decision taken in Brussels but left with each member state to implement. As has become all too clear, the consequence of centralisation is overfishing. Because the CFP is centrally managed, local authorities in countries such as Spain turn a blind eye to abuse. The system also results in the wholesale dumping of fish—a practice that was common among member states but illegal in, for example, Norway. That is proof that the EU quota system is unfit for purpose. The second point is decommissioning to reduce fishing effort. Since 1992, Britain has been required to decommission its fishing fleet because our waters have been overfished—by 19% in 1992, and then by 40% in 1996.
Many members have spoken out against the CFP over the years—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union being one of them. He has also spoken positively about the Icelandic system, where fishing quotas are market based and tradeable. That system creates an incentive to conserve fish for the future.
Now that we are leaving the EU, we must leave behind centralised quotas, equal access and subsidised ships. That will not bring back the estimated 115,000 UK jobs we lost due to the CFP, but I believe it will recreate new jobs along the coast. Equally importantly, we must regain control of our territorial waters. There are many challenges ahead of us in the upcoming Brexit negotiations, but, from a political and environmental perspective, the Government have a massive opportunity that must not be missed. I urge them to consider the example set by Iceland and to introduce fair, tradable national quotas, making the best use of our resources and, most importantly, making them sustainable so that they are protected for the future.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
As is customary, I would like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to those who have lost their lives at sea over the past year, and to pay tribute to the work of the RNLI volunteers, our coastguards and the Fishermen’s Mission. They all play an essential role in the lives of our fishing communities. Earlier this year, I joined the crew of Fraserburgh lifeboat on a training exercise to raise awareness of its “Respect the Water” campaign. Every time I go out on the North sea, I am reminded of the dangers that our fishermen face in their day-to-day working lives.
More fish were landed in my constituency last year than in Wales and Northern Ireland combined. In fact, Peterhead and Fraserburgh alone landed about three quarters of the quantity of fish landed in the whole of England. No communities anywhere in the UK are more heavily dependent on fisheries than those of the Buchan and Banffshire coasts, and the industry supports thousands of jobs onshore, offshore and in the wider supply chain.
The UK’s decision to leave the EU has enormous implications for our fishing and fishing-related industries and coastal communities. It might present significant opportunities, chief among which would be the possibility to right some of the historical wrongs of the common fisheries policy. However, there are also big uncertainties, as well as questions that have not yet been answered and, indeed, possible risks for some sectors.
The nature and timing of the UK’s exit from the EU, and the tone of the negotiations, including on what type of Brexit the UK pursues, will be of enormous consequence to our fishing industries, both onshore and offshore. It is no secret that many fishermen voted to leave the EU, and the main driver for that among those whom I have talked to is the failures and frustrations of the CFP. When I ask them what they want, however, most of them say that they want to be in a similar position to Norway: outside the EU and the CFP and able to negotiate for ourselves; but within the single market and able to export produce easily to lucrative EU markets and to take advantage of free movement.
Scotland exported fish and seafood worth more than £438 million to EU countries last year. That represents nearly two thirds of our entire food exports, so the industry is hugely important. We need to maintain that ease of market access, but we also need to acknowledge that access to many of our non-EU export markets is currently facilitated via EU trade agreements. It is absolutely imperative for our fishing industry that the UK does not fall off the cliff edge of a hard Brexit. That would create huge problems for parts of our processing sector, and a bonanza for our neighbours—and competitors—in Norway and Iceland.
The other benefit of retaining single market membership is that there is no part of our fishing industry that does not rely on the free movement of labour. That is particularly acute in the processing sector, where EU nationals make up a large proportion of the workforce.
Callum McCaig
Aberdeen no longer has a fishing industry—it is safe to say that it was lost to the advent of oil, not to the EU—but it retains a processing sector, a significant proportion of whose workforce comes from elsewhere in the European Union. Does my hon. Friend agree that the sector is at risk if there is no protection for those workers?
Dr Whiteford
Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. That point has been raised by Members from many parts of the UK.
A significant proportion of the fish caught by Scottish boats is already landed in ports overseas, notably in Norway. If we were to lose any processing capacity in Scotland because of labour shortages, we would lose part of the high-value end of our supply chain. We would lose exports and revenue and, critically, we would jeopardise hundreds of local jobs that the free movement of labour has anchored in our geographically peripheral coastal communities.
I am desperately disappointed that the UK Government have chosen to use the status of EU nationals living and working in the UK as a bargaining chip in their Brexit negotiations. That has not just set a poor tone for what lies ahead, but created uncertainty for businesses and for ordinary, hard-working folk who have made their homes in our communities and do not deserve to become pawns in this unedifying game.
In or out of the EU, it is overwhelmingly in the interests of our fish processors and exporters to stay in the single market. Whatever our eventual constitutional destination, even the most ardent Brexiteers recognise that we will still have to negotiate with neighbouring coastal states over shared stocks and reciprocal access to our waters. It would be absolutely daft to get ourselves into a position where we can finally ditch the problems with the CFP and recover access to the fish in our own waters, but be unable to get that fish to market. In that regard, I was surprised to hear the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) say that he was in favour of leaving the single market, because I was looking the other day at a video clip of him on the “Murnaghan” programme saying
“only a madman would actually leave the market.”
I do not know what has prompted this turn of insanity, but I think the right hon. Gentleman should clarify.
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me a chance to clarify. Perhaps she should have watched the Andrew Neil programme a little later, on which that ridiculous video was completely shredded. A number of us—about four or five—who campaigned to leave were absolutely and totally misrepresented—[Interruption.] I went on to say, if the hon. Lady will just restrain herself for a moment, that there are about two countries in the world—I think it is Somalia and North Korea—that do not sell into the single market. We want to sell into it.
Dr Whiteford
I am very confident that I have quoted the right hon. Gentleman correctly from the clip I saw. I think it is exactly that kind of two-faced language that discredits politicians and makes people doubt our integrity on issues that we are concerned about.
Mr Paterson
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it parliamentary to talk about “two-faced language” when I have just explained that I was wholly misrepresented by that ridiculous video?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
I would have jumped up anyway if the right hon. Gentleman had not. I think that the hon. Lady should withdraw “two-faced”.
Dr Whiteford
I will withdraw “two-faced”, although I said that it was that type of two-faced behaviour that discredits politicians. I did not make any reference to the right hon. Gentleman, although I think my context is very clear. I am happy to withdraw.
Arguably the biggest opportunities for the fishing industry in the current scenario will be: the ability to negotiate more effectively on our own behalf in future negotiations, rather than as part of the EU; and the possibility of securing a fairer share of the resources in our waters. A report published in October by the NAFC Marine Centre demonstrated that more than half the fish harvested in Scottish waters is caught by non-UK boats. I do not understand how anyone can see that as fair and equitable. The situation cannot be allowed to continue, and it must be addressed as a priority.
Inevitably, the run-up to next week’s fisheries talks has been somewhat overshadowed in this debate by Brexit considerations, but there are two major issues that I want to bring to the Minister’s attention. The first is the implementation of the discard ban. I know that I have been banging on about this for years, but the situation is urgent. Even if article 50 were triggered tomorrow, our demersal fleet would still be subject to the ban in 2018 and 2019. I do not think that there is a realistic way of implementing it in its current form, and I also do not see how it can be easily enforced.
There is a consensus about the idea that it is undesirable to throw marketable fish back into the sea, but I am not sure that we are any nearer to finding a way to make the discard ban work in the mixed fisheries of the North sea under our current quota allocations and arrangements. It has been relatively straightforward to do so in the pelagic sector, but there is a major problem for the white fish fleet with so-called choke species, such as hake and saithe, which are abundant in our waters but for which we have insufficient quota. Selective gears, quota swaps and other avoidance measures will take us only so far, and we absolutely must not get ourselves into a position where boats are tied up because of this. That cannot be allowed to happen.
We should focus our energy on securing healthy stocks that are sustainably harvested. Reducing discards is obviously one part of that, but it is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. I hope that the Minister will make addressing the situation a priority at the December Council, because we urgently need a workable solution.
The other issue on which I want to push the Minister echoes a point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael): the untenable situation regarding the EU-Faroese bilateral deal on mackerel. The deal that was reached in 2014 allows the Faroese fleet to fish 30% of its coastal states share of mackerel in Scottish waters, and that is not an acceptable or sustainable position. I think that a reduction is an achievable goal, so I hope that the Minister will work for it.
Finally, I want to make a key point. Our fishing industry has unprecedented opportunities to recalibrate and to flourish on a sustainable footing, but the biggest risk that we face is that those potential opportunities will be squandered and traded away in the wider Brexit negotiations. We know that there will be many competing priorities in the days ahead, and it is vital that fishing is not simply thrown into that mix to be horse-traded away against bigger, more powerful and more vocal industries, or strategic interests, as we try to secure trade deals. We need to recognise that our abundant fishing grounds are an invaluable natural resource and that we have a responsibility to steward them sustainably in the interests of our maritime communities and for future generations. Fishing has probably more at stake in this process than any other UK industry. I want assurances from the Minister that we will not see a repeat of the 1970s, when fishing interests were subjugated to other strategic economic priorities. The UK Government considered fishing to be expendable at that time, but they must not treat those industries as expendable now.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for playing the lead role in securing the debate. Two weeks ago, I secured a debate in Westminster Hall on the future of the Anglian fishing fleet. I will not repeat in detail what I said then, but I shall outline the key factors that I believe should be taken into account in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations and the features that should be incorporated in a new UK fishing policy.
Many of us will have been on different sides in the referendum campaign. We now need to put that battle behind us and grasp the opportunity that has been presented to breathe life back into this great British industry. Before I consider that, I want to ask the Minister to raise two issues at the Council of Ministers meeting on 12 December. First, he needs to address the plight of sea bass. Last year’s disproportionate restrictions on anglers and increased commercial catch limits were bad for bass, bad for the charter boat fleet and bad for fishing tackle shops. Secondly, the Minister must do all he can to stop Dutch electro-pulse beam trawling, which is currently decimating our fish stocks in the North sea.
I urge the Minister to do all that he can to ensure that there is a fishing pillar in the Brexit negotiations. In the past, many have felt that the industry was the sacrificial lamb in negotiations. That must not happen again.
To ensure that the UK fishing industry has a bright future, the following issues need to be addressed. First, the Minister needs to secure what I know is his No. 1 objective of reclaiming control of our territorial waters, with the UK able to take responsibility for the seas out to 200 miles or the relevant median lines. Secondly, having done that, he should ensure that the 0 to 12-mile zone is exclusively available for our inshore fleet—the under-10 metre fleet that currently gets such a raw deal. Thirdly, it is necessary to address the flagship issue. It is not right that the six affiliated vessels of the Lowestoft producer organisation land no fish in Lowestoft. I know that the Minister is already looking into that and reviewing the economic link.
It is important to bear in mind that many fishermen in East Anglia and around the UK coast specialise in shellfish, which they export to the EU. The processing industry does likewise. Their interests need to be safeguarded in the Brexit negotiations, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should work closely with the Department for International Trade to open up new global markets, for example in the far east.
It should be acknowledged that the negotiations will not be straightforward. There will be a lot of devil in the detail and a disentangling of reciprocal fishing rights that have built up over centuries. That means that it will take time to complete the exit negotiations and it will be necessary to put transitional arrangements in place.
Although there is a great deal to do in the short term for Brexit negotiations, it is important to look ahead and think strategically about the shape of the new UK fishing policy and what it needs to incorporate so that fishing can play a lead role socially, economically and environmentally in coastal communities, many of which have had it tough in recent years. I suggest that the UKFP should include the following ingredients. First, we need to start with a clean sheet of paper, rather than simply transferring the common fisheries policy into UK law through the great repeal Bill and then amending it. We must have our own bespoke fishing policy, and I would like it to include promoting the end of discarding sensibly and pragmatically, and working with neighbouring countries to manage shared fish stock sustainably. I would also include policies that mirror articles 2 and 17 of the CFP, which promote a sustainable approach to fisheries management.
Secondly, the UKFP should be set in a wide context, recognising the role that fishing can play in regenerating coastal Britain, reversing years of social and economic decline, rebalancing the economy and improving productivity. Thirdly, the UKFP must be underpinned by science. That means a pivotal role for the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which is based in Lowestoft in my constituency. It has a key role to play in ensuring that we better manage our rich and precious marine resources, and in monitoring and enforcement. It is vital that the Government commit to ensuring that Brexit does not lead to a reduction in funding for scientific research.
Fourthly, the management of fisheries needs to be localised. The fundamental structural flaw of the CFP is that fisheries are managed from a distance. That said, I recognise the great work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) to address that concern. Local management needs to involve those working in the industry on a day-to-day basis, and could well mean a role for enhanced inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. If we put in place a management system in which we can be confident, it could lead to an enhancement of the British fish brand, which will be important in marketing fish both at home and overseas.
Fifthly, we need to address the elephant in the room of reallocating quota. I acknowledge that that is not a straightforward task, but it is not right that 61% of English quota is held by three foreign companies, and that only 1.5% of national fishing quota goes to the smallest category of boat, even though they make up 75% of vessels. Quota should be available only to active fishermen. I recognise that the Minister has done much to address that and to rebalance quota in favour of the under-10 metre fleet, and that there may well be legal issues to address, but the whole industry must come together to find a way forward. As things stand, I do not support a system of individual transferable quotas, but there could well be a case for setting up a small-scale producer organisation that can give smaller boats a voice and greater control to help to rebalance the industry. Finally, special emphasis must be placed on supply-chain building all the way from the net to the plate.
To sum up, we have a great opportunity ahead of us to put in place a new policy framework that gives the fishing industry all around the coast a fresh lease of life. To grasp that opportunity, we need to have in mind at all times the three R’s: repatriation, reallocation and regeneration.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for securing the debate along with other hon. Members. I also pay tribute to those in the fishing industry, including fishermen, fish producer organisations, the Fishermen’s Mission and those in the processing sector. It is clear to me that the processing and catching sectors are vital if we are to create a fishing industries economic hub.
Two of the County Down fishing ports in Northern Ireland—Ardglass and Kilkeel—are in my constituency. They are vital to those two economies. We wish the Minister well and fair speed in advance of the negotiations in Brussels, but the most important thing apart from quotas and the total allowable catch allocations is the crewing of trawlers, which I mentioned in an intervention. The Minister and his Government colleagues will be aware of the serious problem that fishing crews have had in recruiting local people to work in our fishing fleet. That has resulted in qualified and experienced non-European economic area crew being drafted in to work on fishing vessels, particularly in Ireland and Scotland.
As the Minister may know, that is not the first time I have raised that issue with the Government—I have raised it with him and with his colleagues in the Home Department. I and colleagues representing constituencies on the west coast of Scotland, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), had a meeting back in January with the then Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire). So far, there is no resolution. Recently, two Scottish National party colleagues representing west of Scotland constituencies and I met the new Immigration Minister. Again, there has been no resolution. To that end, we make a plea to the fisheries Minister today for that urgent meeting for the fishing industry with his ministerial colleague from the Home Department to resolve this issue, with representatives of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation along with the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation.
Mr MacNeil
Does this not typify the problem with the United Kingdom? Switzerland has 26 cantons. Half the visas are controlled by the cantons and the other half are controlled centrally. In the UK, where those in Westminster do not understand the issue, we are struggling. We are on bended knee trying to get people into our fishing boats. It is very frustrating.
Ms Ritchie
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention. Let me make it quite clear that without intervention and regulations our fishing industries will be tied up. That is not scaremongering; that is a fact.
On total allowable catches and the December Council, we have improving science for many Irish sea stocks. Nephrops remain our number one priority. The annual International Council for the Exploration of the Sea advice indicates increased stock levels, which we hope will translate into increased catch opportunities in 2017. A greater increase than the 9% currently proposed would be very welcome.
Irish Sea haddock represents another good news story. It is disappointing that our fishermen have had to wait so long for an increase in the quota for haddock, but I urge the Minister to make up for lost time and all the science-based arguments he has had to hand to secure the maximum possible increase at the forthcoming Council. I understand that haddock and Irish Sea cod are due to be benchmarked by ICES in the new year. There might be a temptation to hold back at the Council until the benchmarking exercise is completed. I urge the Minister to push for the maximum scientifically justified quota increases in the week after next—that is vital.
Another issue for us is Irish Sea herring. I realise that herring has a tendency to drop down the list of ministerial priorities in Brussels negotiations, but I urge the Minister to keep that stock, which is vital to my fishing community in Ardglass, on his radar. It was the first of the stocks to be certified to Marine Stewardship Council standard, and there remains a frustrating gap in terms of developing a management plan for this fishery.
The Minister will be making decisions on the third tranche of marine protected areas in the near future. Will he ensure that the joint negotiating committee engages fully with the industry and other relevant agencies in Northern Ireland before making its recommendations to him?
The issue with the voisinage agreement, a unique and historic fisheries agreement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, has now become more apparent due to Brexit. I urge the Minister, in his discussions with the Irish Government—I met them some weeks ago—to ensure that they remedy the specific legislative challenge on this agreement, which is the result of a decision made by the Irish Supreme Court. We must ensure that Northern Irish fishermen are allowed to fish in Irish waters, and vice versa.
There is an issue relating to the Isle of Man and scallops that impacts on west of Scotland fishermen and fishermen from the County Down ports. They must be able to obtain licences.
In summing up, I want to highlight the need for the economic hubs to be established in Ardglass and Kilkeel, where much good work has been done to try to work with all the engineering industries. The Minister has seen this matter at first hand during his visit. We want a proper negotiation and the best possible deal, notwithstanding the impact that Brexit will have on the industry.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. There is still an informal limit of seven minutes, but it has been broken every single time since I have been in the Chair. Unless we stick to it, I will have to apply a formal limit.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I will do my very best, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I was glad to appear before the Backbench Business Committee with my neighbour, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), to secure this debate, and I congratulate the Committee on allocating it to the main Chamber.
My constituency has a rich maritime history. I remember from my childhood that Grimsby was always referred to—accurately—as the world’s premier fishing port. The House of Commons Library referred me to an article from The Economist last year stating that Grimsby had had the world’s biggest fishing fleet, with more than 600 trawlers, as well as the world’s largest ice factory, which still stands today and is a derelict reminder of things past. Cleethorpes and Grimsby, though they value their own identities, are one, and the fishing industry has been an essential ingredient of the local economy. For decades, it was built on fish, and the industry remains vital.
I obviously join those who have paid tribute to the many fishermen who have given their lives. I am old enough to remember the hush that fell over the streets of Grimsby and Cleethorpes when a trawler was lost—a silent, cold, eerie feeling. Today, the fish market, fish processing and a handful of near-water vessels provide the jobs, and it is on today, tomorrow and, as the motion mentions, the future that we must now focus.
The importance of fishing and its associated industries is highlighted by figures provided by the Commons Library. Last September, 3,500 people—5% of those working in the local authority area—were employed in the manufacture of fish products in north-east Lincolnshire. Last year, the Minister visited Grimsby seafood village, which sits in the part of Grimsby docks that is in my constituency, and he will recall how the premises’ owners and tenants and those who worked there were focused on the future. Its website reads: “Where tradition meets technology”.
The Minister will appreciate as well as any of us the opportunities for the industry that Brexit can provide. He visited Cleethorpes during the referendum and will have appreciated the strong feelings of local people. In the North East Lincolnshire Council area, 70% supported leave, which came as no surprise to me, and in many ways was a verdict of failure on the CFP. The industry was sacrificed in the original Europe negotiations and has never fully recovered. The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations described the CFP as “dysfunctional” and the fishing industry as having been “expendable” in those negotiations of the 1970s. It is absolutely right.
When I raised that point in the House this morning during Question Time, I was heartened by the reply from the Minister of State in the Department for Exiting the European Union:
“I can assure my hon. Friend that the fishing industry is at the forefront of our considerations. We have already had several meetings with the industry’s representatives and will continue to do so.”
It must remain at the forefront of our considerations. The NFFO and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation recognise the opportunities that life outside the EU can bring. Their briefing note to MPs ahead of this debate says that
“there are real opportunities for sustainable economic growth that Brexit can deliver for coastal communities”
and points out that Brexit provides
“the structure for an ambitious new fisheries management regime that will ensure significant economic benefit for fishing communities once the UK regains control of its Exclusive Economic Zone.”
They believe that this will
“pave the way for environmentally sustainable, high yield and profitable fisheries.”
On 2 October, The Sunday Telegraph business section carried a feature on the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area headed “Optimism”. The author said that as she left Cleethorpes railway section, she saw a sign saying “Fantasy Land”, when it should of course have read “Fantasy World”. I put that to one side. When she attended an event on the newly refurbished Cleethorpes pier, one of the speakers was the chief executive of the Government agency, Seafish. He is quoted as saying that there are
“plenty of reasons to be positive.”
I am sure that we would want to go along with that.
I know that it has been a priority for the Minister to regionalise the management of our fisheries rather than have them micro-managed from Brussels, and that he has achieved some considerable success in that respect. We can now look to a future when we can make those decisions for ourselves. Brexit must deliver fair national quota shares that broadly reflect the resources located in UK waters; a 12-mile exclusive zone providing adequate protection for our inshore fleets; balanced and proportionate access arrangements; the opportunity to manage the UK’s fisheries resources in a flexible and responsible way; and an arrangement that will allow EU-UK free trade in fisheries products.
Steve Norton, who until last month was chief executive of the Grimsby Fish Merchants Association told me yesterday that although there are uncertainties, we have a unique opportunity to right the wrongs of the past and give the industry hope for renewed prosperity. He went on to say that successful negotiations could create new jobs and sustainable growth. The industry has confidence in the Minister, and I hope that in his winding-up speech, he will be able to provide some reassurance on the points that I have raised.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I want to cast Members’ minds back to films and TV—“The Perfect Storm”, for example, and “the Trawler Wars”, which I believe captured the pressures that fishermen are under.
Back in January, I was speaking to one of my constituents, a fisherman from Portavogie, who was pondering the year ahead. He said to me, “Jim, everything should be looking good for 2016. We have more prawn quota, quayside prices are stable and the cost of fuel is lower, but there is one big shadow hanging over the industry—will I have any crew?” Some Members have spoken about that. I told my constituent about the meeting that I, the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) and colleagues from Scotland held with the then Immigration Minister, who is now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Twelve months later, this issue still rankles and is still a matter of concern. We need to move it on. Indeed, it has deteriorated further.
Questions about fishing mainly or predominantly outside the UK’s 12-mile territorial limit mask a wider issue for the larger part of the fishing industry—not just the part I represent in Strangford, but right across these islands and especially in Northern Ireland and Scotland. I refer to the failure to recruit UK citizens to begin a career on our fishing vessels.
Brendan O’Hara
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the ban on recruiting non-EEA crew and the over-zealous actions of some Border Agency staff are forcing boats to get tied up, which is having a huge economic impact on already fragile communities in the west of Scotland and Northern Ireland?
Jim Shannon
That is quite clearly happening. I subscribe to what the hon. Gentleman says. Boats from Portavogie were boarded by the UK Border Agency in the Clyde the week before last and had to return home single-handedly, which should never have happened.
It is easy to identify the problems; the question is how to fix them. One huge step forward was taken on 23 June when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland voted to leave the EU. I have every confidence in that, as we move forward to the future. Every man, woman and unborn child in Portavogie voted to leave the EU, as did the majority of people in my constituency.
At her party conference a few months ago, the Prime Minister unveiled the great repeal Bill and discussed the proposal whereby, come Brexit day, much EU legislation could be transposed into UK legislation. It is logical to conclude that 40-plus years of European legislation cannot be replaced overnight, and that it will take time systematically to work through it and to replace and amend diktats from Brussels to make them fit for purpose. Nevertheless, the fishermen I represent did not vote to leave the EU only to have the common fisheries policy replicated in UK law.
When it comes to the negotiations, the Minister needs to be aware that the CFP, as it is now, is certainly not one that the fishermen of Portavogie want to see replicated in the future. There are some things we need to keep, but not that. Portavogie had 130 boats when we joined the EU; there are now 65 boats, which is down to EU red tape, bureaucracy and a stranglehold, preventing people from moving forward.
There are those in Northern Ireland who do not understand why fishermen voted for Brexit. The reality of what my constituents had to cope with could be summed up by one EU rule—the Hague preference. Since 1991, that EU rule, which was enshrined in the last review of the CFP, has effectively forced British fishermen in the Irish sea—predominantly those from Northern Ireland—to surrender more than 10,000 tonnes of cod, valued at almost £30 million, to their colleagues in the Republic of Ireland. That is but one instance in which our colleagues in the Irish Republic may express solidarity with their friends in Northern Ireland, but reality speaks louder than words. It will be interesting to see how matters progress.
The Hague preference regime affects more than just the UK’s allocations of cod in the Irish sea, but cod is often regarded as the iconic species for our entire fishing industry. The cod wars of the 1970s in Iceland were the manifestation of a policy that witnessed the demise of the UK’s distant water fleet, with fishermen displaced into British waters which, by that stage, were under the competence of Brussels. We well remember the solidarity that was afforded to the UK’s fishermen by European colleagues during those tense days: we remember what they did for us.
I am keen to make progress, because I am conscious of the time. In 2008 the EU agreed what was described as a long-term cod management plan. Thanks to my party colleague in the European Parliament, Diane Dodds, the cod plan has been “defanged”, if I may adopt a phrase used by industry. At a stroke, the unjustified cuts in total allowable catches that have remained a feature in the Irish sea can be stopped—and indeed, I hope, reversed—in 2017. We are eager to maintain sustainable fisheries.
The maximum sustainable yield highlights another inconsistency in EU policy. Other Members have mentioned the imminent introduction of the discard ban, so I will not say a great deal about it now, but according to the EU, which effectively drafts the advice provided by ICES, more cod equals a zero TAC, against the background of a discard ban. One EU policy means that cod cannot be retained on board, while another means that they cannot be discarded. There is no logic in that. Illogical and inconsistent policies from the EU contribute to the undermining of confidence in the fishing industry, and hence to a lack of new recruits to the fleet.
I have three asks for the Minister. Pragmatic and sustainable fisheries management in the Irish sea calls for decisions at the EU‘s December Fisheries Council that will secure a realistic cod TAC that reflects bycatches in the nephrops and haddock fisheries, an increased TAC for area 7 prawns reflecting the positive scientific advice that is already on record, and at least a 60% increase in the haddock TAC, reflecting the valuable resource that is available for harvesting today. Those decisions cannot be delayed.
Brexit clearly offers many opportunities for our fishing industry to contribute to the economy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I get frustrated sometimes when I hear the negativity coming through. We start from where we are: our island nation is surrounded by some of the most productive seas in the world, which produce a resource of which so many others have been eager to avail themselves. Let us hope that our fishermen, and British fishermen, avail themselves of that resource. That will enable us to grow our marine economy and specifically our fishing industry, and to secure a traditional UK industry that UK citizens can be proud to be part of. In the meantime, Minister, I ask you and the Government to work with the industry, during what is a transitionary period, to resolve the issues on non-EEA crew.
On Wednesday morning, in Westminster Hall, there was a debate on the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. The Minister referred to Marine Products Exports Development Authority schemes. I suggest an MPEDA scheme to deal with the EEA issue. We need to keep our ships and boats on the sea. I have asked for a meeting with the relevant Minister, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) and I will attend with all our local fishing representatives.
I wish you well in your negotiations, Minister. I ask you to maintain and increase the quotas. We encourage you, Minister: you have our full support as you proceed with the negotiations.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. I remind Members that when they say “you”, they are speaking to the Chair. The Minister should be referred to in the third person.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
I enter the debate with a certain amount of trepidation, having listened to speeches from both my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who is a great advocate in this regard.
Before I go further, let me pay tribute to Terri Portman, in my constituency, who helped me to ensure that—hopefully—my speech will be well informed. I also thank Dave Pessell, who runs Plymouth Trawler Agents, and the Devon Wildlife Trust, which has been incredibly helpful to me in this whole matter.
I am going to let you in on a secret, Madam Deputy Speaker: since I last spoke in one of these debates, I have been elected chairman of the all-party group on fisheries, so hopefully I know a little bit of what I am going to talk about. I succeeded my good friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who has been made Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
My Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport constituency includes a centuries-old fish market that now sells 6,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish annually and is the second largest fish market in England. About 40 fishing boats unload their catch at Sutton harbour daily, but up to 70% of what is sold in Plymouth is imported overland, which I am told is called overlanding.
Plymouth has a global reputation for marine science engineering research, which includes the Royal Navy, the National Marine Aquarium, the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association, which, interestingly, was set up in the 1870s to explore whether we could ever overfish our waters.
Since my election six years ago, I have called and campaigned for UK fishing waters to be brought under national control. I feel it is the fishermen who are best placed to conserve our fishing stocks; after all, why would they not want to do so, given that they would be destroying their own livelihood? While I voted and campaigned for us to stay in the EU, the whole business of the common fisheries policy has been a running sore for the fishing industry, most certainly down in my neck of the woods. It is a totemic issue.
I feel that this decision provides our fishing industry with a unique opportunity to rebuild. Plymouth’s fishermen and women who supported that did so because they feel there are real opportunities. Now we as a Government have got to rise to, and deliver on, that challenge. Many fisherman in the south-west feel they were simply forgotten on the way as a discussion was taking place about other matters, too.
Whatever mechanisms are developed to manage and allocate fishing opportunities in the future, the south-west fisherman must never lose out again. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister agrees with that, as he also represents a south-west seat.
Currently the UK and south-west fishermen fishing off our coast receive just 10% of haddock catches in our waters compared to France taking 66%; for monk, it is 18% to 59% for France; for whiting, it is 11% to 60% for the French; and for cod, it is a staggering 8% against 73% for France. We can therefore see why south-west fishermen feel so strongly that they were not considered when the original deal was done, and we must not allow that to happen again. But beyond the catching opportunities that must be resolved, there are many other areas where Government can offer to assist, building on good work already done by fishermen and helping our fleet become more sustainable and safer and take advantage of opportunities in this vital sector, to deliver the best economic value to the UK post-Brexit.
Locally, some pioneering initiatives are being worked through between the local authority and the industry. They will rely on assistance from the European maritime and fisheries fund, and as we look to the future post-Brexit we must endeavour to fund and deliver programmes that continue to offer support to these innovative types of work-streams, and also make sure that fishermen operate in a safer environment; that is a big issue that many Members have talked about in this debate.
My fishermen are very keen to do a number of things, and I will want to show my hon. Friend the Minister many things when he visits Plymouth in the new year. Sutton harbour has an opportunity to develop a very good set of facilities in order to be able to deliver an effective fishing industry. One thing it is looking at doing is delivering an academy to make sure people can be taught not only how to fish safely but understand the concept of what is happening. We have a lot of fishermen with 40 years’ experience and we must do more to engage with their knowledge to ensure that the academy is established.
We need to use this opportunity to deliver for our fishermen in the south-west, very much along the lines of what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) advocated earlier. I have fought my parliamentary seat regularly, and in the run-up to the 2005 general election he came to my constituency and we met several recreational fishermen. [Interruption.] I already have a copy of the report, thank you. We certainly need to ensure that we do not give the French, or anyone else, the opportunity to get the better of us. As the old Napoleonic toast said, it should be a case of “confusion to the enemy” if they will not let us participate as we want to.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate. I shall follow the lead of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) in informing the House that I have an unpaid adviser, Mr John Ashworth, who is sitting in the Gallery today. He has supplied me with information on historical fishing rights, which will be the key point of my remarks.
Before I begin, however, I want to plug the town of Filey in my constituency. I do not know how many hon. Members have visited this beautiful town, but I would strongly recommend it. It has beautiful beaches and a historic promenade. It is proudly old fashioned, and has fantastic fish and chips. It was once a thriving fishing town, but today it has only seven small boats. They are licensed by the Environment Agency, but all the licences will expire in 2022, ending any heritage fishing in the town. I know that the Minister is willing to try to find a solution to this problem, and I appreciate his support. We would like to see fishing retained in the town. In the 1960s, there were around 20 cobles in the town, but they have all gone. There is a widespread belief that the common fisheries policy has been responsible for the decline, so it is little wonder that there was a massive cheer from that seaside town on 24 June when we voted to leave the European Union. The fishing industry sees leaving the EU as an opportunity to design a brand new, clean-slate domestic fishing policy—I do, too—but, sadly, life is never quite that simple.
This is all about historical rights. To understand what is involved, we have to go back to a time that pre-dates our membership of the EEC. Back in the early 1960s, our Prime Minister was Harold Macmillan and the chief negotiator in our mission to join the EEC was Edward Heath. Our application at that time was vetoed by the French President, General Charles de Gaulle. At the time, our nation’s fishing limits were being extended from three to 12 nautical miles, so the historical rights did exist prior to our membership of the European Union.
The Government decided to hold what became known as the London fisheries convention of 1964 to sort out the arrangements for the future 12-nautical-mile zone, especially in relationship to our European friends. We split the zone into two, with a 0-to-6-mile limit zone and a 6-to-12-nautical-mile limit. It was decided by the countries involved to give the coastal state exclusive use of the 0-to-6 mile zone and partial use of the 6-to-12-mile zone, allowing France, West Germany, Ireland, Italy, Holland and Belgium into that zone as they had habitually fished those waters. Perhaps this was a sop to the French, to persuade them to agree to our EEC membership, but it was to no avail because our application was blocked.
These arrangements came into legislation when we finally joined the EEC. Some would say that Edward Heath was too obsessed by our entry into the EEC to challenge the legality of the regulations, which set in train the decimation of the British fishing industry, the lifeblood of our coastal communities. The extent to which we can now clean the slate is open to question, and I hope that the Government will have the answers. If we remove ourselves from the common fisheries policy, we will presumably revert to the 1964 convention and the historical rights that the then fisheries Minister Mr Alick Buchanan-Smith referred to in his parliamentary answer of April 1981. We are able to give two years’ notice under article 15 of the London convention, but would that wipe the slate clean or would rights provided for under the 19th century conventions and regulations still have effect?
Once we have untangled those legal knots, I know and welcome that the Government will listen carefully to thoughts and ideas from across the fishing industry. Clearly it is important to consult widely to identify and articulate the optimal solution. The two main fishermen’s federations are obvious stakeholders, but will Ministers consider other views and interests to ensure that we provide new, small business opportunities for young and old and, of course, ensure environmental protections and the sustainability and recovery of fish stocks? Our wider economy will not be best served by simply preserving the status quo in order to protect a few individual interests.
Most of the licence holders in Filey are in later life and some are moving towards a time when they might consider hanging up their nets. Their situation needs to change, and we need a new system in place sooner rather than later. It is right that the Government continue to take proactive measures to tackle overfishing. Fishermen recognise that, which is why many favour a system involving days at sea, as mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). There would be no discards and everyone would know what has been caught and where, which could open up more opportunities and new competition.
I am often reminded that fishermen are custodians of the sea. We, the British people, own it, and in a few years’ time full responsibility should lie with us in Parliament. It will be our job to ensure that we create a viable future for our fishing industry for the next generation and the generations after that.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), and I add my thanks to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for securing this important debate. It is always a delight to take part in Parliament’s annual fisheries debate, which is even more significant in the light of the historic decision on 23 June to leave the European Union. The barometer of success for our negotiations will be tested in many ways. In rural areas such as North Cornwall, however, both farming and fishing will be held up and examined closely against the backdrop of the common agricultural and fisheries policies.
I would like the Secretary of State and Ministers to take up several policies on the behalf of my residents in North Cornwall. Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to be able to secure a debate in the Chamber on bass fishing, after which I was announced as parliamentary sea bass champion.
Oliver Colvile
Is my hon. Friend aware that I am the champion for hedgehogs?
Scott Mann
My hon. Friend has mentioned that on more than one occasion. I am aware that he supports hedgehogs.
I came to the Chamber earlier this year to speak on behalf of recreational anglers, who fared badly in last year’s discussions with Ministers and EU officials. Disproportionate restrictions were placed on anglers and increases in commercial landings during specific months were announced. It is now time to act. I welcomed the comments of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and believe that now is the time to follow the science on bass. All indications point to stocks being at a critical level. I have been on the record before to ask for hook-and-line commercial and recreational bass fisheries, and I speak again for that today.
I have received a number of letters this week from anglers, many of whom have signed the online petition, and the gist of those letters was virtually the same: “Dear Scott,”—we are obviously on first name terms—“I have grown up fishing for bass around Cornwall. I used to catch lots of school bass. Sometimes we would have competitions to see how many bass we could catch on the same worm. Over the last 10 years, I have caught fewer and fewer. I haven’t become a bad angler overnight. I am now lucky to catch at all if I go out. Please do something to protect the stocks. Best wishes, Concerned from North Cornwall.” In fact, a number of inshore fisheries and conservation authorities are putting proposals in place to remove gill nets from estuaries, and I welcome that. I say politely but forcefully to the Minister: please release the bag limits on anglers and support the proposals for sustainable fishing in 2017.
Of course, there are many who fish commercially in and around our estuaries, and with Britain leaving the EU we have the ability to rebalance quota allocations and ensure that our under-10 metre fleet have species that they can target. We could shape a new coastal 0 to 10-mile nautical plan for this country. We also need to consider small producers’ organisations, so that they can put their case on what they are looking for and we can ensure that everyone, from the hook-and-line fishermen and the under-10 metre fleet to the bigger fleets, has a fruitful future after Brexit. A new British fisheries policy could look after hook-and-line fishermen, the under-10 metre fleet and the broader commercial sector, and I welcome that.
The new changes to the fishing licence have not been touched on. A number of carp anglers have for a number of years called to have three rods on their licence, and I welcome the change that the Environment Agency has made. Changes have also been made so that children under 12 can have free licences, so that we encourage more people to become the anglers of the future. That, too, is to be welcomed.
I wish to ask the Minister about one specific environmental scheme. I have heard of cases where boats across our seas come across plastics. They remove the offending items and bring them back to the land but then find that the local authority wishes to charge them a disposal fee. That is clearly nonsense and I suggest that fishers could be encouraged after Brexit to clean the seas by receiving a payment for landing these unwanted items, as plastics are filling our seas. I know that the Government have already made concessions on microbeads, which is to be welcomed, but does a scheme such as the one I am proposing exist already? Are there plans to implement one?
In summary, I call on the Minister to consider doing the following: redistribute the quota post-Brexit to the under-10 metre fleet; provide financial support to help people get back into the industry; remove the bag limits on anglers and introduce hook-and-line sustainable fishing methods for bass, and follow the science behind that; prioritise the under-10 metre fleet in the 0 to 12-mile zone to compensate for the removal of nets in the estuaries; support new producer organisations that represent the under-10 metre fleet, so that they have a place at the table when these discussions are happening; and introduce an environmental “fishing for plastics” scheme, which could help fishers to clean up our oceans and receive a payment for doing so. Many of our fishing communities in and around our coastline have seen a massive decline under the common fisheries policy. Now that we are back in control, we have the ability to shape our coastal communities once again.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
This has been a good and lively debate. Perhaps the one complaint is that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) said that there were too many interventions from the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—that is a scurrilous allegation!
First, I wish to put on the record my own pleas, just as many other Members have done. I represent a coastal community; indeed, it is one of the few constituencies—perhaps the only one—that reaches the 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Our current pleas are about tuna, dogfish and herring. We would like to have some tuna quota, as tuna are passing regularly through the Hebrides—about 200 miles west of the Hebrides, within the Hebrides to St Kilda area—as Angus Campbell of Kilda Cruises sees frequently when he goes out there. That call is backed by the Western Isles Fishermen’s Association secretary Duncan MacInnes, with that organisation of course being the biggest fishermen’s association in Scotland.
The second area where we need support and help is on dogfish. We need a bycatch allocation, because friends I went to school with have been in the unfortunate situation of having to dump perfectly good dogfish. I worked as a fisherman on two separate occasions, and on one of those, more than 20 years ago, we were specifically targeting dogfish. That was of course ended because of the unsustainability of that fishery, but again dogfish are coming back and it is a shame to catch these fish, which are later marketed as rock salmon, only to dump them over the side and not use them. Of course we also need to do something about herring, my third point, because herring are appearing on the west coast in great numbers and are being caught as bycatch, but there is no quota allocation and so again they are being dumped. I hope that the Minister was listening to those three points.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman has given three very good examples of why quotas do not work, and why we should move to a days-at-sea scheme. Does the Scottish National party support that?
Mr MacNeil
A days-at-sea scheme has its own problems. It puts pressure on fishermen. Sometimes they might get only hours at sea. There is merit in looking at a lot of changes in the fisheries policy, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has his own thoughts on that. [Interruption.] He has a record of changing his mind over the period of a month—I might refer to that again as I go on in my speech.
On a happier note—
Mr MacNeil
When I mention the right hon. Gentleman again, perhaps I will take his intervention then. Time is of the essence now.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman accused me of changing my mind. I have proved the point to him quite clearly. If he looks at the full length of the video, he will see that I did not change my mind. He has a second chance now: yes or no to days at sea?
Mr MacNeil
Let me look at the right hon. Gentleman’s words again. He said that
“only a madman would leave the market.”
Has he changed his mind on that?
Mr Paterson
Will the hon. Gentleman please quote the rest of the clip? If he had watched the Andrew Neil show he would realise that those clips were very, very carefully chosen, and were then disproved by the rest of the sentences that followed. I will give him another chance: yes or no on days at sea?
Mr MacNeil
I would rather pursue this point. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean when he said that only a madman would leave the market? Let us put that in context with what others in his camp have said. Here is Daniel Hannan:
“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.”
Nigel Farage said, “Like Norway.” What did the right hon. Gentleman mean when he said that only a madman would leave the single market?
Mr Paterson
I am delighted to carry on with this exchange. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the rest of the sentences, he will realise that I, Dan Hannan and others—[Interruption.] The video was put up by a Liberal press spokesman, who was then completely shredded and harpooned by Andrew Neil live. It was proved that those were very selective short sentences from a longer clip. The hon. Gentleman is still ducking the question on days at sea. Does he agree that having days at sea would mean that we would not have discards? That would then get around the problem of not being able to land fish, which is very grievous for his constituents, and which he mentioned in his opening comments.
Mr MacNeil
I have already said that I am happy for anything to enter into the mix of discussions and negotiations post-Brexit. The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question, so I will leave it be. People watching can make up their own minds about what he meant when he said that only a madman would leave the market. I am quite clear what he meant.
The debate today was hosted tremendously well by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), who follows an illustrious predecessor, the much liked Austin Mitchell. She was absolutely right in saying that this debate should be not in Westminster Hall, but on the Floor of the House of Commons. She mentioned the Brexit promises. Certainly, whatever the promises were, they are changing over time. She made a good point about the number of people involved in fisheries. Indeed, Iceland has seen that number fall quite a lot.
A number of Members intervened on the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, particularly on the issues that affect me and Members from Northern Ireland, especially the lack of fishermen and the effects on fishing boats. Ultimately, of course, there is the effect on the Exchequer. If the boats are not going to sea, they are not earning money and not paying taxes, and that has a bad effect on the UK’s balance of payments, which, as we know, is not great at the best of times.
The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) made a thoughtful speech. He pointed out the dangers of the occupation, and thanked the RNLI in particular for the work that is done to keep people safe. I know that myself, after the loss of the Louisa in April this year. I was one of the last people to see the boat as she went down the west side of Barra at one in the morning. The following people were lost: Martin Johnston, aged 29, from Halkirk in Caithness; Chris Morrison from Harris; and the skipper, Paul Alliston. Happily there was a survivor, Lachlan Armstrong. That is the cost of fishing. The skipper of one of the boats that I worked on years ago lost his crewman and a friend of mine, Gerry Gillies, just over a year ago. That is the price of fishing.
The hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) mentioned the fisheries in King’s Lynn and the Wash. It is interesting to hear his frustration with the marine protected areas. He will know that it is not just in Norfolk and the Wash that these conservation zones are bringing frustration to fishermen. They are doing so across the country.
The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) made an excellent and very thoughtful speech about what being in and out of the EU might mean, whether fisheries would lose on the way out as they lost on the way in, and what exactly tariffs would mean for those selling into the European single market. At present that gives us an advantage in some places. However, many in the fishing community who voted for Brexit might have voted in frustration with the common fisheries policy, not to lose access to the single market.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) made the point that CFP interaction would continue. He spoke about the cod recovery plan and the pain that that involved, combined with decommissioning. He mentioned that 47% of stocks were still overfished, such are the pressures on fisheries.
The right hon. Gentleman and another Member spoke about the success of the Faroese in managing to gather 33,000 tonnes of mackerel in Scottish waters. As time goes on, we might see what successful and experienced international trade negotiators can achieve. The Faroe Islands have a population of 50,000 and, when they go toe to toe with the European Union of 500 million, we see that their more experienced trade negotiators are more wily trade negotiators, especially when they know the importance of something close to them, as fisheries are. Perhaps when the UK draws up its own international trade deals, we will be doing so with inexperienced trade negotiators. We should study the success of the Faroe Islands and watch that we do not get mugged in the course of those negotiations.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) made a speech heavy on facts about what fisheries were contributing to Scotland—£500 million-worth of farmed salmon that goes out, compared with £438 million-worth of fish caught by fishing boats, showing that farmed fish has a bigger export value, which I found surprising.
The debate should be remembered for the many points that were made, the information given to the Minister, and the expectations of the Minister in time to come. I noted from the comments of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that de Gaulle was probably the original Brexiteer, in that he refused to allow the UK access to the European Economic Community.
I see your eyes, Madam Deputy Speaker, looking at the clock; you are hinting gently to me to get on with it. I hope the Minister will remember my three points, and the heartfelt plea from the west of Scotland and from Northern Ireland. For goodness’ sake, let our boats go to sea and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, stop the overzealous activities of the border agencies that are working against the economic interests of the west coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak for the Opposition today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing this debate. Much of it has focused on the challenges and opportunities of Brexit, and we have had knowledgeable and often passionate contributions from the hon. Members for St Ives (Derek Thomas), for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), for Waveney (Peter Aldous), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), and the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson).
My constituency, Workington, includes a stretch of the Solway firth. There are around 75 fishing boats landing about 4,000 tonnes of fish annually. We have a fish processing plant in Maryport which recently reopened, helped by a grant from Allerdale Council, creating 60 jobs. In 2012 a report examined the demand for and ability to supply locally caught fish and seafood to the hospitality sector. I am sure that many colleagues have visited Cumbria and will be aware of that sector’s importance to our economy. Last year, the Cumbrian Fisheries label was launched, with the idea that if fish are sold locally, the greater the profit will be for the fishermen and the processors. Backing the scheme are several businesses in my constituency, including the Maryport Fishing Co-operative, the award-winning Fyne Fish and the Trout Hotel in Cockermouth.
This Saturday is Small Business Saturday. What better way to support the local community than to go down to the high street and purchase locally caught fresh fish? Cumbria is famous for its sausages. I see no reason why it cannot also be famous for its fish and shellfish. I can personally recommend Solway potted shrimp.
It is important that the Government make headway on the future of our trading relationships. As about 80% of the British catch is exported, primarily to the EU, Brexit negotiations need to take into account the impact that a less-than-ideal trade deal could have on the industry.
I am concerned that although DEFRA and the Marine Management Organisation have experienced severe budget cuts, their responsibilities will only increase. How will the Government ensure they are properly resourced? How many additional staff are being recruited? The looming regulatory deficit represents a big challenge. A streamlined DEFRA will have its work cut out because of the sheer amount of secondary legislation that we will need to replace European legislation.
Members on both sides of the House have talked about the shortcomings of the common fisheries policy, but we must recognise that recent reforms have had positive impacts, including improved sustainability and a stop in the decline of some stocks. What financial drivers will the Government put in place as a successor to the CFP while keeping in mind environmental protections and fishing business sustainability? How will we ensure that we have an effective maximum sustainable yield and that the other objectives of the CFP are incorporated into UK legislation? How do the Government intend to make up the shortfall in the funding for the fishing sector that is currently derived from the European maritime and fisheries fund?
We have to work to align our fisheries regulations with those of our EU neighbours to stop us from returning to a situation of competitive overfishing. Although we have the opportunity to look at quotas and access arrangements, it simply is not the case that we will get exactly what we want—as the Minister knows, we will get what we can negotiate. I am worried about the regulatory vacuum that we might have between our getting rid of the CFP and having our own regulations in place. What is DEFRA’s plan for that transitional period? The Minister has talked before about the unfairness of the current reciprocal access arrangements, under which other EU countries benefit more from access to our waters than we do from access to theirs, so what does he regard as a fair reciprocal arrangement?
We must think carefully about trying to maintain tariff-free access for fishery exports to the EU, and we must not be surprised if the EU then tries to bargain for increased access to UK waters. Norway is in the EEA and has a number of fisheries interests in the UK, particularly processing plants and aquaculture. If we leave the EEA and the customs union, what will that mean for companies exporting to the EU, which is where most of our high-value fish go? Is there not a danger that those companies will up sticks to avoid tariffs? How can we secure British jobs?
We must seek to preserve conservation measures established under EU law. The sustainability of fish stocks has to be a priority. I support the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) about sea bass. How can we have continued commercial netting of a stock that is below critical levels? The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) talked about recognising scientific advice when looking at long-term sustainable fishing. I implore the Minister to ensure that future policy does exactly that, taking advice from not only ICES but CEFAS. What key environmental protections will DEFRA ensure are upheld in the negotiation process? The future of sustainable European fish stocks and the long-term livelihoods of thousands of people depend on that.
Finally, on Brexit, we must remember that building and maintaining good relations with colleagues is important—for the Minister and his European counterparts at the upcoming Council, but also across parties. I am willing to work constructively and closely with him to ensure we end up with the best deal possible for our fisheries so that we can secure a sustainable, long-term future for our industry.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I begin by commending members of the all-party group on fisheries for bringing forward this annual debate on fisheries as we approach the December Council.
This will be my fourth December Council arguing over fisheries quotas. In that time, some things have changed: we have more stocks fished at MSY than previously, and the numbers are growing. Some of the challenges, particularly in the North sea, have receded, and the stocks are in a better situation. However, in other areas, some things have stayed the same. We still have challenges with bass, and stocks such as cod, haddock and whiting in the Celtic sea.
Sadly, it is also still the case that fishing remains, as many hon. Members have pointed out, one of the most dangerous occupations. This is an opportunity for me to pay tribute to all our fishermen who take risks to bring sea fish to our table. I am also sad to report that over the past year, since our previous debate, nine fishermen have lost their lives. I know that all hon. Members will wish to join me in expressing our sincere condolences to the families and friends who have suffered those tragic losses.
I want to cover as many of the important points that have been raised in today’s debate as possible. The context for this year’s debate is clearly very different from those of previous years, following our decision to leave the European Union. We are committed to acting on the decision taken by the British people, to withdrawing from the common fisheries policy and to putting in place a new fisheries regime.
As an independent coastal state outside the EU, the UK would be fully responsible, under international law, for control of the waters in our exclusive economic zone and for the management of those resources within it, including fisheries. The Government remain committed to being a champion of sustainable fisheries and to ending discards, as set out in our manifesto. We are also committed to continued co-operation with other countries over the management of shared stocks. In future, our role in relation to the annual setting of quotas will change fundamentally, but our overall objective of championing sustainable fisheries and ending wasteful discards remains as strong as ever.
George Eustice
I am going to persevere, if I may. EU exit is an opportunity to develop arrangements for fishing that can better meet the UK Government’s objectives to deliver a financially self-sufficient and profitable seafood sector, and a cleaner, healthier and more productive environment.
I will return to many of the comments made by Members, particularly in relation to post-Brexit policy, but first I want to deal with the December Council. While we remain a member of the EU, we will, of course, continue to participate fully and constructively in the December Fisheries Councils and the related negotiations. They are vital to our industry, since they set the catching opportunities for the vast majority of commercially important fishing stocks.
I have already had many meetings with stakeholders. We had a meeting with the devolved Administrations and stakeholders in Cardiff some weeks ago. The Government’s objectives in the forthcoming Council are to secure a fair and balanced deal that supports our fishing industry and the long-term sustainability of our fisheries. We will seek to increase the number of stocks being fished sustainably. That means managing stocks at maximum sustainable yield wherever possible, although some stocks might need to undergo a staged transition to MSY, especially where we need to avoid discards and bycatch.
We and other EU member states have made good progress in putting fisheries on a more sustainable basis. For example, 31 of the 59 stocks for which we have full analytical assessments in the north-east Atlantic and surrounding waters are now fished in accordance with MSY, compared with just 19 a little more than a decade ago in 2004. Some important stocks in the North sea have recovered or are in the process of recovering. While the North sea cod stock is still rebuilding, we are close to fishing it sustainably, and we will be able to bring it under the landing obligation from next year. I am pleased also that agreement has been reached to sustainably reform the EU’s discredited cod recovery plan. That was key to making the landing obligation work for cod, by removing automatic cuts in effort.
We will therefore support increases in catches when they are supported by the science. Equally, we will agree to reductions in catches where they are necessary to protect the long-term health of a stock. That applies, for example, to sole in the eastern English channel and to cod in the Celtic sea.
The Commission’s proposals generally reflect the science, although there is still a tendency to ignore the significant weight of evidence that exists on, for instance, data-limited stocks. If we look around the country, we will see that there are issues in the west country, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) pointed out, with stocks such as pollock and monkfish. We have particular challenges with megrim; full analytical data have changed the recommendation in relation to that stock. I am aware that in Northern Ireland we will have the now almost annual discussion around nephrops. We will make the case that the total allowable catch set previously has been under-exploited, so we still believe that we do not need to reduce it as much.
Finally, I want to make a point about the EU-Norway deal, which is especially important to Scotland, and the coastal states agreement. EU bilateral fishery agreements with Norway, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, and the coastal states agreement on mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring, remain of the utmost importance to the UK fishing industry. This year’s negotiations have already resulted in positive outcomes for the UK, with increases in quota for mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring, which we estimate to be worth in excess of an extra £20 million for the UK fleet. However, more needs to be done to secure the long-term sustainability of those stocks.
I turn to some of the points made by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), who opened the debate, made the point that I attended her constituency during the referendum campaign. I did—I shared a platform with her predecessor as we made the case for leaving the EU. The hon. Lady mentioned the cod wars. Overwhelmingly, the developments that had the greatest impact on the fishing industry in Grimsby, where our long-distance fishing industry was based, were the three cod wars during the late 1960s and early 1970s. After the cod wars, it became effectively a norm of international law, through the UN convention on the law of the sea, that countries would have an exclusive economic zone extending to 200 nautical miles. Ironically, we would be asking, going forward, for something that is now a norm under international law, and which became so after our loss of the third cod war.
The hon. Lady suggested that I made unrealistic pledges during the referendum campaign. During that campaign, I exercised my right to campaign as a free, independent MP, but I fully intended that the leave campaign would win, and I fully hoped that I would be back in position and able to see through the changes that I believe are necessary to deliver sustainable fisheries. We will abide by international law in the United Kingdom, and we will expect the European Union to respect and abide by international law. As several hon. Members have said, our European partners have a right to expect us, as the UK, to behave honourably and decently towards them as we put in place new fisheries arrangements and a new type of partnership. They can get that from us, and we should expect the same from them. It is important, as the shadow Minister said, that we get the tone right as we approach the negotiations. We are seeking change, but it is a requirement of UNCLOS that we co-operate with other countries, that we have regard to historical access rights and, crucially, that we work together on shared stocks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who has written papers about fisheries, highlighted an important area of future management—the relative merits of a control system based on effort and days at sea, and a quota regime. The truth is that there are pros and cons to each. A quota system is generally considered to make far more sense for pelagic species, with single-species stocks being targeted. In a very mixed fishery, as we have in parts of the west country and parts of the inshore fleet, an effort-based regime with a national target for quota arguably makes more sense.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire highlighted the experience of the Faroe Islands, and I confirm to him that we are looking at the approach taken there, just as we are looking at the approach taken in Iceland and many other countries around the world. He asked me to consider whether we might do a pilot in this area. We have not ruled that out, but we are not yet in a position to make a decision to go forward with it.
The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) talked about the Farn Deeps. He will be aware that we agreed with the Commission last year to take some steps on that nationally and to get agreement on technical measures. We have taken steps to try to safeguard that fishery, predominantly for the local fleet around North Shields. He asked whether leaving the EU strengthens our position. It probably does, in that that will make it easier for us to put in place technical measures without our necessarily having to get agreement at EU level. He also mentioned infrastructure. While we are in the EU, we still have access to the European maritime and fisheries fund, and obviously we will look at other options in the future.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) mentioned shrimp fishing in his constituency. He is aware that that is a matter for IFCA, which is consulting at the moment. It is suggesting a restriction on 14% of the special area of conservation, which is less than 14% of the fishery.
The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and many others mentioned trade deals. It is important to point out a misunderstanding that some hon. Members, including the shadow Minister, have. Although Norway and Iceland are in the European economic area, and therefore part of the customs union for other goods, the EEA does not cover fisheries. With fisheries, we have a series of preferential trade agreements. It is therefore incorrect to claim, as several hon. Members have, that Iceland and Norway are in the customs union or the EEA for the purposes of fisheries. That is not the case.
The right hon. Member for Exeter and my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) mentioned bass. We hope to make progress this year. They know that I have consistently made the case in the past two years. The science suggested that the measures that we took last year would get us to MSY by 2018. Since then, the science has deteriorated and there has been poor recruitment, so there are some challenging decisions to make and we have consistently argued for change.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned the access given to the Faroes, particularly to some of the pelagic species. He knows that those negotiations are currently led by the EU and that, although we often raise objections and concerns, they can be overruled as things stand. It is one of the reasons why the pelagic fishing fleet greatly looks forward to the UK leaving the EU and regaining its seat in important coastal states negotiations.
Several hon. Members mentioned choke species. I am aware that that is an issue. Indeed, the UK, as chair of the north-west waters regional group, put it on the agenda of the November Fisheries Council. We are working on several possible options, including a de minimis bycatch exemption or a group total allowable catch for some of the small species. That is not an insurmountable problem, but we recognise the challenge.
The hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) mentioned the importance of involving Scotland in the negotiations. I can confirm that we are doing that. The Scottish fisheries Minister always joins me in the trilateral discussions with the presidency and the Commission. However, it is important that the UK Minister who is accountable to Members of Parliament from right across the UK represents the UK at those discussions.
We have heard many other points, which I am sure that hon. Members will raise with me afterwards. We will seek a balanced deal, and we have exciting times ahead as we develop our future fisheries policy.
Melanie Onn
I am disappointed that the Minister has not offered a meeting to discuss the outstanding compensation claim case on behalf of the widow of Jim Greene. I hope that that was an unfortunate oversight and that, perhaps after the debate, he will offer me some of his valuable time.
It has been an excellent, generally good-natured debate, with lively and wide-ranging contributions from hon. Members of all parties. Ultimately, it has proved that the subject fully deserves a debate in the main Chamber. I thank all Members who have contributed to making the debate so worthwhile. I recognise that contributions have come from all four nations of our great United Kingdom.
It has been right to remember those who have lost their lives. Let me mention those seamen who took on the wartime role of minesweeping, without any of the modern sonar equipment with which we are blessed, at great cost to them and their families. I was very privileged to attend a moving Armistice Day remembrance service at the royal docks this year.
The loss of seafaring skills was mentioned. The point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) about an academy is important. Perhaps that should be rolled out to coastal towns around the country.
Ultimately, I look forward to hearing much more from the Government about the fishing industry as we move towards negotiating our exit from the EU. I am not entirely assured, but I thank the Minister.
Christchurch and East Dorset Councils: Proposed Abolition
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to introduce this short end-of-day Adjournment debate on proposals to abolish Christchurch and East Dorset Councils.
When a colleague saw the title of the debate, he wondered who was proposing such an outcome and why. I was able to assure him that it is not the Government, unlike 20 years ago when the Local Government Commission for England, under its then chairman Sir John Banham, was tasked by the Conservative Government at the time with abolishing the two-tier system and imposing unitary solutions. The commission, to its credit—I was a member of it—insisted that before any change to structures, there should be the fullest local consultation, including a survey sent to every household. A preliminary consultation on options for change was followed by a second consultation on a preferred option. As a result of that process, in Dorset separate unitaries were created in Poole and Bournemouth, but, following a robust defence by campaigners, particularly in Christchurch but also in East Dorset, the Government decided to retain a two-tier structure for the rest of Dorset, and in so doing recognised the importance of local community ties, identity and history—Christchurch can trace its mayoralty back to the 13th century.
The current Government have learned the lesson of the past and are not seeking to impose any structural change. I am grateful to them for that. Eighteen months ago, there were all-out elections for councillors in Christchurch and East Dorset—24 in Christchurch and 29 in East Dorset, of whom 11 are in my constituency. None of the candidates stood on a manifesto to abolish their council—quite the reverse. They campaigned to provide good-quality services at an affordable price by maximising economic efficiencies through partnership working. To their immense credit, they continue to do that successfully with approximately 100 fewer council officers than before, delivering ongoing annual savings of more than £1 million.
In autumn 2015, the leaders of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch Councils, and the then leader of East Dorset District Council, were pictured together on a beach to launch their plan to create a single council to replace those four councils. That created such hostility among East Dorset District Councillors, who were fearful that they were going to be bounced into losing their sovereignty and independence, and control over their own green belt, that their leader resigned because he was so out of touch and had not engaged with his own councillors.
The plan was never debated in Christchurch Council, because the Christchurch Council leader denied that he wanted such a super-council but wished only to be in the mix for the purposes of any discussion about it. Not surprisingly, Dorset County Council did not take kindly to the idea that two of the councils in its area were going to secede and join a rival grouping. That led to various discussions, and earlier this year all nine Dorset council leaders decided to work towards a public consultation on possibly reorganising local government within Dorset, but without any preconditions.
In parallel, Christchurch and East Dorset Councils, along with the other seven councils, went out to consultation on proposals for a combined authority to take effect from 1 April 2017, which will bring together representatives from all nine Dorset councils plus the Dorset local enterprise partnership to deliver on transport infrastructure and economic regeneration. The consultation document states:
“A Dorset combined authority would demonstrate our partnership approach and be a strong basis for us to request more responsibilities and powers from the Government”.
It also reassured consultees that
“combined authorities combine specific functions of two or more local authorities. The councils remain separate but they pool decision making over what services they want to combine, acting as one strong and accountable body representing and responsible for the area.”
That application was unanimously approved and is now on the Secretary of State’s desk. Contrary to some black propaganda, the proposal does not involve the creation of an elected mayor for Dorset.
It was disappointing that council leaders could not agree that key issues such as public transport, adult social care and children’s services should also be included within the remit of the combined authority, despite the obvious financial benefits. Adult social care and children’s services consume some 75% of the Dorset County Council budget. If included with similar services from the two other upper-tier authorities in the combined authority, Poole and Bournemouth, significant savings would be achievable without undermining local democratic accountability.
At the end of August this year, the nine Dorset councils launched a separate consultation on what they described as “reshaping your councils”. The consultation was meant to be presenting four options. The first was no change to existing structures, and the other three were for variations on the theme of abolishing the nine existing councils and creating in their place two unitaries. The options presented for consultation and the terms of the consultation paper were never approved by councillors in Christchurch or East Dorset. Indeed, it was only at the insistence of a minority of council leaders—including, I think, the leader of East Dorset—that a no-change option was included at all.
Last Friday, the Housing Minister visited Christchurch to discuss the issue with the leader of Christchurch Council. At the Minister’s request I was present at the meeting, which was also attended by the leader of East Dorset District Council. Despite the fact that Christchurch councillors have at no stage given approval to any suggestion that their council should be abolished, the leader of the council told my hon Friend the Minister:
“We don’t think option 1”—
no change—
“is really an option”.
Although he was immediately contradicted by the leader of East Dorset District Council, the Christchurch leader went on to say that if he did not receive a mandate from his councillors for the council’s abolition, he would be ready to defy that decision when discussing with other council leaders the preferred option for Dorset. In throwing aside the caution that he had been seeking to impose on all other councillors around the issue of predetermination, he said:
“What is expected cannot be achieved with the status quo”,
and he gave the Minister a paper setting out his expectation of Government that it should give
“support for the principle of changing to a two unitary model in Dorset”.
He thereby showed that his mind had been made up all along against keeping Christchurch independent and that the public consultation was effectively a charade.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend and I take diametrically opposed views on this issue. East Dorset covers part of my constituency. Does my hon. Friend recognise that all the district councils, the county council and the two unitaries are individually going to be debating a report over the coming weeks—the last debate will, I think, be on 31 January—which will then determine the views of each of those councils? It is not as if either East Dorset or Christchurch has treated itself less well. No council has actually taken any decision, but they will be offered a recommendation to either endorse or disagree.
Mr Chope
Nothing my hon. Friend says is incorrect, but the situation is that the leaders of councils should—as the leader of East Dorset Council has said—enter into those discussions and negotiations having sought a mandate from their own councillors. That is not what is being proposed in Christchurch. For good measure, the Christchurch Council leader has also criticised the combined authority, despite being a party to submitting it to the Government. He said:
“We don’t think it would deal with the massive expectation”.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the public consultation has been so criticised as inadequate, biased and, indeed, untruthful. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) has been taken in by this, because the consultation was designed to mislead respondents into believing that no change in structures was not an option. The consultation questionnaire gave the impression that there was no alternative to abolishing the existing structure of nine councils, and stated that if the nine councils were retained,
“major savings would need to be found and it is likely that many council services could not be provided in future”.
The only argument it put forward in the consultation for retaining the nine existing councils was “familiarity”—nothing about control over one’s own destiny and all the rest of it.
No evidence is produced in support of the scaremongering in the document. Indeed, I have been informed by the councils’ chief finance officers that all
“authorities within Dorset are in a solvent position and have sufficient balances to remain this way for the foreseeable future”.
Mr Chope
No, I will not give way again.
The consultation period was only eight weeks, during which time I attended five public meetings and had numerous meetings and discussions with constituents, voluntary organisations, councillors and former councillors, parish councillors and community groups.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
On a point of order, On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am slightly surprised, so I seek your guidance. I wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) at the end of last week, giving the factors I just stated in my interjection, mentioning that part of my constituency lay within the boundaries of East Dorset District Council, and requesting that I be allowed to make a short speech. He refused my request but invited me to come and listen to his speech, which is why I am here today. Is it in order, therefore, notwithstanding his right to refuse my request to speak, and given that part of the area in question is in my constituency—as it is also in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson)—for him not to accept an—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. I am stopping the hon. Gentleman because he is eating into the time of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), whose choice it is; it is his Adjournment debate. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to put in for another Adjournment debate, and then it will be up to him who is allowed to speak.
Mr Chope
I am most disappointed in my hon. Friend. I gave way to him and now he has taken up a minute or more of my precious time with a spurious point of order. This indicates his embarrassment at not being on top of the facts of this issue.
I was talking about the different organisations to which I had spoken. The Daily Echo was highly critical of the consultation, and its lead letter on 21 October was headlined “We are being manipulated”, which reflected the widespread opposition to council abolition among my constituents. The documentation and financial evaluation of options in the consultation were based on the presumption that a new town council would be created in Christchurch to replace the borough council following abolition. Even elected councillors were unaware of that.
Mr Chope
No, I will not.
Nor did they realise that the funding for the town council would come from an extra £150 a year extra band D council tax. My constituents would forever, therefore, be paying higher council tax than residents in Bournemouth and Poole for the same level of service, despite the contrary having been asserted in the consultation document. The creation of a new town council replicating the borough council would also undermine the avowed objective of reorganisation of reducing administrative costs, cutting out duplication and simplifying local government.
Mr Chope
I will not give way. My hon. Friend has already taken up my time in raising a spurious point of order, and I will not give way to him again.
When after seven weeks of asking questions I received the admission that the financial figures were based upon the creation of a new town council, I inquired as to why Christchurch would choose to create a new town council when the consultation document at page 3 assured its readers:
“The two unitary councils would deliver the services currently provided by the six District and Borough Councils”.
No clear answer has been given to my question about what extra services beyond those already being provided in Christchurch would be funded with an extra £150 per year band D council tax. With 21,332 properties paying band D, as an average this amounts to over £3.8 million a year from Christchurch, subsidising this proposition.
The guile exhibited in the consultation is such that it is hard to regard it as merely accidental. If it had been, one would have expected an immediate admission that the prospectus was false. Page 4 of the consultation states:
“Councils would need to make sure that, within an agreed period of time, all residents of one council area pay the same—a process called council tax harmonisation.”
Page 9 explains further:
“This assumes an approach in which over a twenty year period…all the council tax rates in all areas within a new unitary council eventually become the same”.
It is now clear, however, that on the basis of the consultation, council tax rates and bills for citizens in Christchurch will always be higher than for those in Poole and Bournemouth under two of the unitary options, and would always be higher than for those in East Dorset, North Dorset—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset—Purbeck and West Dorset under the third unitary option. Not only is this fact not disclosed in the consultation; it is actively covered up.
The only justification put forward for abolishing Christchurch and East Dorset Councils is financial. The consultation paper states that option 1 would result in East Dorset having a cumulative shortfall of £0.3 million between 2019 and 2025, and Christchurch a surplus of £0.1 million. Such figures would certainly not justify abolition. Some council leaders argue, however, that because the shortfall across Dorset as a whole would be £30 million, reorganisation is justified. Now, £30 million over six years might sound like a lot of money, but when put into the context that Dorset councils are currently spending £920 million a year—£5.52 billion over the six years—it means we are talking about just 0.5% of total turnover. When set against the costs of reorganisation, estimated at £25 million, and the assumptions behind the figures of continuing to increase local government spending by 4% per annum—I think it extraordinary, but that is the assumption—the case for abolition looks incredibly weak.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful. My hon. Friend has mentioned Purbeck, which falls within my constituency, as does East Dorset. Does he accept two things? First, does he accept that there will be an opportunity for each and every council in Dorset to debate this and vote on it later in January? Secondly, does he accept that there is a range of views, on a spectrum perhaps from his views to those of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)?
Mr Chope
Exactly. I had a very civilised conversation yesterday with the deputy leader and chief executive of Purbeck Council. My hon. Friend is quite right that there will be plenty of opportunities, but what I am keen to do in this debate is to make sure that we have a discussion on the basis of the facts. The shortcomings of the consultation so far have meant that the facts have been covered up from the people.
As with all such possible changes, the beneficiaries are keen to shout loudest. Both Bournemouth and Poole Councils have chosen over recent years to freeze their council taxes, while Christchurch and East Dorset have been more realistic in their approach. It is insulting to my constituents that Poole and Bournemouth should now expect Christchurch residents to subsidise their councils—currently in the case of Poole £196 lower than in Christchurch and £161 lower in Bournemouth.
Council taxes in Christchurch and East Dorset are very similar to the national average, which was £1,484 in 2015-16, while the average tax in East Dorset over the same period was £1,720, the second highest in England, and £1,756—the highest—in Weymouth and Portland. Although only tangential to tonight’s debate, I am not sure how many people living in the Weymouth borough realise that under the proposals in the consultation paper they would continue to have to pay at least £150 extra each year compared with other parts of rural Dorset.
There are many other elements of the proposals for change that have not yet been sufficiently revealed. The first is that no savings are assumed across adult social care, children’s services and education—the three upper-tier responsibilities that consume the most money. Nor has the motivation of those seeking a unitary solution been highlighted as wishing to squeeze out local discretionary services provided by district councils so that that income is available to supplement statutory services such as adult social care. Most crucially, the consultation document does not make it clear that option 1 is the most financially beneficial option—unless Christchurch and Weymouth and Portland pay extra for town councils for no additional service.
A document from Local Partnerships headed “Overall Summary without Town Councils” seems to have been suppressed. What it shows, however, is that over the six-year period from 2019-20, the difference between the amounts of council tax forgone in the unitary option for a medium conurbation is £8 million higher on the assumption that there is no town council than it would be with new town councils. That is the extent to which the people of Christchurch are subsidising this proposed project. The financial merit of no change is that each council continues to have the freedom to maximise its increases in council tax in line with Government rules, should it so wish. Having been so cruelly misled by the documents—and, incidentally, at roadshows and focus groups—my constituents cannot have any confidence in the objectivity of the consultation process. Any purported outcome will be invalidated by the inadequacy of the process, and the inherent prejudice and bias in it.
If Dorset councils remain keen to progress the idea of creating new unitaries in place of existing structures, they should launch a fresh consultation based on objective data and with assumptions that are transparent. The process should also enable every household to express its opinion, which happened when the Local Government Commission for England undertook a similar exercise in 1995.
About four months ago, I led an Adjournment debate on the issue of beach huts in Christchurch. As a result of that debate, councillors were lobbied very strongly by people living in the town, and the beach huts proposal was abandoned. I hope that as I have this evening drawn the attention of my constituents to the gravity of the current proposal, they will again lobby their councillors successfully to reject it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Christopher Chope) for securing this important debate on the proposals for reorganising the governance of Dorset. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue. My hon. Friend’s interest in these matters is well known. I recognise his long experience of local government and his ministerial experience: back in the 1980s, he was a Minister in a Department that was a predecessor of mine.
Let me say at the outset that what Dorset councils are doing is exactly what councils should be doing. They are looking into how they can deliver better services to the towns, villages and people of Dorset, how they can provide stronger, more efficient and more effective leadership, and how they can generate significant savings to support frontline services. None of that is to say that we have concluded that any of the proposals on which the councils have consulted, and will consult further, are the right ones. What is right is that there should be consultations, discussions and analysis. The councils may then decide that it is right for them to submit a formal proposal for governance change to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his consideration.
At this point, I should add that the nine councils have already submitted a formal proposal to create a combined authority for the area. They would like it to be established by April 2017. They think that it would serve as an effective mechanism enabling them to intensify their collaboration in the provision of economic development, regeneration and transport services throughout their areas. We are considering the proposal, and expect to respond early in the new year.
All this is taking place against a wider canvas of significant change throughout local government. At a time of fiscal constraint, and as the demand for services such as adult care increases, the best of local government is showing how it can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of services as well as driving the economic growth on which the prosperity of places depends, and that is what Dorset councils are doing. The Government strongly believe that local government should be as efficient, effective, transparent and accountable as possible. The right approach to any reform of local government is bottom-up: that is how councils figure out what is right for their areas and come up with locally driven solutions. It is the approach that underpins the provisions that the House considered some 12 months ago in what is now the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, and it is the approach that we are following for the purposes of both devolution and governance changes.
Simon Hoare
Can my hon. Friend confirm that the responses from the councils, when they discuss the consultation and indeed the recommendations, do not have to be unanimous across all nine for a submission to be made to his Department, and can he also confirm—maybe this is rather good news—that unanimity does not need to be delivered between the MPs within the county as well?
Mr Jones
Technically, my hon. Friend is right, but our Department is absolutely clear that we want any reforms to be locally driven, and once a local area has its blueprint for any reforms we will listen carefully, and the Secretary of State will decide whether the reforms are acceptable to him.
There are discussions about local government reorganisation across the sector. These include discussions about moving to more unitary structures, as in Dorset, and recently a detailed proposal has been put forward from Buckinghamshire to transform into a single unitary authority. We have also seen the recent research published by the County Councils Network looking at aspects of reorganisation. It has published two reports, which will contribute to discussions and debate about local government reorganisation. These point out financial benefits and savings that it is suggested may be possible if councils choose to unitarise. These reports suggest a saving of between £2 billion and £3 billion over five years net of transition costs, if all 27 county councils became single unitary authorities.
Dorset has told us that the options it is discussing, which include a reduction in the number of local authorities through unitarisation, could generate substantial savings of at least £108 million in the first six years. We are clear that appropriate governance reforms, which is what we want to have, must have the potential to deliver significant benefits, but reform, and in particular reform to include unitarisation, is not always going to be right for every area. It may not be right for Dorset, and it may not be right in Buckinghamshire, and it is certainly not going to be compulsory or imposed where there is no support for it.
The Government remain 100% committed to being open to innovative bottom-up proposals that will improve local services, enhance accountability and deliver financial sustainability. We welcome local government pursuing and discussing these ideas, particularly when done, as in Dorset, collaboratively and constructively.
The assurance I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is that if Dorset does come forward with proposals we will consider them very carefully and fully. We will want to see evidence that any proposal submitted offers a better local service, greater value for money and stronger leadership, as well as putting in place a more financially sustainable structure and delivering significant savings.
Mr Chope
Will the Minister emphasise the importance of trying to achieve consensus, because there has been a lot of workplace bullying in Christchurch Council and we have seen, perhaps, elements of it in the Chamber this evening? Surely it is wrong that what may be a minority should be oppressed; surely it is important that minority views can be heard?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend, and in making my comments this evening I have made it clear these proposals must be bottom-up, not top-down, and we will certainly listen to views.
In concluding, I assure my hon. Friend once again that we will look very carefully at any proposal Dorset may or may not come up with. Once we receive it, we will study it and speak to those local authorities and to colleagues, because we are absolutely sure that proposals being brought forward should be valuable, but we are also sure that we need to be certain that they are right for local people.
Question put and agreed to.
Technical and Further Education Bill (Seventh sitting)
Thursday 1st December 2016
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Technical and Further Education Act 2017 View all Technical and Further Education Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 1 December 2016 - (1 Dec 2016)
The Chair
Members may remove their jackets during the sitting if they wish. Will everyone please ensure that all electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent mode? The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room. I remind Committee members that we will consider clauses and schedules in the order set out in the programme order, which has been previously agreed and is set out at the end of the amendment paper. We will start with clause 13, to which no amendments have been tabled.
Clause 13
Overview of Chapter
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bailey. The clause is the first in chapter 4, which deals with the regime at the heart of the insolvency measures in the Bill. In this chapter, we make provision for the special administration regime that will make sure that students attending further education bodies in England and Wales are protected should that body fail. Hon. Members will be aware that the regime has been broadly welcomed by all, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blackpool South for welcoming it previously. That is not to say that there are no points of concern for stakeholders, but I hope to address those as we work our way through the clauses.
The clause sets out the when, the who and the what of the regime, which will be formally known as education administration. First, the when: the regime can be used when
“a further education body is unable to pay its debts or is likely to become unable to pay its debts”—
in other words, when an FE body is insolvent, based on the well established definition in the Insolvency Act 2000. Secondly, the who: an education administrator can be appointed by the court only on the application of the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers, depending on where the FE body is based. Thirdly, the what: the education administrator will be responsible for managing the FE body’s
“affairs, business and property with a view to avoiding or minimising disruption to the studies of existing students.”
Each of those features is set out in more detail in subsequent clauses. I look forward to debating them with members of the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14
Objective of education administration
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 14, page 8, line 4, at end insert—
“(3) Before an education administrator may perform functions specified in subsection (2), they must ensure an appropriate assessment is made and published of the impact of performing such functions, including, but not restricted, to—
(a) the impact on the quality of education provided to existing students of the further education body;
(b) the capacity of another body or institution to undertake any additional functions or provide education to additional students;
(c) the infrastructure of the local area, in particular transport;
(d) any impact on the travel arrangements of students to another body or institution; and,
(e) any financial impact on those students or any such impact on their travel arrangements, and what measures need to be taken to mitigate them.
(4) The Secretary of State shall make regulations to specify suitable bodies for making the assessments at subsection (3).”.
This amendment would ensure that an appropriate assessment is made of any potential impacts on students and their education, if an education administrator puts a further education body into “special administration” and takes action such as transferring students to another institution or keeps an insolvent institution open for existing students. This amendment would also require the Secretary of State to specify suitable bodies to perform such assessments.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 2, in clause 14, page 8, line 4, at end insert—
“(3) The education administrator shall not make any decisions required by subsection (2) without consulting—
(a) existing students of the further education body;
(b) existing staff of the further education body
(c) all recognised trade unions at the further education body.”.
This amendment would ensure that all relevant stakeholders are fully consulted about decisions taken by the education administrator in respect of the future of the further education institution.
Gordon Marsden
Good morning, Mr Bailey. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. The Minister is right to say that we welcome the concept of the insolvency regime. We think it is necessary in the context that I talked about at the end of the last session, so we do not intend to oppose the principle of it in any shape or form. However, as the Minister has observed, we intend to probe—more sharply on some aspects than others.
If I may, Mr Bailey, I will speak to the two amendments we have tabled separately; although they are linked, they have rather different focuses and emphases. Amendment 1 aims to ensure that an appropriate assessment is made of any potential impacts on students and their education if an education administrator puts a further education body into special administration and takes action such as transferring students to another institution, or keeps an insolvent institution open for existing students. We recognise that the decision whether to transfer students to another institution or to keep an insolvent institution open for existing students is fraught with potential difficulty and will certainly demand great skill and finesse on the part of the education administrator. The Minister may wish to bear that in mind when we consider later Opposition amendments, which will probe him a little more on the nature, experience and qualifications of the education administrator.
The crux of the amendment relates to some of the matters we discussed when considering similar provisions in the Higher Education and Research Bill. The amendment would ensure that the entitlement that the Bill gives students to continue their education works in practice. We know that cases of colleges failing or other crises have arisen both in FE and in HE. I do not want to exaggerate those issues, because I take on board the points made by the Association of Colleges and other college organisations that the vast majority of FE colleges conduct their affairs in a very wholesome and satisfactory fashion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North has mentioned previously.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Amendment 1 is very simple and I hope the Government will be minded to accept it in some form. Have we had any response, contribution or advice from the Association of Colleges or the Sixth Form Colleges Association? Do they broadly agree with the Government’s proposals? Are they agreeable to our amendment?
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend is right that we need to get support from those organisations. The AOC has raised particular issues relating to later Opposition amendments, such as amendment 34 to clause 15. Some of those concerns will be explored when we consider those amendments.
The ambitions of the special administration provisions are noble, but amendment 1 is intended to serve as a safeguard against any unintended consequences. As we know, even isolated incidents of colleges that hit the headlines can have a deleterious effect on the sector. The sector is in a delicate state at the moment—I will not put it any stronger than that—so if this provision is needed, we should do what we can to avoid problems with the impact on students and education.
As far as I understand it—I say that with due modesty, because some of this is quite technical—the education administrator will be given four options for supporting students to continue their education if their college becomes insolvent: selling assets to keep a college afloat; bringing in another body to take on functions of the college; transferring students to another college; and keeping the college
“going until existing students have completed their studies”.
That last phrase is rather ambiguous, and it would be good to hear the Minister’s thoughts on it. Whether in his response to the amendment or later this morning, it would be useful to hear whether there are any thoughts on the timeframe of that option.
All the options are sensible. I do not think that any member of the Committee would suggest that they should not be pursued by the education administrator if students’ education were put in jeopardy by insolvency, but there are questions about the finessing of those options, about which option the administrator thinks it best to pursue, and about the timeframes. Again, the Minister may want to say something about potential timeframes as we go along. Sometimes the education administrator might need to use more than one of those four options, perhaps at different points in the process. Our amendment addresses what that will mean for students in those different circumstances. To do that, we propose that an assessment be made of the impact of the administrator’s decision on students and the local community, enabling any negative impacts to be appropriately mitigated.
We are realistic. We know that sometimes difficult situations bubble up over a long period of time and there are amber warnings, but sometimes, because some of the problems have been concealed, they blow up very rapidly and hit the headlines. Ministers, the new institute or, indeed, the Skills Funding Agency may have to move swiftly in such circumstances. We understand that. We do not want this to become an over-bureaucratic, long-winded, time-consuming process, but we believe that a definitive assessment is needed somewhere in the process.
We have several concerns. If an administrator keeps a college going so that existing students can finish, for example, one can see the potential benefits for the students. While it will depend on the nature of their contract—the University and College Union and others have previously raised concerns that the FE sector is becoming a mélange of shorter term contracts—there will be lecturers and staff on contracts of significant duration, and it would be understandable, perhaps highly probable, that they would seek to leave. After all, the involvement of an education administrator is essentially a sign of a potentially failed college and that their employer, at least in the way that he, she or it employs them, will either close or change in the near future. Any exodus of staff in such circumstances could have untold impacts on the quality of education that students receive. We, and I am sure the students at such colleges, want to know what transitional measures are envisaged to maintain the delicate balance needed to protect the quality of education that students receive at a college that is being kept open on life support. That is option 1.
Option 2 is an administrator deciding to begin selling off college assets to address the insolvency issues, or just to keep the college afloat. What protections will there be so that resources that are integral to a learner’s studies will not be sold off? I understand that it is impossible to make an absolute judgment in every case on whether an administrator should do one or the other. It will obviously depend on the individual circumstances and assets and so on, but computers and ICT—I think “digital services” is the more up-to-date term—spring to mind. Often worth a significant sum, they may be an attractive asset that is easy to sell quickly for a good taking; on the other hand, selling them off could leave less equipment to share between the college’s remaining students, which would have a negative impact on their learning experience.
Additionally, the area reviews and mergers need to be thought about in great detail. In our evidence session I traded questions with the FE commissioner on the impact of that. He takes a more sanguine view of that process than the Committee and I do, but time will tell. What we know is that in circumstances where learners need to be transferred to another college—that does not necessarily mean that the whole body will close, as someone suggested—the college building could continue but, for whatever reason, the students in a particular department or area are transferred to another college, possibly for economies of scale. It is not necessarily that one particular college is closed and absorbed into another.
Kelvin Hopkins
These events would be of great concern to students and staff alike if they happened, but we hope they will not and we will try to ensure that they do not. However, if there are to be changes, would it not be wise—or essential—to make sure they take place during the long summer vacation, so that they do not disrupt students in the middle of courses during in the academic year?
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend, as always, makes a good and practical point. I have two observations. One is that crises cannot always be managed and sometimes they blow up from nowhere. My other observation is that among the pressures on FE colleges these days is the fact that the long summer break is becoming less long. That is true for FE students as well as other students. However, my hon. Friend’s general point is absolutely right and needs to be taken into account.
There are plenty of questions to be answered for students. How close to their home and their old college would the new college or facility—it may not be a completely new college—be? How much more expensive and time consuming would it be to get there? We know that college students have to spend a considerable amount of money on travel and we know that the mechanisms for supporting them are highly variable, particularly with local authorities’ discretionary spending being cut to the bone in a range of areas. There is already a risk of making some education and courses inaccessible for the less well-off.
What financial support does the Minister envisage might be available to help such students to access education at a new institution if it turns out that the challenges are considerably greater? For example, would the new college have the capacity to respond to any influx of new students? As I have indicated, insolvency might result in some students finding themselves forced to travel longer distances to continue their studies, but there is no reference in the Bill to mechanisms by which they might be supported or compensated. I understand that that is not something that should necessarily go into the Bill, but while I appreciate that a lot of things must be worked out, it is a bit worrying that it seems that, even at this stage, not much thought is being given to some of these issues. If it is, I apologise.
Mergers between colleges can be harmful to the social fabric and social mobility, particularly for young people in rural and suburban areas, and might force them to travel 30 or 40 miles to college. I raised this point in Westminster Hall about a year ago with the Minister’s predecessor, who seemed to be somewhat miffed that I referred to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), being decidedly agnostic about the prospect of mergers. That was the case, however, and it was because the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency is very rural, so he has a lot of knowledge and concern about the issue.
We must make a distinction between the geographical situation when there is insolvency and the mechanisms to deal with it. For example, when two colleges merge in a suburban or rural setting, the implications for the ability to maintain courses, and thus viability, will be significant if issues such as travel loom large and make it impossible for existing students to go there or for future students to want to go there. Even in urban areas—parts of Greater Manchester, for example—public transport is not necessarily good. In my constituency, travelling west to east or east to west on public transport tends to be more difficult than going north to south. There is a range of concerns.
We have seen during the ongoing area review process that the Government have encouraged colleges either to merge or to close. The new FE commissioner said in evidence that provision at levels 1 and 2 in particular needs to be as local as possible to learners, whether in an urban or a rural area, but he accepted that if people do not have the wherewithal to travel, they will not be able to do so. Shakira Martin of the NUS said in the evidence session:
“It is also not clear how the Government will make sure that the education the student receives in the college is kept open and to a high-quality standard. For example, the area review process may have unintended impacts. There will be fewer colleges, further apart. How will travel costs and access”—
time is an issue as well, not simply cost—
“be addressed?”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 51, Q69.]
In evidence, Bev Robinson, the principal and chief executive of Blackpool and The Fylde College, who was a member of—[Interruption.]
Gordon Marsden
I was talking about how travel costs and access would be dealt with and I was about to quote the comments of a witness, Bev Robinson, the principal and chief executive of Blackpool and The Fylde College. She said:
“I would wish to make sure that learning within a reasonable travel-to-learn pattern was protected as well as students.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 51, Q70.]
I see nothing in the Bill about where the funding to support this process will come from, and Ministers have not said a great deal about it.
Research released in 2015 by the National Union of Students and the AOC showed that only 49% of further education students can always afford their travel costs. The average travel time for those surveyed was two hours and 48 minutes a day, for an average distance of 11 miles. Many young people—about 40%—rely on financial support from parents or guardians for travel costs. The problem is of course exacerbated by the lack of national funding schemes to get young people to college. Even the minority of councils that offered discounted travel for young people on a discretionary basis are now less likely to do so, following major Government cuts. The amendment would require those matters to be considered so that appropriate measures could be put in place, although such issues are difficult to legislate for and there are unknown consequential effects. Invoking education administration powers may affect students, but that is precisely the point of the amendment: it would ensure that whatever impacts the powers have in practice, they are assessed within the local circumstances of the college in which the powers are needed. That is an important part of the education administrator’s responsibilities.
If students have to travel longer distances to college, incurring higher costs, it strengthens our argument that education maintenance allowance should be reintroduced to help cover those expenses.
Kelvin Hopkins
My hon. Friend makes a very strong point. For poorer students travel to colleges is expensive even now, particularly in sparsely populated rural areas. The closure of a college in one town and having to go to a town many miles further on will cause great difficulty in financial terms and in terms of the time spent travelling and the reliability of public transport.
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend again makes a very good point. It underlines our concerns and why we think such issues need to be taken into account.
Amendment 2 is designed to ensure that, within the circumstances in which the process takes place, all relevant stakeholders are fully consulted about decisions taken by the education administrator in respect of the future of the institution. This touches on a theme not dissimilar to that which we discussed during the debates on schedule 1 to the Higher Education and Research Bill, where consultation with staff and students was a high priority.
The amendment would ensure that there is full consultation with various bodies or groups representing further education staff and students. Members of the Committee might ask, “Is this necessary? Surely the students and the student body are bound to be informed,” but I have to say—Members may have experience of this—that is supposed to be the case when businesses fail and companies go bust or when something cataclysmic happens, but often workers or employees are not kept in the loop. We should legislate for the worst scenarios and the worst employers, not for the best.
It is important that the education administrator should consider representations from relevant stakeholders such as students and staff, as they have invested two or three years of their time and money in studying and their livelihoods will depend on the institution in question. It is surely not too much to ask that the education administrator should have the responsibility placed on him or her to consider those representations, too.
The other group it is vital to consult are recognised trade unions at the further education body. The positive influence of unions on training and skills in the workplace and in colleges is another key reason why unions should be consulted. Research by Unionlearn has shown, as I have mentioned before, that the union effect on skills across the whole economy is significant and has strengthened in recent years. I am obviously referring to the training that goes on at work, but often the trade union representatives who operate in a college will be either union learning reps themselves or closely associated with union learning reps. That point needs to be made. On the union learning fund, an independent evaluation has demonstrated a range of new findings about the positive impact of union learning for both employers and employees. That also has a bearing on the necessity and advisability of consulting the recognised trade unions at the further education college in question.
I will finish with those remarks, but I ask that the Minister gives some thought to both amendments. These are things that should happen, and by making the amendments we would ensure that they do happen.
Robert Halfon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful amendments. I will comment on a few of the points he made, then go into the substance of the amendments.
The hon. Gentleman will know that the AOC, the Sixth Form Colleges Association and the Collab Group work closely with the Government and will continue to do so as we develop secondary legislation to address their concerns. On trade unions, I will come on to the general point about consultation, but first let me quote the TUC:
“Whilst the TUC continues to express concerns about the financial pressures colleges are facing due to the major cuts to the sector…we do welcome the new safeguards that will enable students to complete their courses in the event of a college becoming insolvent.”
In addition, we have committed £12 million to Unionlearn.
The hon. Gentleman asked where the funding was coming from. Crucially, clause 25 states that the Secretary of State will have the power to fund special administration as long as the funding is for the purpose of achieving a special objective through either a grant or a loan, and the decision on funding will obviously be taken on a case-by-case basis. The whole purpose of the education administrator is to speed things up. If we look at this in a general context, at the moment there is no protection; there is nothing. We are creating a protection regime for students with the purpose of ensuring that the education administrator acts quickly.
The hon. Gentleman talked about an exodus of staff. If colleges reach such a situation, it is likely that there will have been some kind of intervention, perhaps by the FE commissioner, way in advance. I do not think that would suddenly come about just because of the insolvency regime. All staff will be subject to statutory legislation on terms of employment and so on. That is worth noting. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution.
I am talking as though these circumstances will arise regularly. They will not. The whole purpose of the SAR is, as I said last week, to be an insurance against the worst possible outcome, which I think, given what is happening with the area reviews, will be very rare indeed.
Gordon Marsden
I understand that this will have to be done on a case-by-case basis, but has the amount of money that might be needed in a calendar year to deal with this been assessed? Obviously, it will have to be agreed with the Treasury. The Minister says he does not think this scenario is likely, given the area reviews. I hope he is right, but I am very conscious that the FE commissioner said the number of colleges that may merge on this basis might be in the 80s. Surely there might be problems with at least some of those, and surely that should have been taken into account.
Robert Halfon
There is a substantial restructuring fund, which I believe is about £756 million. As I say, funding of a SAR has to be done on a case-by-case basis because every case will be completely different. It will be up to the education administrator to decide how to proceed. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the different options.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Before I make my comment, I thank the Minister for his letter this morning on the Careers & Enterprise Company. I was grateful to receive it and I thank him for sending it in such a timely fashion. I have been monitoring the situation locally, and if things work, I will be encouraging other sixth-form departments in schools to get involved, because some schools are not doing so.
The Minister says that the measure will speed things up, but there is one thing on which I could do with some clarification. Clause 23 relates to transfer schemes. The explanatory notes say that:
“Such schemes can be used to override some third party rights, e.g. transferring a lease without the landlord’s consent”.
I want to double-check something. If that were to happen with Kirklees Council and someone wanted to take back a building, that could lead to some sort of legal dispute. Would that not hold up the transfer of the students to another college and the process of their learning?
Robert Halfon
Will the hon. Lady allow me to think about that example? We will consider transfer schemes in detail later, but I do not think the issue she highlights would arise. The transfer schemes are particularly about looking after the students and establishing who the provider is if the existing college management are no longer looking after the students. There might be a different provider, but we will come on to that point later in our consideration.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Is not the point, as we heard in the evidence from the banks, that some banks may take a view that they should realise their security? The provision allows for learners to be prioritised in any transfer or land, property and so on, so that that is to their interests. They should come first.
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend has it exactly right. He asked that question in our evidence sessions, and one of the banks said, “No, our whole purpose is to act in the interest of the lenders.” The whole purpose of this provision, however, is to act in the students’ interest. Creditors will get a fair deal, but one that is in the interest of students.
I will come on to transfer schemes in a minute. The area review mergers are different, but it is important to quote Richard Atkins, the FE Commissioner, from the evidence session. He said:
“Mergers do not necessarily mean the closure of sites, so they do not mean the end of provision for students locally. Clearly, in rural areas, for example, the history of the sector has been that provision has not gone even when there have been mergers. When Truro and Penwith came together, that did not end provision in Penzance. In fact, it regenerated the provision in Penzance to a higher standard. You can see that across the country.”
I accept he is talking about area reviews, but he went on to say:
“The idea that you close provision down in a particular district, borough or town is not something I would be in favour of at all. I would be looking for merger solutions that bring together back-room services, avoid duplication and so on.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 26, Q34.]
This will not always be the case, but it is important to say that a merger does not necessarily mean the closure of provision in an area.
Gordon Marsden
I entirely accept what the Minister has just said, but at the risk of over-stressing the point, decisions about transferring students can affect the closure of courses. The closure of courses is not necessarily the same as closing a site, but it can have a deleterious effect on an area. One can think of a college where lots of people are doing accountancy and that course becomes no longer available in that town, even though the college is still going to be there. That is the only point I want to make. The issue is broader than simply saying, “You either close the college or you don’t.” There is a suite of potential impacts there.
Robert Halfon
I accept that completely, but I was just trying to again make the point that currently if a college has financial difficulties, it can close a particular bit of provision and no one has any guarantees whatever. This measure will change that.
On the transfer schemes, it is important to talk about the statutory duties. We all know that under the Education Act 1996, the Secretary of State has a general duty to promote education and exercise his or her powers
“with a view to…improving standards, encouraging diversity and increasing opportunities for choice.”
Local authorities have a duty to ensure that their areas have sufficient education and training provision. They also have a duty to publish a transport statement setting out what arrangements they consider necessary to support young people to access education or training.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned education maintenance allowance. We took the view that we want to give funds to those who most need it, and the problem with the education maintenance allowance was that it went to everyone. It was paid to 45% of all 16 to 18-year-olds in further education and it was not income-related, which is why we introduced the 16-to-19 bursary fund.
Gordon Marsden
I hesitate to cross swords with the Minister but I think that is factually not entirely correct. The education maintenance allowance came in at least two—I think were three—different tiers. The top tier, which from memory was about £30 a week, was specifically focused in many cases on travel. I do not wish to move outside of the scope of the amendment, Mr Bailey, but it is important to make this point: subsequent assessments of the impact on students who had had it taken away showed significantly that the travel aspect of the different elements was most well regarded. I am not here to open up a debate about EMA—we have given our points of view—but it is important for the Minister to take those points on board.
Robert Halfon
I do, but an independent evaluation found that only about one in 10 of those who received EMA said that they would not be able to participate without it. That is why we introduced the 16-to-19 bursary fund—to ensure that the money goes to those who need it—which amounts to £177 million for 2015-16. That is why, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I campaigned successfully with the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for free school meals for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in FE colleges. The Government are spending £39 million on that. That is separate from the £500 million that is given to the FE sector to spend on what FE bodies like, but primarily for helping the disadvantaged. The Government are doing everything that they can to ensure that those in need are getting the right support.
Let me move on to the substance of the amendment. We want to be sure that, as far as possible, if their college finds itself in financial distress students are able to continue their studies with little or no disruption. The clause does that by setting out the overarching objective for the education administration: to “avoid or minimise disruption” to the students.
The hon. Member for Blackpool South noted that the special objective can be achieved in a number of ways, and we do not believe that one size fits all. It could be done by rescuing the body as a going concern, with a new principal and governors if necessary; by merging with another body, perhaps another college nearby; by keeping the college open to teach out the existing students; or by arranging for students to transfer to another college to complete their studies. That list is not exhaustive, nor is it intended to be prescriptive. There may be other options, and those are not intended to be mutually exclusive. Occasionally some students might be transferred to another college and others taught out. It will be for the education administrator to decide what is best, based on the circumstances of each case.
I appreciate the suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman, but I assure him that it is inconceivable that the education administrator would take decisions on how the special objective would be met without first having had conversations with a wide range of stakeholders. Let me be clear: I and the Government would expect, in an appropriate case, the education administrator to liaise with the FE commissioner—that view was shared by the FE commissioner last week in his evidence—who might be able to advise the education administrator whom they should be speaking to in addition to staff, students, local authorities and the other providers. We would expect that the EA, in seeking to fulfil the special objective to avoid or minimise disruption to students’ studies, would seek to satisfy themselves that, as far as possible, the quality of the education or training that students have been receiving at the college is maintained. That may be achieved by transferring students to another provider or by continuing to teach them in the FE body until they complete their courses.
We expect the education administrator to take travel distances into account when considering the transfer of students to another provider, on the basis that the special objective is about avoiding or minimising disruption to the studies of existing students. Where possible he may choose to take into account the generally used guideline of travel for learners of no more than 75 minutes to and from their place of study, even though the FE commissioner observed to the Committee that some—not all; not those who are not able to—learners are happy to travel considerable distances for the right provision.
I understand the concerns that amendment 1 seeks to address in relation to additional transport-related costs for students in the event that they are transferred to another body. For those who are transferred, there may be scope for the EA to set up a scheme to cover some or more of the additional travel costs from any funding provided by the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers, as I highlighted a moment ago in terms of clause 25. Although there is no obligation on FE bodies to provide student transport, it is open for them to use the resources that are available to best support their students because, as I mentioned, disadvantage funding is not ring-fenced. Where students attract such funding, FE bodies can decide upon the most appropriate offer for their students. Often they do give those students free transport.
The education administrator will want to be sure that in deciding the right option for dealing with the particular body in insolvency, they have assessed a wide range of factors, including those set out in the amendment, calling on advice and input as necessary from those best placed to help. It is therefore unnecessary for the Secretary of State to make regulations to specify “suitable bodies” for making the assessments described in the hon. Gentleman’s amendment.
We are keen to strike the balance between a fair and thorough process that generates well thought through conclusions, and a system that is not so rigid that it ends up working against the interests of students by being drawn out and cumbersome. The hon. Gentleman observed that himself. The longer it takes to end the education administration, the longer students face uncertainty and possible disruption. The number of FE bodies and their different circumstances mean that there would be no single solution in the event of an insolvency, and the education administrator needs the flexibility to be able to do what is right in the circumstances.
As the hon. Member for Batley and Spen said in the evidence session on 22 November, we need to give students certainty about what will happen as quickly as possible; that is as much true for the staff, and for the creditors. Of course, if students, or anyone else, are unhappy with the EA’s actions, they can bring their concerns to the attention of the Secretary of State, or the Welsh Ministers, who have the power to be able to challenge the education administrator through the courts if the EA is not carrying out their functions for the purposes of achieving the special objective or the objective relating to the creditors.
I recognise the intention behind the amendments and believe that, as much as possible, the Bill covers the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I hope that he is reassured enough to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I am grateful to the Minister for the detail that he has gone into. It is particularly useful that he made the point about there being scope for the EA to get supplementary funding in certain circumstances. That is welcome. We may want to look again at this issue on Report, but at the moment I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Education administration order
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 34, in clause 15, page 8, line 11, at end insert
“and has relevant experience and knowledge of the further education sector.”
To ensure that the education administrator has experience and knowledge of the further education sector so that decisions made are not exclusively in the context of insolvency and takes into account the needs of students.
I am pleased to move the amendment, because it enables us—I hope in a positive fashion—to probe further about the important role of the education administrator. As I said earlier, and notwithstanding what the Minister has said about the general welcome that the Association of Colleges and other bodies have given to these provisions, the association is keen to probe further in this area, and we have taken many of its points on board in drafting the amendment. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure so far as possible that the education administrator has experience and knowledge of the further education sector—that may sound like a no-brainer, but we nevertheless need to make the point—so decisions are not made exclusively in the context of insolvency but take into account the needs of students.
This is not a criticism, but the first time I went through the Bill in detail, I was conscious that there would inevitably be a tension—a creative one, I hope—between a traditional insolvency process and the needs of students. The Minister has rightly emphasised firmly that students will be the priority, but the devil is in the detail and there are sometimes even more devils in the process, as was interestingly illustrated in our evidence session with the representatives of the banks. The hon. Member for North East Hampshire pressed them on this point, but I also saw it from the other point of view. There will always be that tension, because although the education administrator has a primary responsibility, he or she has dual responsibilities. Other clauses make that clear, so we will come to it when we look at those.
The Government foresee that this regime will be used rarely. It was helpful to have Mr Harris from Ernst and Young at the evidence session, because he had specific experience in other sectors, including energy, health and railways. The Association of Colleges points out that the idea of protecting
“a public service while creating a financial framework to govern the independent organisations that provide them”
is not entirely new and can be summarised as:
“the service continues; the service provider may not.”
The AOC wants to emphasise, as both the Minister and I have referred to, that the
“vast majority of colleges have strong governance, professional management and sound finances”,
but the fact is—we will not go into the detail or cross swords about this again today—that
“the sector is under increasing financial pressure mainly as a result of government spending cuts, and questions remain over where responsibility in this area lies.”
The association also notes that the Bill will give
“the Secretary of State the power to appoint a special administrator who will have duties not just towards the college’s creditors (banks, Local Government Pension Scheme, staff and suppliers) but also a duty to avoid or minimize disruption to the studies of existing students as a whole.”
As I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—the education administrator is required to be an insolvency practitioner, yet there is a tension, as I have mentioned, because a critical part of their role is to protect student interests rather than simply those of financial creditors. It is therefore essential that the criteria for appointing the EA include experience and knowledge of education administration, so that they can make decisions in the context strongly of an educational institution with the needs of students at the forefront. It would therefore be worth clarifying the criteria for when an EA is appointed and whether a specific action will trigger that.
With the amendment, we are also probing what the relationship between the education administrator and the further education commissioner will be. The Bill does not make clear what interaction there will be between the EA and the FE commissioner, who will intervene or at what point, although I accept that the Minister has already alluded to the circumstances in which the FE commissioner might become involved. Although we recognise that FE commissioner is not a statutory post, it might be useful to have more clarification—not necessarily today, but in a guidance document or whatever at some point—of what the relationship will be and at what point interactions between the two post holders will take place.
It is worth emphasising that Bev Robinson, who as well as being a principal served on the Sainsbury panel, said in the evidence session:
“I welcome the idea of an education administrator with hopefully an FE background”—
we can interpret “FE background” as we wish—
“but it might benefit from having clarity around the different roles of the different people in play—for example, the FE commissioner: how that would work.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 51, Q70.]
I have made the more general point about the plethora of organisations in this area and referred to it perhaps slightly unkindly as an alphabet soup—that is what it sometimes looks like—in the context of the creation of the new institute, but even if we leave aside the new institute, there is already a complex landscape for financial oversight. There are currently four different Government bodies with that role. They are the Education Funding Agency, the Skills Funding Agency, the FE commissioner and the transaction unit. All those bodies, I am assured, report to the joint SFA-EFA chief executive, who is at present Peter Lauener, but they all use differing measures of financial performance. That is, to put it mildly, an aspect of inconsistency, which I and the AOC believe will need to be resolved by 2018, because it is likely that if that complexity continues—I am thinking particularly of the issues with differing measures of financial performance—it could slow down the investment and other decisions that the education administrator might need to make in the event of insolvency and, as I think both the Minister and I have agreed, in circumstances whose urgency will vary considerably.
I am interested in what further the Minister has to offer us in terms of how experience and knowledge of the sector is to be gained. Perhaps he will also, if he is able to at this stage, comment on the relationship between the administrator and the FE commissioner and the issues that I have raised about the landscape for financial oversight.
Robert Halfon
I again thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and his thoughtful amendment. I not only understand the concerns but, when looking at the Bill in the early stages, asked those questions myself. I hope that I can reassure him. I will answer some parts of what he said and then go into the substance, if I may.
On a point of clarification, it will be for the Secretary of State or the Welsh Minister to decide whether to apply for an education administration order, but they can do so only if the FE body is insolvent in accordance with the definition in clause 17—if it is unable or unlikely to pay the debt. It does not happen automatically.
The hon. Member for Blackpool South will know that insolvency practitioners are very qualified individuals—usually accountants or insolvency specialists. Practitioners with experience in FE and education do exist; I met one only a few days ago who happens to work for the Skills Funding Agency, to talk through these very issues. However, we must make it clear that according to the laws of insolvency, only insolvency practitioners can legally act as office holders in insolvency proceedings—liquidators, administrators and administrative receivers of companies. They are regulated through the Insolvency Act 1986.
The key qualification of the insolvency practitioner to deal with an insolvent college is their expertise with respect to a business or non-profit-making organisation that is insolvent. There are special administrative regimes in other areas such as utilities and the postal service. In addition, they can draw on the knowledge of the governors and staff at the college, and the wider sector. As I said in a previous debate, it is possible—it is most likely—that the insolvent college will have undergone a period of intervention before becoming insolvent, so the education administrator will also be able to consult the Further Education Commissioner. I repeat—I want it to be clear—that we would expect, in an appropriate case, the Education Minister to liaise with the FE Commissioner.
It has also been said that it is inconceivable that the education administrator would take decisions on how to meet the special objective without first having conversations with the range of key stakeholders. Mention has been made of Mr Harris’s evidence to the Committee. He said:
“From an insolvency practitioner’s perspective, it is worth standing back and recognising that insolvency practitioners are not train drivers, or people who spend their life in the railway or the London Underground, when it comes to a special administration regime, nor are they specialist property developers. They come to each situation afresh. One comforting thing that insolvency practitioners bring is recognising when they need to keep in place the existing management structure in a corporate sense, or the workforce in a pastoral sense, recognising that those people have skills and qualifications that they as an office holder do not necessarily have, and also recognising that they can bring outside specialist help to continuing the duties of education administrator, should the need arise. That is all part and parcel of any trading insolvency regime, and I would imagine that any office holder stepping into the role of an education administrator would have that at the forefront of their mind. I do not think it presents a unique challenge; it is very similar to all the other special administration roles. There is an extra dynamic—there is a pastoral element.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 46, Q60.]
Of course, as Stephen Harris pointed out, when an institution is insolvent, there is a critical need for someone who understands and can deploy the tools necessary to ensure that the education administration is properly managed. Given what I have told the Committee, we expect that that is exactly how the education administrator will operate. Many insolvency practitioners come from big companies that have huge amounts of expertise in a range of fields, including education. The leadership team of the FE body would be in place to provide support on the day-to-day running of the college and information to assist the education administrator in his task of achieving the special objective. So would the Further Education Commissioner and Sixth Form College Commissioner and their teams, and officials in the Department for Education. That is how the interaction between the various bodies highlighted by the hon. Gentleman works.
Of course, the education administrator will be free to seek advice from any other source, but I think that introducing unnecessary requirements as to the appointment of an education administrator would limit the pool of insolvency practitioners from which we could draw, in the event that we needed to use the special administrative regime.
Mr Jayawardena
The Minister is making a very important point. Does he agree that the arguments the hon. Member for Blackpool South outlined earlier about the complexity of such insolvency regimes and the unwinding, possibly, of certain troubles that FE colleges might get into—on rare occasions, as the Minister said—is actually the reason why it is important that insolvency practitioners are the people appointed to deal with these situations, because they are aware of how to deal with these complexities?
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend is exactly right, but the crucial thing—I must mention this at almost every opportunity—is that it is unlike when I have seen receivers come in in my constituency who just care about the creditors. If I may just speak personally for a moment, I remember being in a hotel with the staff, some of whom lived on the premises, and the receiver literally said they had to leave on that day, when they had lived there for a long time. This situation is completely different. The whole purpose of this measure is that that kind of individual will not be involved. There will be somebody who has to fulfil the special objective of protecting the students.
Gordon Marsden
I accept that, and for the avoidance of any doubt, and with respect to what the hon. Member for North East Hampshire has just said, I did not at any stage query the fact that it would need to be an insolvency practitioner. The Minister is saying some reassuring things. The only point I would gently make to him is that there is a difference between saying that someone has to acquire a set of skills that might be tested by some mechanism or other, and having a sense of—I think Stephen Harris talked about a “pastoral element”; perhaps I would have said “empathy”, which is possibly the same thing. I am sure that aspect has given the AOC some pause for thought, because I do not know—perhaps the Minister does—how many insolvency experts have the admirable background of the gentleman he met.
Robert Halfon
The gentleman I met has a direct background, but as Stephen Harris said, that is not necessarily a requirement. However, it is inconceivable that the individuals involved will not have access or that they will not be working with all the relevant institutions. Having said that, they have to be first and foremost an insolvency practitioner, according to the law, but with the special objective.
Given that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman is more reassured and will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
We have had a helpful exchange and it has been useful to probe on this issue and in particular the relationship with the Education Funding Agency. The one point the Minister has not answered—I do not ask him to come back on it now, but it would be useful if he produced a note—is the point that I raised about the different measures of financial performance.
Robert Halfon
If the hon. Gentleman is happy for me to do that, I will. We will always require different information to test different issues, for different institution types or in different circumstances. There is a continuous improvement process for the systems and processes for identifying financial risk. The whole function of the area review process is to use it, where relevant, to review the financial management processes. I hope that answers his question some way.
Gordon Marsden
I am not entirely sure that it does, but I will not pursue the matter. However, these are technical issues and ones that I am sure the AOC and others may wish to take up with the Minister in a less formal capacity.
I am reassured by what the Minister has said today so far. The organisations may wish to probe further on some of the details, but I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 16 to 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22
General functions of education administrator
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 22, page 10, line 6, leave out “for the” and insert “with the primary”.
This amendment would ensure that the primary concern of the education administrator is the special education administration objective, that is minimising disruption to learners.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 4, in clause 22, page 10, line 7, leave out “(if possible)”.
This amendment would ensure that the primary concern of the education administrator is the special education administration objective, that is minimising disruption to learners.
Gordon Marsden
The amendments are again intended to probe the primary concern of the education administrator. They are relatively terse because they remove particular references and lines. Before I comment on them, I will make the point about why we are concerned and then talk about the broader issues.
Amendment 3 expresses our belief that it is important to say that the education administration objective is the primary purpose. The Minister has given strong indications, notwithstanding the nature of the education administrator’s position and background, but we think it is important to say that the primary concern should be the special education administration objective, minimising disruption to learners.
With regard to amendment 4, I have sat on a number of Delegated Legislation Committees and, to be honest, I do not think I have ever seen such a meandering and imprecise phrase in brackets as “if possible”. That could cover a multitude of sins. That is not the sort of draftsmanship that one normally expects to see in a Bill of this nature, and that, too, makes us concerned to ensure that the education administration objective is the primary concern.
This is not just an issue that concerns us. The Association of School and College Leaders raised a number of questions about the education administrator in its written evidence to the Committee. It states:
“The proposed mechanism itself gives rise to numerous concerns and uncertainties.”
It refers to the powers that have been transferred to the education administrator, such as whether he or she can
“dissolve a corporation established by Act of Parliament”.
We may touch on some of those points later. It goes on to raise the issue we discussed earlier with amendment 34 about the licensed insolvency practitioner. It also asks
“what lines of responsibility there would be during that period over matters such as safeguarding. If that were found to be inadequate, who would then have oversight…?”
Would that be the education administrator? If so, what would the implications be for the college in question?
The Government’s own consultation response document raised issues surrounding the need for further protection of learners. The House of Commons Library briefing reports:
“Of particular interest to respondents was the proposed introduction of the SAR, and the special objective that would require the education administrator to avoid or minimise disruption of the studies of the existing students, and ensure that it became unnecessary for the FE body to remain in education administration for that purpose. Although many respondents were supportive of the need and ‘ambition’ for the special objective, almost two-thirds questioned whether it sufficiently reflected the needs of learners and creditors.”
I assume that means the issue that the Minister and I have been discussing about where the balance is between those two separate processes. For example, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers stated in its response that the proposed SAR, in focusing on students as consumers, did not recognise
“the individual and societal benefits of further education”
or
“the instability and disruption to learners and their studies that they will inevitably experience as a result of their college going into administration.”
The Minister may disagree with those assessments, but they shine a light on the concerns among people who teach in colleges of this nature, so they are germane to the amendments that we have tabled.
Last week’s evidence session with the banks was particularly concerning in relation to the lack of information on finances and their ability to lend in future—hence some of the questions I asked.
Mr Jayawardena
I respect the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but he mentioned, in reference to subsection (2), a lack of clarity. Is it not true that the objective of education administration is set out very clearly in clause 14? It sets out that learners come first, ensuring that it becomes unnecessary wherever possible for the body to remain in education administration. However, on even rarer occasions it might be necessary for people to act in a different way in order to put learners first. That is what the Bill is trying to achieve.
Gordon Marsden
I know that is what the Bill is trying to achieve; the question that we are here to decide is whether the Bill, as drafted, actually achieves that. I do not want to trade clauses with the hon. Gentleman, so I will only say, as I have observed previously, that clauses 14 and 22, although they deal with different aspects of the functions of the education administrator, are somewhat ambiguous in that respect. I will not take up the Committee’s time, but I refer the hon. Gentleman to the explanatory notes to both clauses. He will see that there is some tension there, which is why we are probing in the way that we are.
We must take into account the pressures that the administrator will face. It was particularly interesting to hear what Richard Meddelton from Lloyds said. As we know, Lloyds is an extremely important player in the college funding world. He said:
“As a lender, the ranking—again, it is unclear at the moment—may well sit behind a creditor. In addition, as we interpret it, even as a secured creditor the security could be transferred into a separate entity.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 41-42, Q48.]
Richard Robinson said:
“The issue is that it does not specify where that ranking lies. That, for us, is very important. Although it could rank at the back, it could also rank ahead of us.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 48, Q65.]
Gordon Marsden
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish the quotation, I will happily let him intervene.
Richard Meddelton went on to say that
“under the current system if we have security, we have priority. The reality is that we have viewed it as quasi-Government because in the past—obviously the past is no prediction of the future—that money has been forthcoming”.––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 42, Q49.]
The banks have concerns about how the insolvency framework will work for them in financial terms. That will inevitably affect what the education administrator can do to fulfil the broader function that the Minister made.
Mr Jayawardena
I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of the evidence we heard. Again, as we are discussing Lloyds, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Did Lloyds not also say, though, that at the moment they are not necessarily able to say that they would protect learners first, so in that respect this is a good thing for learners? However, the other banks, particularly Santander, said that the certainty would allow them to lend more. One bank does not necessarily speak for all.
Gordon Marsden
I accept that. I would only observe that Lloyds, as we know, is a particularly large and extremely important lender to colleges.
To sum up, although I will refer to these issues in relation to future amendments, we want to hear more detail on them from the Minister. On that point, I will conclude my remarks.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(David Evennett.)
Technical and Further Education Bill (Eighth sitting)
Thursday 1st December 2016
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing amendment 4, in clause 22, page 10, line 7, leave out “(if possible)”.
This amendment would ensure that the primary concern of the education administrator is the special education administration objective, that is minimising disruption to learners.
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)
I will answer one or two of the questions asked by the hon. Member for Blackpool South. If I understood correctly, he was asking about safeguarding. I assure him that the statutory obligations that apply to colleges will transfer to the special administrator during the special administration period.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned one bank. To clarify, the chap from Santander, Gareth Jones, told the Committee in evidence:
“On the Bill and the proposed insolvency regime, we are actually supportive of the clarity that they provide.”
He also said that
“we are still…looking to grow our exposure to the sector and grow our lending book.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 38, Q41.]
Later, he said:
“From a risk perspective, when we assess the underlying risk of a transaction, there has always been that uncertainty and we have had to make assumptions in the background. If the Bill is passed, the certainty it will provide is positive for us.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 41, Q46.]
Different banks have different views on the issue.
Clause 5 and schedule 3 allow the education administrator to dissolve a statutory corporation if no property is left for the creditors’ book, which will usually be after students have had benefit protections from the special objective. The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a special provision in the Bill to protect students with special educational needs, which is important. The education administrator is additionally bound by the duties that apply to the college in relation to SEN students. There is no protection at the moment—nothing.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
This relates to the point we discussed earlier. It is not so much about cost as about distance. The Minister said earlier that the provisions currently allow students to transfer on the basis of up to 75 minutes’ travel time. This cannot be included in the Bill—we are all planning for the worst and hoping for the best—but it should be taken into account that if, for the sake of argument, a college with a significant number of SEN students goes insolvent, it might be possible to ensure that any transport provided is disability friendly. If a college with a relatively small number of SEN students goes insolvent and those students have to travel a fairly long way, it would create additional difficulties. I am not asking for anything to be put in the Bill, but I ask him to take that into account in the guidance notes.
Robert Halfon
I will reflect on that important point, but the Bill makes it clear that the administrator has to protect not only students, but special needs students. The administrator will be under the same obligations as the college in relation to the Equality Act 2010. That is an important part of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire said that clause 14 is one of the most important in the Bill. Clause 22 is equally important, and it should be considered not in isolation, but in conjunction with clause 14. It is the backbone of the special administrative regime and distinguishes it from ordinary administrative processes. While clause 14 enshrines the overriding purpose of the special administrative regime—the protection of students through the special objective—clause 22 gives the education administrator the power to manage the FE body’s affairs, business and property, and it places a requirement on the education administrator to carry out their functions for the purpose of achieving that objective.
Clause 14 makes it clear that student protection is the primary purpose of the special administrative regime. Reading clauses 14 and 22 together makes it clear that the education administrator’s primary purpose is to achieve the special objective. I hope that explanation reassures the hon. Member for Blackpool South and that he will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks and for our short exchange on the situation for SEN students. I am particularly grateful to him for emphasising the relationship between clauses 14 and 22. It is important that he has stated in Committee the primary purpose of the education administrator; if in future there are any doubts or concerns about the interpretation of the clause, that will be an important point. I thank him for his response and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 22, page 10, line 7, at end insert—
“(2A) The education administrator may, in performing his or her functions for the purpose of achieving the objective of the education administration, request information, advice or guidance from practitioners with an understanding of education regarding the management of a further education body.”.
This amendment would allow an education administrator who, under the eligibility outlined in clause 15, might not necessarily be an education specialist to supplement his or her knowledge.
The amendment pursues an issue that we have already discussed, but in the context of the experience or knowledge of higher education that the education administrator will need. The Minister and I had a useful exchange about the capacity of the education administrator to reach out, either within an organisation or peripherally to it. The amendment would allow an education administrator who meets the eligibility guidelines outlined in clause 15, but might not necessarily be an education specialist, to supplement his or her knowledge.
Our friends in the National Union of Students were particularly anxious for the amendment to be tabled, and we have taken their points on board. As the Minister will know, the NUS has welcomed the provisions that relate to insolvency, but it, too, is nervous—well, “nervous” is perhaps the wrong word, but it is certainly concerned. It believes that the process should be underlined as strongly as possible and that, in the twists and turns of what will inevitably be a fraught and taut process for all concerned, the administrator should be able to take further advice, even if he or she has some past experience. The amendment would make it clear that the educational administrator may seek that advice.
The Bill does not require the person appointed to deal with the college’s insolvency to know anything about colleges or the FE sector; under clause 15, they need only be an insolvency practitioner. We do not dissent from that, because we have already had a conversation about it and we are entirely reassured by the points that the Minister has made. However, the education administrator will have substantial powers over the future of an education body and its students, and indeed over the education body’s management, as clause 22(1) sets out.
Bearing in mind that the period of time for which they might have to manage the FE body’s affairs will be somewhat elastic, it would seem sensible to ensure that the administrator can get advice from people who actually know how to run an FE body. Better still, obviously, would be to have an administrator who was either very close to or within the FE sector. That was the intention behind amendment 34. After all, the Bill is designed to recognise that context, which is why it includes the education objective and entitles learners to continue their studies. Amendment 5 would just ensure that the Bill makes that provision and allows the education administrator access to whatever information and advice they may need to fulfil their duties. I am sure that the Minister wishes that to be the case. We suggest that it is a fairly obvious point—the Association of Colleges and the NUS think so—but it is not obvious in the Bill currently.
Without straying beyond the narrow lines of the amendment, I merely say to the Minister that there are many options for practitioners who could be called upon with an understanding of further education management. That could include chairmen or governors of FE bodies, former FE commissioners, or perhaps even retired people from those areas or from awarding bodies. Will the Minister give us some further details about whom he imagines an education administrator might wish to consult? Whatever avenue he wants to go down to assure us in that respect, it is important that the administrator has the advice of experts to make the correct call.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I will be very brief. I support my hon. Friend. One of the problems for the FE sector and, even more, for sixth-form colleges is that the whole sector has been bedevilled by decisions being made by people who are unfamiliar with those sectors. Many people involved in politics have come through a school or university environment; they have not been through further education. Many areas do not have sixth-form colleges, so people are not quite sure what they are. It is important that we have people with knowledge of the sector—educationally and organisationally —to make judgments on these matters. I just wanted to support my hon. Friend with those few words.
Robert Halfon
I appreciate the amendment. I raised these issues in the previous sitting. I go back to the quotation from Stephen Harris, the insolvency expert, who said that
“it is worth standing back and recognising that insolvency practitioners are not train drivers, or people who spend their life in the railway or the London Underground”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Bill Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 46, Q60.]
Those people are expert insolvency practitioners, but many have some kind of educational link or work for a company that has a good link with and expertise in education.
It would be inconceivable that any education administrator would not consult—I strongly expect them to—key stakeholders, particularly the FE commissioner, student bodies, governors, parents and any relevant sponsor or other stakeholder involved with an insolvent college. That is expected as a matter of course, but I will reflect on what the hon. Member for Blackpool South said. On those grounds, I hope that he is happy to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I have heard what the Minister has said and I will be happy to withdraw the amendment. I have just one observation at this stage, as we have had two or three conversations on these sorts of issues. He said he would reflect on the matter. He might want to reflect on whether it would be useful, for the assistance of all the bodies concerned, if at some point—ideally while the Bill is still in the House of Commons—we were to have broader guidance notes on some of the issues that we have raised today. It would therefore all be in one place from which those bodies could take comfort and reassurance. Having said that, I am more than happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 22, page 10, line 10, leave out “have special educational needs” and insert—
“(a) have special educational needs;
(b) are care leavers;
(c) are parents;
(d) are carers, carers of children, or young carers, as defined by the Care Act 2014; and,
(e) have other particular needs that may be determined by the appropriate national authority.”
This amendment would make provisions for the particular needs of additional groups of existing students to be considered by an education administrator in pursuing the objective of an education administration.
Having touched on the issues of special needs, we want to probe a little further and more broadly beyond what has been said. The Minister has already given strong assurances on the general issue of special educational needs, but he will be aware of particular circumstances affecting some categories of people who take the big step, given their experiences, of engaging with further education. I am sure that everyone would agree that we do not want those groups of people, in particular, to be disadvantaged, and we certainly do not want them to suffer more disadvantage than students ordinarily would in the circumstances.
I accept that lists can be invidious, but we feel that care leavers, parents, and
“carers, carers of children, or young carers, as defined by the Care Act 2014”
are three groups that may be particularly vulnerable to disruption in their studies, as we have discussed. The amendment is designed to signal to the administrator the importance of taking those groups into account.
Kelvin Hopkins
Earlier my hon. Friend made a point about distance of travel. Groups such as parents and those with caring responsibilities will definitely be affected by travel over longer distances. I am sure that he has that in mind.
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend is right. He has read not only my mind, but my postbag. Only half an hour before coming here I received an email from Unison, which raised some of those issues with respect to its members who fit into one or two of the categories in question. It made precisely that point about distance, which I was anxious to make in my exchange with the Minister about the education maintenance allowance. It was not simply about cost; it was also about time.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I have spent time with care leavers and foster families in Kirklees, and they are an incredibly vulnerable group of people with a lot of chaos in their lives. They are five times less likely to get five good GCSEs and eight times more likely to be excluded from school, and obviously they are less likely to go to university or, we assume, start an apprenticeship. They need extra support, and so do their families. Certainly, when they are moved around, which sometimes happens, they need extra support with transport and so on.
Gordon Marsden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for underlining that point and giving that practical example of a personal issue. Perhaps I can be forgiven for mentioning that the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), has herself strongly expressed how crucial further education was to her during her teens. She said on Second Reading that she would not have been there to present our view on the Bill had she not had that experience, when she was in that vulnerable situation as a teenager.
There are groups of people who must particularly be thought about in this context. We discussed care leavers on another occasion, and the difficulties that many of them face, but it seems particularly appropriate to discuss them again in the context of the amendment. In their apprenticeship funding proposals last month, the Government recognised that apprentices aged 19 to 24 who had previously been in care, or who had had a local authority education, health and care plan, might need extra support. The majority of respondents to their survey supported that—more than twice as many providers agreed with the proposal than disagreed. The Government have pledged in the proposals to give extra funding to employers who take on someone who was previously in care or had a local authority education, health and care plan. We applaud that as a good start, but it is important to think about legislating further and to guarantee that other necessary steps are taken to ensure that access and opportunity are available to care leavers.
Looked-after children often achieve less highly at GCSE, as my hon. Friends have noted, partly because they may have a chaotic family background or a history of abuse. The Special Educational Consortium stated in written evidence that young people who have a care plan at age 15 are more than twice as likely not to be in education, employment or training at 18. Barnardo’s said:
“These young people often leave school with few or no qualifications and need alternative options outside of the school environment if they are to achieve their potential. Some need provision that allows them to catch up on what they have missed. These young people also often want the option of practical-based learning that clearly links to a real job.”
While we are on the subject of care leavers, how does the Minister envisage the proposals to support apprentices, and the proposals that we would like to see taken on board more generally in respect of care leavers, linking up with the work done in the children’s services section of the Department for Education? In particular, what discussions has he had about the Bill with his hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson), or his officials? I have credited him before for the assiduousness with which that part of the Department introduced the responsibility up to the age of 25.
The amendment also includes parents and carers, who for numerous reasons might be particularly affected by changes to their study arrangements. They may have particular arrangements for their children or dependants that might not be addressed by simply transferring them to another college. What happens if the college to which they are transferred is not as near to their children’s school? What if the new institution’s timetabling disrupts routines for those they care for, or their ability to be there for their children? What if potential increases in travel costs negatively affect the carefully planned budgets of those with caring responsibilities, affecting both their access to education and the care that they can provide to their own children and loved ones?
There will be others with particular needs, which is why the amendment has flexibility built into it to accommodate them. For all those reasons, the education administrator’s decisions must be carefully thought through, so we feel that it is important to require the administrator to do so. I know that there is a school of thought that says any decent education administrator, given the background, qualifications, empathy and pastoral issues to which the Minister referred, would do so, but I do not think that it reflects doubt about the good intentions of particular people in particular circumstances to say that they might be beset by a series of difficult decisions and priorities, probably within a relatively constrained period of time. It does not indicate that people would not think about the groups concerned. It is important in that pressurised situation that they are reminded of the importance of those particular groups. That is the basis on which we have brought forward the amendment.
As my hon. Friends have said, those groups already face challenges and barriers to education that it can be difficult for others even to imagine. I can imagine some of it. That is not from the perspective of being a teacher or tutor in further education, but from my perspective of having been a part-time course tutor with the Open University for nearly 20 years. I do not think I had many care leavers, but I certainly had people who were carers and who came into other distinct categories. I marvelled at the determination with which they took forward their studies under some trying and difficult circumstances. I believe that our proposal is the right thing to do, and I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on whether the Bill needs to say rather more about the particular needs of these groups of students.
Robert Halfon
I am going to do the opposite to the hon. Gentleman: I will talk about the broad thrust and then answer the specific issues. I thank him again for his thoughtful contribution. I have already explained that we are introducing protection for students in the unlikely event that their college or provider becomes insolvent. The special objective will require the education administrator to take action to avoid or minimise disruption to their studies, by whatever means they consider appropriate.
However, the Government recognise that the education administrator might find it harder to find, or will need to think more carefully about, suitable alternative provision for those students with special educational needs, compared with the general student body. We do not want those students to be disproportionately affected by the exceptional event of college or provider insolvency, which is why we have placed a requirement on the education administrator —set out in clause 22(3)—to have particular regard to their needs.
We have had a lot of preliminary discussions about SEN students, because two thirds of care leavers are SEN students. We included provision for SEN in the Bill because of the particular difficulties such students face. There might be the need for specialist equipment or adaptations to teaching, or there might be a transport issue, and it is a requirement that the education administrator considers those in developing their proposals.
Robert Halfon
I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s points. If he wants to raise a different point, I am happy to answer it, but I ask him to have faith in me. I have tried to answer questions as much as I can all the way through.
The Chair
Order. I would be grateful if Members confined themselves to the established procedures for interventions, rather than carrying out conversations.
Robert Halfon
I need to set this important issue in context. We already make good special provision available for post-16 education. Care leavers are a priority group for access to the vulnerable student bursary, which provides financial assistance. Care leavers receive yearly bursaries of up to £1,200—it is pro rata for part-timers. As care leavers, their eligibility for that support will not change, even if they are transferred to another provider as part of a college insolvency.
Alongside the vulnerable student bursary is the 16 to 19 bursary fund, which I discussed earlier. It is a discretionary fund targeted at young people and allocated to schools, colleges and training providers, which make awards to students. It is up to the college to define eligibility criteria, because it will know the needs of its students best. It is targeted support at a local level.
I am pleased to say that the Government have changed the law to improve how young carers and their families are identified and supported. For the first time, young carers have the right to an assessment of their need, no matter who they care for, the type of care they provide or how often they provide it. The assessment will consider their educational needs and will not be affected in the scenario where the student has to transfer college providers.
In answer to the specific question about care leavers, as the hon. Member for Blackpool South has pointed out, at this stage we have not included the requirement for the education administrator to take account of the needs of care leavers. As I have said, it is an issue that I will reflect on seriously.
Gordon Marsden
The Minister has been very helpful, and I appreciate that, but before he concludes, I have a definitional question that I think relates to what he has been saying. Subsection (7) refers to “special educational provision” and subsection (6) refers to a student with “special educational needs”. I have heard everything he has said about young carers, but is it his understanding that young carers or care leavers would automatically come under those categories? I know this is a narrow point, but it is quite important, because it influences whether further definition is necessary in the Bill.
Robert Halfon
No. It applies only to what is classed in statutory terms as an SEN student. That is why I have acknowledged that college insolvency is disruptive, especially to SEN students and care leavers. By the way, I should say that it was very gracious of the hon. Gentleman to mention the apprentice funding to make sure that care leavers are employed as apprentices, which is something I care deeply about. I am glad that he acknowledged that funding.
I want more time to reflect on what more might be done in the context of a college insolvency, to ensure that the Government live up to their promise of being an effective corporate parent. I will reflect on that.
Gordon Marsden
I am grateful to the Minister for that and for his promise to reflect on this issue and on the catch-alls in the clause as drafted. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Gordon Marsden
Briefly, we have had some useful exchanges on the amendments, which I have been content to withdraw. I am broadly very pleased and satisfied with the points the Minister has made.
However, as I have said before, if this process—the Bill, the new institute, the new insolvency clauses—is to be a success, it is incumbent upon us to take as large a group of people from across the stakeholders with us as possible. I want to refer to a couple of issues that the Association of School and College Leaders and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers have raised in their written evidence. As the Minister knows, the ASCL in particular is quite critical of part 2 of the Bill because it thinks it is the result of rushed consultation. That is for others to judge, but the point it makes in its written evidence, which I would like a response to, is this:
“FE and sixth form colleges were created as exempt charities by Act of Parliament… As such college corporations cannot resolve to remove their charitable status. ASCL…is concerned that applying aspects of the Insolvency Act that applies to companies runs the risk of jeopardising that status. The Charities Commission does not appear on the list of those consulted…The primary duty of a corporation/governing body is to maintain the solvency of its college. Where it fails in that duty by negligence or worse, the Charities Commission has the power to investigate and bar governors/trustees from further service.”
If the Minister is able to, I would ask him to address that issue from the ASCL.
The AELP makes another point about the status of colleges. It believes that
“this reclassification should be reviewed by the ONS. This is not merely a technical point. Some colleges have reportedly used their current ‘independent’ status to resist Area Review proposals which is well within their right. However, when AELP has argued that the Government is using a form of state aid to assist colleges…we have been told by the SFA that colleges are ‘community assets’ which justifies the further injection of public funding. The insolvency measures in this Bill would…appear to place colleges very much back in the public sector.”
It says that this has become a “murky area”.
Those are two specific observations from two important stakeholders in the area. In the context of the clause, given everything else that we have been talking about in terms of the general function of the educational administrator, I would be grateful if the Minister would comment on those points.
Robert Halfon
I will give a brief response. The Charity Commission does not appear in the list of respondents because it did not submit a formal written response. However, we worked very closely with it during the development of the proposals in the Bill.
Charities that are companies and charitable incorporated organisations are all covered by insolvency legislation, and the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 regime for disqualification applies to those organisations. The Charity Commission has been fully supportive of the approach that we have taken and sees it as being in line with the approach taken for trustees of charitable companies and charitable incorporated organisations.
With regard to the AELP, the process of implementing a SAR would not automatically mean reclassification for an individual college, let alone the entire sector, because the Government would not be directly influencing the college’s corporate policy.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Transfer schemes
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 23, page 10, line 31, at end insert—
“(2) The education administrator may not transfer assets of any further education body to a private company where he or she considers that more than half of the funding of the acquisition of the asset came from public funds.”.
This amendment would ensure further education bodies with a track record of accruing assets publicly, could not be transferred to a private company.
We come to an amendment that is longer than the clause it seeks to amend. That might suggest that the amendment is otiose, but I do not think it is; I think the clause ought to have been expanded a little more— but then I would say that. I want to focus some attention, at a certain length, on this issue. On our side of the Committee, that raises some really big issues about what would happen to the transfer of assets from a further education body to a private company.
Information produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on the dissolution of an FE corporation specified that assets should be transferred only to charitable bodies:
“The Secretary of State and the CESF are concerned with the appropriate use of those capital assets that have been acquired/developed/redeveloped with public funding and the conditions for their transfer and usage…FE corporations are advised to undertake early discussions with the Skills Funding Agency to identify the relevant assets and any potential repayment of some, or all of the associated grant or proceeds of sale…The regulations include a requirement that the FE Corporation publish the proposed arrangements for the transfer of the property, rights and liabilities of the FE Corporation…The Dissolution of Further Education Corporations and Sixth Form Colleges Corporations (Prescribed Bodies) Regulations 2012”—
that would have been an interesting secondary legislation Committee to sit on—
“lists the bodies to which an FE Corporation can transfer its property rights and liabilities upon its dissolution. It is expected that all transfers should be made to charitable bodies, and for the purpose of education.”
It is on that point that I want to focus my remarks on the amendment. The document continues:
“Where the bodies are not charities then it must be transferred in accordance with the charitable purposes of the trust.”
It then links to a whole list of prescribed bodies to which assets could be transferred, including sixth-form colleges and governing bodies.
The point I start from is that to say it is “expected” that all transfers should be made to charitable bodies is not the same as saying it is “required”.
Kelvin Hopkins
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Is the stronger case not that such properties should be transferred back to local authorities? That is where the property came from in the first place.
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and possibly opens up a new area for policy discussion in certain political parties. The reality of the situation is that in practical terms most local authorities would struggle to take on those responsibilities at the moment, but he is absolutely right to make the point—I will expand on it—on the genesis of the assets.
Given the genesis of those assets and their development over the years, we need to look with extraordinary care at any circumstances in which they might go into the private sector. Incidentally, that does not necessarily mean that we are saying that the bona fides of the private sector potential acquirers are bad. We simply recognise the fact that it would be the transfer of something that is largely of public value into the private sector without taking any account of the genesis and development.
I want to explain why I think this issue is so important. When colleges were incorporated in 1992, it took them formally outside the aegis of local authorities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North said, but we have to take into account that that asset base of building in many cases was built up with local authority support and funding over a 20 or 30-year period.
The Minister has visited my local college, Blackpool and The Fylde College. I think he went to the Bispham campus, which is right at the other end of town and not in my constituency. When he arrived, the Bispham campus no doubt looked nice and shiny and new, but it did incorporate—I am not sure how much it still incorporates—buildings and elements that go right back to the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, when the Building Colleges for the Future process was taking place in the 2000s, that was one of the arguments for demolishing that building and relocating it in the centre of town. It did not happen for a variety of reasons. At the time I was rather annoyed that it did not happen, but nevertheless I am just illustrating the point that many of the buildings that we are talking about have accreted their estate either on an active financial basis or by the ceding of lands by local authorities and other organisations.
Apart from that, over the years since then large sums of public money have often gone directly to support and build the estates of FE colleges. In the 2000s, the then Labour Government brought forward the major programme of Building Colleges for the Future. Despite the fact that the programme was curtailed and certain places, including my own, missed out on the final stages, it was a commitment of literally hundreds of millions of pounds—other Members in the House got their completely new college and everything that went with it—and that is without taking account of the other areas of non-private sector funding. Sometimes that was through very complex relationships that might involve lottery-associated bids. Sometimes it was through the significant sums of money put in under the old regional development agencies. As I know well, having shadowed the regional growth funds in my previous portfolio, sometimes it was through regional growth fund developments, and sometimes there are offshoots of European structural funds. It is important to remember all of that.
Kelvin Hopkins
I strongly support my hon. Friend’s case. This is something that I am alarmed about. The reality was that, at incorporation, hundreds of thousands of acres and hundreds of buildings were transferred without charge from the local authority and incorporated in bodies that still seemed to be essentially in the public sector and were still largely funded by it—sixth-form colleges are entirely funded by the public sector. The idea that they could be sold off to speculators for profit, with development value acquired and millions of pounds made, is completely unacceptable. If anyone ought to have that asset, it is the public sector: either local authorities or a central Government Department. If they so choose to sell land off, at an appropriate value—if it has planning permission for housing or whatever—that development value should accrue to the public purse as well.
I have some experience and, as always, knowledge of what has been happening recently. Indeed, one college had a large area of land associated with it that had been a sports field that was still used for sports but was also a local leisure amenity. The principal wanted to sell that land off for housing development, making a vast amount of profit, and the implication was that he might have benefited personally. He was known to be assiduous in making sure his pocket was well filled. I think he managed to pay himself the highest salary of any college principal in the country even though his was not one of the largest colleges. Be that as it may, he eventually left in some disgrace and the college is now recovering, but selling off land for personal profit was a temptation that clearly affected him.
The principal was also building an academy chain by getting schools to become academies and then trying to get them into his ambit. It is interesting that two of the schools had land attached, and when, some way through the deal, it was decided that he could have the schools but not the associated land, he lost interest in getting them into his academy chain. It was clear that he was interested in the land associated with those schools, not in the education of the children, the success of schools or whatever. When big money is involved, college principals and others involved in college life can be tempted by the prospect of substantial personal financial gain. That has to be guarded against, and the way we do that is by ensuring that the assets stay in the public sector and that any benefit, financial or otherwise, accrues to the public sector.
The amendment therefore goes some way towards what I would like to see, and I will certainly support it should my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South press it to a vote, but I think we ought to go further and ensure that those kinds of practices cannot happen. We are talking about public assets, built up by the public sector over decades, if not scores of years or generations, and to see them simply handed over to private speculators without any benefit to the public sector is absolutely unacceptable.
We have to separate out capital assets from revenue costs. Revenue costs become too great if students disappear or the college is not being run efficiently and so on. We can deal with that. Capital assets, on the other hand, should be treated as precious and retained for the public sector and for public benefit; they should not be for the benefit of property speculators who could make millions, if not billions, out of such assets across the country, if allowed to do so.
With those few words, I express my strong support for the amendment. I hope that at some point the Government will recognise this issue so that we can go further and make the principles behind the amendment even stronger in legislation, whether in this Bill or in others.
Robert Halfon
I thank the Opposition for the amendment and the hon. Member for Luton North for his contribution. I will make a couple of general points before I go on to the specifics.
As has been observed, and I repeat, without the Bill there is no protection for students or from the seizure of college assets. The hon. Gentleman talked about hundreds of millions in government funding, but the general point is that college insolvency is likely to be a very rare event, so the portion of government assets that might transfer to a private sector company is likely to be small. The priority, as I say, has to be protecting students. Such a transfer is right if the education administrator is fulfilling his special objective and believes that it protects the students if he has the ability to do so.
On solvent dissolution, assets must go to a charity that has educational purposes. In insolvency in a special administrative regime, transfers go to bodies prescribed in regulations, all educational, which can include private education providers, or, as the hon. Gentlemen will be pleased to know, local authorities. As the FE Minister, I always have colleagues coming to me with suggestions about how the local authority might be involved with the FE college.
The Bill is not about private providers; it is about statutory bodies and companies that run designated FE institutions—that is, designated by the Secretary of State. For independent training providers offering provision to those with advanced learner loans, there must be a register of training organisations, they must have at least satisfactory financial health, they must pass capacity and capability requirements, and they have to have evidence of, and a track record in, education and skills delivery.
To go back to the question asked by the hon. Member for Batley and Spen, transfer schemes are a feature of other special administrative regimes. They allow for assets to be transferred to another body without the agreement of a third party which would otherwise be necessary—for example, leases without the consent of the landlord. That means that the scheme can be used to prevent a third party from blocking a transfer that is intended to facilitate the achievement of the special objective. The special administration regime’s delivery of the public policy objective—in this case the protection of students—should not be subject to third-party agreement. The education administrator will use a transfer scheme only if that is necessary to achieve the special objective.
It is important to note that the Secretary of State must approve any such scheme before it is used. Even if the education administrator does not use a transfer scheme, it is open to the Secretary of State to challenge the administrator if he or she feels that the administrator is not performing his or her duty to protect students.
Kelvin Hopkins
A thought occurs to me. If charitable organisations were brought into play, would it not be possible for assets to remain publicly owned but be allocated to such organisations on a rental basis rather than an ownership basis?
Robert Halfon
We are looking at cases of insolvency. We have the protection of students at heart, but we also want to be fair to creditors. I am passionate about the Bill because I believe it assures the protection of students, but I acknowledge that we have to be fair to creditors as well, and I do not think that would be the case if we did what the hon. Gentleman suggests, although in an ideal world that would of course be a lovely thing to be able to do.
The FE body itself cannot be sold. It is a statutory body. If it is insolvent and must therefore close, the protection of students must come first; the sale of the asset would be to protect students first and creditors second.
Gordon Marsden
I am listening carefully to the Minister. He has just said that the FE body cannot be sold and the assets must be dealt with in the way that he has described. The problem is that this is not necessarily a question of the FE body being sold. For the sake of argument, to take the example that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North used, there may be an asset with substantial land attached that was originally a public asset, and that could be disposed of as part and parcel of the process of trying to resolve an insolvency without that actually involving the dissolution of the FE body. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there is nothing in principle to stop that happening. In those circumstances, a part-asset could be transferred that was not the whole of the FE body but perhaps represented tens of millions of pounds of value.
Robert Halfon
The assets currently are not publicly owned; they are owned by the FE body, which has significant operational independence, and are for the educational purposes of the FE body. Valuable land that is sold in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes has to be sold for the purpose of the special objective. I am involved at the moment in a case where an institution wants to sell for housing land that is, in my view, meant to be for FE use. He probably knows the case. We are clear that that land is for the educational purposes of the students. That is our belief.
I have covered most of the hon. Gentleman’s points. I would not be so down on private providers; there are examples of good private providers. Let us take the example of SEN students, whom we talked about earlier. It may be better for those students if the education administrator were able to transfer the students and facilities to a private body if that was the only one available. That would minimise the disruption to them, and their studies could continue uninterrupted at the same location. Sometimes, to have the private sector involved is a good thing, as long as private organisations, as I say, are properly inspected and registered and have a good record of education. I hope that I have been able to assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be no haemorrhaging of publicly funded assets to the private sector and he will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Gordon Marsden
The Minister has been characteristically courteous. If I were able to take his reassurance as the end of the matter, I would, but unfortunately it is not the end of the matter. I will make a few brief points.
The Minister says that the proportion of public assets that might be disposed of to the private sector in the event of a college insolvency as a total is very small, percentage-wise. We could trade figures on what that percentage might be, but none of us knows. The fact of the matter is that it is about the area where that happens and the impact there. A college that has tens of millions of pounds’ worth of assets built up in a particular area and is crucial to the local community may be basically forwarded on to a private provider.
I accept what the Minister said; we are not saying that all private providers are bad or are leeches, but that is not the issue at stake. The issue at stake is whether private providers should be allowed automatically to take on valuable assets that have been accrued via the public sector in the event of an insolvency. The Minister said himself that it is not about private providers, but he also said that transfers could include private education providers.
In terms of real-life events, private providers are well equipped normally with lawyers and accountants. Who will monitor the detail of this? Will it be a slightly harassed education administrator? Will it be officials in the Minister’s Department? I doubt it.
Kelvin Hopkins
As a member of a local authority many years ago, I saw the representatives of a town shopping centre—an asset that was owned by the council but rented on a long-term basis—who were skilled financial advisers, run rings around the local authority treasurers, who just could not cope with the power ranged against them. We have to be very careful, because when big money is involved, companies will get the best brains to ensure they win.
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If it were not for the track record of problems in the FE sector over the past three to four years that I have described, we might be more sanguine, but this is a really important principle that should be established on the face of the Bill. I am afraid that on this occasion, I will not withdraw the amendment and will press it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Robert Halfon
I beg to move amendment 20, in schedule 3, page 33, line 4, leave out “and”.
This amendment and amendment 21 are intended to make it clear that, where the context requires, a reference to the director of a company in the insolvency legislation applied by Schedule 3 can be read as a reference to a person who is a member of the further education body or the principal of the relevant institution rather than both. The purpose of amendments 22 and 23, which relate to references to an officer of a company, is similar.
Robert Halfon
The amendments are minor and technical in nature, and are intended to address a minor drafting error relating to general modifications to the provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 related to the special administrative regime. These general modifications are set out in a table in paragraph 2 of schedule 3. Schedule 3 applies to further education bodies that are statutory corporations. Paragraph 2 makes general modifications to the provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 relating to administration to apply them to FE bodies in special administration.
The effect of the two modifications currently leads to uncertainty about which post the relevant person should hold or have held in order for the provision to apply to that person. The minor error we identified was that, in short, we have used “and” when we should have used “or”. In more detail, as drafted, the general modifications provide that “director” is to mean “(a) member…and (b) principal”. We want the director to be “(a) member…or (b) principal”, unless the context requires otherwise.
Similarly, as drafted, the modifications in the table provide that “officer” is to mean “(a) member…(b) clerk…(c) chief executive…and (d) any senior post holder”. We want “officer” to mean “(a) member…(b) clerk…(c) chief executive… or (d) any senior post holder”, unless the context requires otherwise. These are minor and technical amendments and I hope the Committee agrees to them.
I have always wanted to read an amendment like that. [Laughter.]
Amendment 20 agreed to.
Amendments made: 21, in schedule 3, page 33, line 6, at end insert “, or
(c) if the context requires, both of the above.”. |
See Member’s explanatory statement to amendment 20.
Amendment 22, in schedule 3, page 33, line 14, leave out “and”.
See Member’s explanatory statement to amendment 20.
Amendment 23, in schedule 3, page 33, line 17, at end insert “, or
(e) if the context requires, all of the above.”.—(Robert Halfon.) |
See Member’s explanatory statement to amendment 20.
Robert Halfon
I beg to move amendment 24, in schedule 3, page 36, line 10, leave out “(3)” and “insert “(4)”.
This amendment corrects a cross-reference.
Robert Halfon
We have been clear that although the purpose of the education administration is to avoid or minimise disruption to students’ studies, the special objective is not to be pursued without regard to the interests of creditors. Clause 22, which we have previously discussed, contains a requirement for the education administrator to carry out their functions to achieve the special objective and, so far as is consistent with the special objective, to do so in a way that achieves the best result for the FE body’s creditors as a whole.
If creditors, the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers believe that the education administrator is not acting in accordance with this requirement, the amendment made by paragraph 21 of schedule 3 to paragraph 74 of schedule 1B to the Insolvency Act 1986 allows them to apply to the court claiming that the education administrator is not carrying out their functions in accordance with requirements set out in clause 22. However, there is an error in the cross-referencing. The reference should be to sections 22(2) and 22(4), not sections 22(2) and 22(3).
Without the amendment, creditors would be unable to challenge the way in which the education administrator was carrying out their functions, which is not what we intend. I hope the Committee agrees that the amendment is necessary for the provisions to function effectively, and that it will agree to accept it.
Amendment 24 agreed to
Amendment made: 25, in schedule 3, page 36, line 34, leave out “(3)” and “insert “(4)”.—(Robert Halfon.)
This amendment corrects a cross-reference.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 4
Conduct of education administration: companies
Robert Halfon
I beg to move amendment 26, in schedule 4, page 44, line 6, leave out “(4)” and “insert “(5)”.
This amendment corrects a cross-reference.
Robert Halfon
The amendments are the same in effect as amendments 24 and 25, which we have just made to schedule 3. You will be pleased to hear, Mr Bailey, that I do not propose to take the Committee through the changes again. I am sure that once was enough. It is necessary to make the amendment twice because schedule 3 relates to FE bodies, which are statutory corporations, and schedule 4 relates to those that are companies.
Amendment 26 agreed to.
Amendment made: 27, in schedule 4, page 44, line 32, leave out “(3)” and “insert “(5)”—(Robert Halfon.)
This amendment corrects a cross-reference.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 25 to 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 30
Education administration rules
Gordon Marsden
I rise to speak very briefly about this clause and clause 37, both of which I want to put in the context of the broad policy statement that we have been given on part 2 of the Bill, which is pertinent to many of the questions that we and people in the sector have been asking about the capacity of the DFE and the institute to expand the remit of the Bill. That is no less true in the context of the insolvency proceedings than it is in the remainder of the Bill.
Page 4 of the policy statement says that it has not been possible to prepare draft regulations during the passage of the Bill—I feel somewhat conflicted about this, because part of me is rather glad that we did not have to consider the regulations, which may, and I quote, run to hundreds of pages in total. Instead, the Government have prepared a series of detailed notes describing every delegated power and setting out how they plan to use them. According to the Government, it was not possible to produce the full list of the regulations for us now. I say gently that they will have to be produced at some point, even if not for the delectation of members of this Committee. Does that not raise questions about the capacity of the Department? What happens when the Bill becomes an Act? Who will have the capacity to draft the regulations then? I hope the Minister does not think that is an entirely flippant comment. The assurances we have been given about capacity throughout the passage of the Bill do not appear to be piecing together.
Robert Halfon
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the regulations will be published; the problem is that there are many pages of insolvency legislation. That is why we were unable to publish them in time for the Committee and why we issued the policy statement. They will be published, but it takes quite a long time.
Gordon Marsden
I entirely understand that. I was not suggesting that people are slothing on the job; I was merely making the reasonable point that the Bill necessarily involves a lot of administrative time—I put it no stronger than that—and that raises in my mind some ongoing concerns about the capacity, either of the Department or of some of its institutions, to take some of these things forward. I will leave it at that.
Kelvin Hopkins
I just want to say that I am deeply disappointed that we cannot discuss the regulations in detail. Perhaps I am alone in that.
Gordon Marsden
All I can say is that my hon. Friend is a shining example to us all. He shames us deeply.
Let me make my own brief and pathetic response to clause 30, in the context of the Stakhanovite task that my hon. Friend has just suggested we undertake. I have a practical question for the Minister. On clause 31, the policy note talks about the way in which the power will be used to make decisions. For simplicity, I say to the Minister that although I am making this point specifically about clause 30—it affects chapter 4, which is very important because it is the special administration chapter —my question is generic and may be relevant to other clauses as well. It is very straightforward. When these revised instruments and regulation-making powers are brought forward, will there be consultation in any shape or form with the various stakeholders—FE bodies, the Association of Colleges, the Collab Group and others?
That is not for the sake of consultation itself. There have been occasions in the past, although I am not suggesting in this particular Department or area, when the lack of such consultation on detailed regulations between representative bodies—it normally has to be done at that level—and officials from the Department has produced anomalies that subsequently have to be rectified. It would be interesting to hear if the Minister can offer any reassurance on that.
Robert Halfon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. On Tuesday, the hon. Member for Luton North suggested that he might have been a banker, and today he talks about being an expert on delegated legislation on insolvency. I believe the latter more than the former. Knowing the kind of person he is, he is probably about the only person who could get his head round all the different delegated powers.
The clause modifies the power to make rules under sections 4 and 1 of the Insolvency Act 1986. It allows detailed rules about the education administration for FE bodies to be made in the same way as they are for companies. The power only permits rules to be made to give effect to the chapter of the Bill that establishes an SAR or FE bodies, and the rules cannot be made for any wider purpose. Clause 5 deals with the rules needed for other insolvency procedures for FE colleges. It applies the company insolvency rules and allows us to modify them as necessary.
To answer the question from the hon. Member for Blackpool South, there has been a significant amount of consultation already, and there will be full consultation all the way through. We have to; these things cannot be done without it. I want to reassure him that that will absolutely happen. On those grounds, I hope the clause is acceptable to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 30 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 31 to 36 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 37
Disqualification of officers
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 8, in clause 37, page 18, line 14, at end insert—
‘(1A) The Secretary of State must ensure the list of disqualified officers is made publicly available.”
This amendment would ensure that a list of disqualified officers was publicly available.
The amendment is fairly straightforward, so I will not detain the Committee long. Again, we hope that these situations will be very rare, and we certainly hope it will be very rare that people are disqualified as a result of them. However, if disqualified people are involved, the principle of transparency is extremely important. This is a probing amendment, to find out how this might be effective.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning what the explanatory notes say about clause 37:
“This clause gives the Secretary of State the power, in relation to further education corporations and sixth form college corporations, to make regulations that have the same or similar effect to the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. This will mean that, like company directors, members (i.e. governors) of those corporations can be disqualified from acting as such in the future and the power allows the Secretary of State to make provision so that when a person is disqualified as a director of a company they can also be prohibited from acting as a member of a further education corporation or sixth form college corporation.”
I repeat that we all hope and assume that these occurrences will be irregular. However, would it not be logical for the list of disqualified officers to be made publicly available, to ensure transparency and to allow colleges to easily assess applicants to their own corporations in the future?
Kelvin Hopkins
I support the amendment. In my experience of life, it is often the rogues who are most plausible and we have to have lists of people to make sure that people do not get through the net, move to a different part of the country and take up a job, before we find out that they have twice been a rogue, not just once.
Robert Halfon
The disqualified officers to whom the amendment refers are those members of an FE body that is a statutory corporation who have been disqualified by the court on the grounds that they have been found liable by the court of wrongful or fraudulent trading or other similar offences under the Insolvency Act 1986 as applied by the Bill. Wrongful and fraudulent trading are provisions of insolvency law that will be applied to governors and others involved in running FE bodies that are statutory corporations in the same way as they apply to directors of, and those who run, companies. That is the purpose of the amendment.
It is right that a list is kept of those individuals who have been disqualified and that such a list is available to the public, so that it is evident which individuals should not be appointed as governors of colleges in the future. However, there is no need to provide for that specifically in the Bill. There is provision in the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 for a register of disqualification orders to be kept by the Secretary of State and for that register to be open to inspection—as we continue to refer to that Act, I propose that we use its acronym, the CDDA.
Clause 37 will allow us to replicate provisions of the CDDA; therefore it already allows us to achieve what hon. Members seek with the amendment. I have made it clear that I intend to consult on secondary legislation made under the Bill. That includes regulations made under clause 37, so it will be transparent that we will include a provision in regulations that is the same as, or similar to, the provision that exists in the CDDA, modifying it as necessary to make it work effectively for disqualified members of college corporations. On those grounds, I hope that the hon. Member for Blackpool South will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I thank the Minister for that explanation of the procedure and situation. I am satisfied and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 38
Information for Secretary of State about further education
Robert Halfon
I beg to move amendment 18, in clause 38, page 18, line 38, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment removes the restriction on the Secretary of State obtaining information for purposes connected with the education of certain people aged under 25. The way that section 54 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 is currently framed allows that information to be obtained so the amendment preserves this aspect of the current law.
Robert Halfon
The purpose of the amendment is to rectify a problem that we have identified with the drafting of clause 38 that means that it does not fully meet our policy intent. Amendment 19 is consequential on amendment 18 and simply renumbers subsections.
Our aim is to ensure that the Government can maintain our current system of receiving data from further education providers after certain further education functions are devolved to some combined authority areas in England, which is due to happen from 2018. A key element of the statutory foundation for the further education data system is set out in section 54 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which clause 38 amends. Section 54 imposes a duty on various bodies to provide information to the Secretary of State. Due to its specific reference to functions of the Secretary of State, that duty would cease to apply to some FE provision, as certain functions would have been transferred from the Secretary of State as part of devolution. The intention of clause 38 is to reframe the statutory basis to overcome that problem and enable comprehensive continuation of the current system of gathering information on further education.
We are not seeking to narrow or broaden the scope of education provision or types of learners covered by the duty. Clause 38(2) was drafted because we considered that the learners it describes—those aged 19 to 25 who have an education, health and care plan—were not captured by the duty under section 54. However, after further scrutiny, we have realised that for apprenticeship provision, such learners are in fact in scope of the current duty. Therefore, by including the subsection we were inadvertently narrowing the scope of the duty. That is not our intention, so we are seeking to remove subsection (2).
Gordon Marsden
I thank the Minister for that explanation, in particular on subsection (2), which I had circled and was going to ask him about. He has now answered the question, so we have no problems with the clause. Indeed, it is very important, at a time when the Government continue to embark on devolution initiatives in this area, that a national database should be maintained.
The only observation that I would make—I think this view would be shared by a number of my colleagues—is that the process that is going ahead is somewhat piecemeal and somewhat curious in its restrictions. Some of us might like to see rather more rapid action, and rather broader and more ambitious ways of ensuring that, in the future, not simply adult skills but a much broader range of issues are devolved. However, that is outside the scope of the Government’s amendment and the clause, which we are very happy to support.
Amendment 18 agreed to.
Amendment made: 19, in clause 38, page 19, line 9, leave out “(4)” and insert “(3)”.—(Robert Halfon.)
This amendment is consequential on amendment 18.
Clause 38, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 39 to 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Further education bodies: senior management
“A further education body shall be required to include in its senior management team a person or persons with professional financial qualifications having specific responsibility for oversight of financial management in the body.”—(Kelvin Hopkins.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 2—Further education bodies: governing bodies—
“A further education body shall seek to ensure that its governing body includes a minimum of two members with professional financial qualifications.”
Kelvin Hopkins
It is a pleasure to rise to speak to these new clauses, which I drafted myself and are borne of my own experience in college governance and teaching. That is particularly the case for new clause 1, which is about having internal experts with professional qualifications who would suffer severe reputational damage if they did not make sure that the college accounts and financial matters were all in order.
When I was chair of governors of what was then Luton College of Higher Education—it became the University of Luton and then the University of Bedfordshire —the principal decided that the accounts were not really up to scratch, and so spent a summer going through every detail of the college’s finances. He found many thousands of pounds unaccounted for, which he was then able to use to the benefit of the college. He happened to be a graduate in mathematics, which meant that he was at least numerate and could deal with accountancy, but accountancy is a specific skill.
As a student, I was taught economics by a former Treasury official whose next-door neighbour was an elderly lady who wanted him to deal with her accounts. He had to explain that an economist is not an accountant; it is a very precise skill and not something that one can just pick up at will. My closest university friend was a professor of accountancy. I know only too well that accountancy is a professional skill that needs great minds. I also understand that some of the people with the highest IQs in our country are accountants. Clearly accountants are important people, and it is important to have them involved.
At Luton Sixth-Form College, one of the deputy principals is a qualified chartered accountant. She is a superb member of staff who makes absolutely sure that all the forecasts and all the financial details are under control. We have been guided by her for many years now. It makes us feel at ease. We know that the finances are well under control, well understood and thoroughly explained to us on all occasions. Many years ago, before she was employed, I was on the finance and general purposes committee, and I remember the problems I had just getting to grips with it, and I am a numerate person with a degree that includes economics and maths. It was difficult stuff, but we had some good accountants on the governing body.
This is an important issue. If one wants to avoid insolvency, the best thing to do is ensure that one has someone with the skills to ensure one does not get into that situation in the first place, and that alarm bells are rung. As governors and politicians and Government Members, we are all well aware of what the problems are. If a principal is wilful and wants to do things beyond what they should be doing, and they have a weak financial adviser without professional qualifications, they will get away with it. There is also the question of competence; a principal may not be competent at dealing with accountancy.
Accountancy is extremely important. It sounds very boring, but I am glad that accountants are there. I would not want to have the responsibility of making decisions on financial matters without the advice of serious professionals. I have no doubt that some members of the Committee are qualified in accountancy. I am not asking Members to put their hands up, but they are about.
I have been a governor of Luton Sixth-Form College for 23 years continuously. I was also a governor there for two years in a previous period. I have been comforted by the fact that we have always had at least two qualified accountants on the governing body who can question and check the accounts and assure us that they are right, that we are not making mistakes, and that the college is in good financial order, especially when we are under pressure. We are under financial pressure; there has been the VAT issue, which I will not go into now, but we have debated it on many occasions. It is a great comfort and reassurance that we have professionals sitting on the governing body who can look at an account, make sense of it, and ensure that we are doing the right thing. It is not just a question of numeracy, which I have; it is about the specific skill of accountancy.
New clauses 1 and 2 would make a very valuable addition to the Bill. I hope that the Government will accept them or build requirements of that kind into the Bill to ensure that colleges are well governed and well managed in financial matters.
Gordon Marsden
I congratulate my hon. Friend on speaking to the new clause with his customary insight and from past experience, which are powerful advocates for the mechanisms he proposes. There are not many vehicles in the House for the regular praising of accountants. I am tempted to say that if we were in the middle ages and my hon. Friend, with the passing of years, were to pass away, he might be subject to a posthumous cult of the patron saint of accountants. The serious point is that everything my hon. Friend said is valid. Whether what he proposes is done in a formal way, as he suggests, or by strong direction, the Government would do well to take on board his proposals.
Robert Halfon
I thank the hon. Member for Luton North for the new clauses and for his wise contributions throughout the Committee. Rather than the role of banker, I think he has taken on the role of the Gandalf of the technical education and further education sector. There will therefore be no danger of his passing as the hon. Member for Blackpool South described.
The hon. Member for Luton North has tabled two important new clauses. In an ideal world it would be a good thing if all or even some members of governing bodies had important financial qualifications, but I remind him that the head of Blackpool and The Fylde College, when asked about that, said:
“I am thinking of the unintended consequences. It is very easy to say that we can dictate exactly the constitution of a governing body, but if we are looking at further education corporations across the country, some of them are very different. My own, for example, is an outstanding college.”—
I have seen it for myself, and it certainly is—
“We are very strong financially…we benefit from the mix and balance that we have on the board: we benefit from our business community and from two very able students on the board. I am hesitant about mandating exactly what that board would look like, because it varies by college. If, for example, I were a land-based college, I might want a slightly different mix, so I am hesitant about fully supporting that.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 60, Q80.]
When I asked her about the best way to achieve what she had done, she said what is needed is an expert to manage finances: not necessarily, dare I say it, someone with an educational background—we were talking about the education administrator earlier—but someone with a good understanding of finances. Where colleges are doing better even with all the financial pressures, I suspect that is because they have brilliant financial teams as well as the brilliant leadership of the principals and the advice of the governing body.
It is the governing body of the college that is best placed to ensure that effective management is in place that meets the needs of the college, but it must be the principal who puts her team in who has the day-to-day responsibilities. When colleges fail, as the hon. Gentleman will know, the proper intervention system is in place, with the education commissioner and suchlike.
The introduction of the insolvency regime will change a lot of this anyway, and it will serve to emphasise the importance of sound financial management. Although the Government are committed to the protection of learners, corporations are ultimately responsible for ensuring the financial health of their institutions.
I am wary of imposing such a measure, but I have a lot of genuine sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s intentions. I commit to continue working with the sector to strengthen the financial acumen of governing bodies and the capability of financial directors. That will protect the interests of not only the colleges, learners and employers in the local communities but the taxpayer, which is incredibly important. On that basis, I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the motion.
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank the Minister for his assurances and for his acceptance of the points I have made, if not of the new clauses. Even if nothing arrives in the Bill, I hope that guidance to colleges will, in one form or another, make sure that proper financial governance and financial management takes place so that insolvency is avoided at all possible costs.
Robert Halfon
I should have said that we are lucky in the sense that we have the Association of Colleges, the Collab Group and the Education and Training Foundation, and all those organisations are doing everything they can to improve financial leadership in colleges up and down the country.
Kelvin Hopkins
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Robert Halfon
On a point of order, Mr Bailey. As we have reached the end of the Bill—in Committee, at least—I would like to put several things on the record. First, I thank the Opposition for the incredibly thoughtful and serious way in which they have dealt with the Bill. Where I have said that I will reflect on things, I really mean that. I particularly congratulate my opposite number, the hon. Member for Blackpool South, given that he has just come out of another huge Bill; he did this Bill almost straightaway. His capacity for knowledge is extraordinary. What the hon. Member for Batley and Spen said about careers is particularly important, and I also thank the hon. Member for Luton North for his contributions.
May I also thank you and your team, Mr Bailey, and my Government colleagues, who have been incredibly helpful and supportive? Finally, I mentioned capacity—over the past couple of weeks, the incredible officials and many others have worked day and night to get this Bill to the House and into Committee, and I am hugely grateful to them.
Gordon Marsden
Further to that point of order, Mr Bailey. May I associate myself with the Minister’s thanks to you and Ms Dorries? You have chaired fairly and lightly. I also thank your team—particularly the Public Bill Clerks, to whom the Opposition are always indebted, given that we do not have the Government’s resources.
May I thank my own superb team for everything that they have done? I am sorry that my on-the-ball Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East, is unable to be with us today, but he is at the forefront of industrial progress celebrating Siemens wind farms finally coming to fruition in his constituency, so he has a good excuse. I am grateful to all of my team, in which we have two relatively new Members—particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen—and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East for deputising.
I also thank the Minister and his team. He has been generous and prepared to listen and think carefully and constructively, and we welcome that. We look forward to some of the amendments we have withdrawn perhaps re-emerging in further information from him before Report stage. We are delighted to have taken part in this process and grateful for his contributions and constructivity.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Westminster Hall
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Prison Safety and Security
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered prison safety and security.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. This is a very last minute debate; it was only on Monday that we knew it was going to take place. I am grateful to the Deputy Speaker for finding time for the debate and to the Minister for making time for it.
In the introduction to the White Paper on prison safety and reform, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice made a very important statement:
“We will never be able to address the issue of re-offending if we do not address the current level of violence and safety issues in our prisons.”
Today’s debate aims to focus on some issues around that and to try to tease out what the Government’s objectives are on prison safety and prison violence. The Minister has been round the House quite a bit on this matter, not least at the Justice Committee on Tuesday. I know that he will want to do his best to respond to the issues. I know also that those who work in the service, from Michael Spurr through to the prison officers on the wings, will also want to do their best to ensure that we improve prison safety and security. However, I start from the premise that something is not quite right.
All the indicators on key issues of prison safety and security that the Government look at have been going in the wrong direction over the past few years. Let us look at some of the issues in our prisons at the moment.
In 2015-16, nine men absconded from category B prisons, four women and 80 men absconded from open prisons and eight prisoners absconded from male open youth offenders institutions. In the last few weeks—I know these individuals have been recaptured, for which I am grateful—two men, in the early hours of the morning, hid dummies in their beds, sawed through bars with metal drills brought in illegally, avoided CCTV, climbed over a wall and escaped from Pentonville prison; as the Minister confirmed to the Select Committee this week, that was not discovered until 12 noon the following day. These are serious issues.
As of 29 July 2016, just over 60%, or 76, of our prison establishments were officially listed as overcrowded. In total, overcrowded prisons held 9,700 more prisoners than they were originally designed to hold. Cells meant for one person have been accommodating two people, while those meant for two people have been accommodating three, and that has added to the stress in prisons.
I know, accept and understand where the Government are coming from; they have announced large amounts of increased prison capacity and are looking at closing older prisons and opening newer prisons, such as HMP Berwyn, which is shortly to open in north Wales near my constituency. The removal of old capacity is, however, well ahead of the replacement in terms of the building of new capacity. The chief operating officer of the National Offender Management Service, Michael Spurr, said to the Justice Committee this week that it will be a considerable time before the overcrowding is dealt with.
More seriously, and more challenging for the prison system as a whole, there were 324 deaths in prison in the 12 months to September 2016, which is a rate of 3.8 deaths per 1,000 prisoners: an increase of 57, or 21%, on the previous year. Many of those deaths were due to natural causes—that is to be expected because of the growing population of elderly prisoners—but 107 were self-inflicted deaths, an increase of 13% from the previous year’s total of 95. There were five apparent homicides, including one in Pentonville recently. Some 33 deaths are currently awaiting further information before being classified.
I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for these figures. On the issue of self-harm in prison, in the 12 months to June 2016, 36,440 reported incidents of self-harm occurred, an increase of 7,509 or 26% on the previous year—a rate of 426 self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, compared with 338 incidents per 1,000 prisoners the previous year. Some 10,544 prisoners self-harmed last year, up 1,943, or 23%, on the previous year.
The indicators on hospital attendance show that there were 2,500 hospital attendances, an increase of 35% on the previous year. The proportion of self-harm incidents requiring hospital attendance has thankfully remained consistent, but the indicators are showing that there are more deaths in custody, more self-harm incidents and, sadly, a significant number of homicides in prison at the moment.
The indicators on assaults show that in the 12 months to June 2016, there were 23,775 assaults in prison, an increase of 6,078, or 34%, on the same period in the previous year, and a rate of 278 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, up from 207 assaults per 1,000 in the previous year. There were 3,134 serious assaults, an increase of 26% on the previous year. There were 17,782 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, up 32% on the previous year; 2,462 serious prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, up 28% on the previous year; and 5,954 assaults on staff, up 43% on the previous year, from 4,177. That is a ratio of 70 incidents of assault on staff per 1,000 prisoners, up from 49 per 1,000 in the previous year. Of those assaults, 697 were classified as serious assaults on staff, up 20% on the previous year.
Those indicators are not going in the right direction. All those indicators have seen a significant increase—not one of 1% or 2%—in a 12-month period. I will be fair to the Minister; I know that in the recently published document, recognition of that fact is paramount. I will return shortly to further figures.
What is lost in the figures on assaults are the significant increases in certain types of assault. Let me point the House to three particular issues. The use of dangerous liquids as an assault mechanism on prisoners and staff has gone from zero incidents in 2010 to 193 in 2015. The use of blunt instruments in assaults on prisoners and staff has gone from 246 incidents in 2010 to 666 in 2015: a 170% increase. The number of spitting incidents—an issue, given some of the conditions that many people will have in prison—has risen from 12 recorded in 2010 to 394 in 2015: an increase of 3,000%. Knife and blade incidents—prisons are not supposed to be places where knives and blades are available in the first place—have risen from 212 to 491 last year over a five-year period: an increase of 131%. I am grateful to the Prison Officers Association for some of those figures. Again, those are serious issues, and the trend is in the wrong direction.
There is an argument that some of those issues are related to drug abuse and new psychoactive substances. In 2010, there were 16 recorded incidents involving new psychoactive substances in prisons, but in 2014, the last year for which I have figures—the Minister may have more up-to-date ones—the figure was 436: a 2,625% increase. Spice has gone from 15 to 430 cases; mephedrone has gone from zero to two cases; and ketamine—kat—has gone from one to four cases. Again, that is the wrong direction of travel.
I held the Minister’s job for two years and one month some time ago, so I know how difficult it can be and about the challenges, but the level of disturbance in prisons has increased in the past few months and is causing noticeable pressure. It is greater than it was in the past. There have always been prison disturbances, and there probably always will be, but in the past couple of months alone there has been, for example, the incident in Lewes prison. The chairman of the Prison Officers Association said that at the time of the incident there
“were only four staff on that wing and all four had to retreat to safety”
because they were concerned about their safety.
In November, 200 inmates in Bedford prison went on what was described in the press as a rampage or a riot —we will determine what it really was when the investigation is completed. It took six hours to bring the disturbance under control. That happened only days after the Justice Secretary said that she was going to introduce a range of measures to tackle violence in our prisons. The question for the House is: what can we do about those issues?
The Justice Committee, of which I am pleased to be a member—my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) are also members—has looked at this issue in detail. In their White Paper, the Government accepted this premise: in the past six years, they have presided over a reduction in prison officers of some 7,000 at a time when attacks on the workforce have increased by 41%. The prison workforce in March 2010 was 49,230, but as of March 2016 it was 43,530.
The Prison Officers Association and the assessments we heard in the Justice Committee suggest that the benchmarking figure is now 800 officers below its required level, and that the service is losing 1,600 officers every year. The level of prison officer resignations increased by 128% over that six-year period, and officer retention remains challenging, as we discussed with the Minister in the Justice Committee on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the chief operating officer of NOMS, Michael Spurr, told the Committee that, although the Government are going to increase the number of prison officers by 3,500—although I am a Labour MP, I acknowledge that that is thanks to welcome investment for the Ministry of Justice in the autumn statement—he is going to have to recruit, with the Minister’s support, 8,000 people to get a net figure of about 3,500.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that this is about not just the number of prison officers lost and the need to recruit replacements, but their level of experience? It will inevitably take time for new recruits to learn the skills they need to do what is now an extremely complex, dangerous and demanding job.
Mr Hanson
That is a serious point. I do not want to be too flippant, but we will have a cohort of inexperienced prison officers and a cohort of experienced prisoners, which will lead to a mismatch in expectation. Those officers will lack experience when dealing with some of the initial problems. Officers need face-to-face engagement with prisoners to build the relationships that can prevent the kind of activities that I have been talking about.
Many people have expressed concerns about where we are. The Howard League for Penal Reform said that we have seen “the highest death toll” in prison
“in a calendar year since recording practices began in 1978.”
It said:
“The number of people dying by suicide in prison has reached epidemic proportions.”
The organisations that have a statutory duty to look at the Prison Service also expressed concern. Nick Hardwick, former chief inspector of prisons, said on 14 July 2015:
“You were more likely to die in prison than five years ago. More prisoners were murdered, killed themselves, self-harmed and were victims of assaults than five years ago.”
The current prisons inspector said in his annual report for this year that
“there is a simple and unpalatable truth about far too many of our prisons. They have become unacceptably violent and dangerous places.”
Nigel Newcomen CBE, the prison and probation ombudsman, who is in the process of leaving or has just left, said in his 2015 annual report:
“Unfortunately…I have identified a fundamental lack of care, but, more often, I have found caring and compassionate efforts by staff to support the suicidal. What is clear, however, is that more can and should be done to improve suicide and self-harm prevention in prison.”
He went on to say that
“what is already clear is that there is an unacceptable level of violence in prison.”
This is not scaremongering by Members of Parliament. It is a shared concern, which the Ministry itself recognises and has been expressed by the prisons ombudsman, the prisons inspectorate, external agencies, the Prison Officers Association and, indeed, the Justice Committee, three members of which are here today. We recently produced a cross-party report that was supported by the Scottish National party, Labour and Conservative Members, including the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who often has a different view to those of the members here today, and the Chair. Our conclusion was clear:
“This is a matter of great concern, and improvement is urgently needed.”
We said that
“it is imperative that further attention is paid to bringing prisons back under firmer control, reversing the recent trends of escalating violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths…It is a matter of particular concern that despite a sustained recruitment exercise…the net increase in public sector prison officers was only 440 last year.”
I will return shortly to how we are going to manage that recruitment exercise in the future. We want, among many other things, a regular report on safety in custody statistics to look at indicators of disorder, staffing levels, NOMS performance ratings and the activity of prisoners.
The Government have—let me be churlish—belatedly responded to the pressure. In my view, they caused the pressure themselves by reducing prisoner officer numbers and putting pressure on prisons, but they have belatedly looked at the issue. In the autumn statement, and on the back of the “Prison Safety and Reform” White Paper, they allocated additional resources to address prison safety issues. The programme of governor devolution is ongoing, which may or may not help—the jury is out on that. There will be operational improvements, which may include body-worn video cameras, staff training, a multi-disciplinary approach to violent prisoners and improvements during the early days and weeks of custody. We have looked at the recruitment issues. The Minister will no doubt talk about the 3,100 new officers, but we need to recruit 8,000 to make sure we reach the net figure. We have looked at the issue of mobile operators and illicit phones in prisons.
Ultimately, there are still challenges that we need to face. I want to look at what the White Paper means in practice. The Government have said, for example, that they will improve legislation on psychoactive substances. What does that mean? They have said that they will “strengthen search capability”. Well, that will take boots on the ground. What does that mean?
The Government have said that they will:
“fundamentally reassess our wider approach to tackling the supply and demand for drugs in prisons”;
and
“reduce supply and demand for illicit mobile devices; and…work with industry…to detect and block drones”.
What does that mean in practice? It is up to the Minister to spell out clearly and effectively what is in the White Paper.
The Minister has said that the Government will “enhance our intelligence capability”. Fine, but let us see what that means, what the progress is and what the timescale is. He will:
“devise and implement a strategy to address staff corruption in 2017”.
What does that mean? What is the investment? What are the intended outcomes?
We need to look at a range of measures, which we certainly can do, although the situation is complicated and challenging. I therefore want to test the Government with some discussion of at least four or five key areas, and I will start with staffing. Perhaps the Minister will reflect on my questions and, if he does not answer them directly, look at Hansard to bring something back to us later today or in the future.
Will the Minister undertake a review of benchmarking in prisons to see whether staffing rotas are right? He has picked the 10 prisons with the highest levels of violence, but will he look at other prisons or prisons as a whole? What measures will he introduce to retain staff who are in post? That means looking not just at salaries or, potentially, enhanced payments, but at valuing people’s work, or discussing with members of staff the retirement profile of those who are leaving, to see whether we can keep experienced staff.
What pay challenges are there? On Tuesday, the Minister indicated to the Select Committee that he was considering allowing governors to enhance pay and to use such things as positive inducements, but various people are sceptical about whether that can be done within the Government’s public sector pay policy and the pay cap, so will he reassure me about how Government pay policy comes into play on staffing? What autonomy will governors have on pay and retention measures designed to keep staff in the 10 or so prisons that are to have governor autonomy? After all, in future, there may be more such prisons.
In the White Paper, the Minister indicated—he repeated this clearly on Tuesday—that he expects ratios of six prisoners per prison officer. When does he expect to reach that target? How far away from it is he now? Will it apply only in the 10 prisons, or will it apply in all prisons? What will happen with the fluctuation of numbers in prisons, and how will he plan for that in future?
One of the key issues for prison security has been mobile phones, which have been a challenge for years—since the day the mobile phone was invented. When I was the Minister, we had BOSS—body orifice security scanner—chairs and lots of other measures. Prisoners, by their nature, want to have a mobile phone, but the Minister can do things about that, which he alluded to in the prison reform White Paper. I want some more clarification. For example, what steps is the Minister taking to trial phone blocking? That has been looked at by some prisons—public and private sector.
In the White Paper, the Minister suggested no-fly zones for drones over prisons. Let us examine that for a moment: what does it mean in practice? How will he operate a no-fly zone? What does it mean? How will it work? What about additional measures on entry and security? He alluded to them with a nice easy sentence on page 48 of the paper, saying that he would:
“reduce the opportunity and attractiveness for visitors to smuggle drugs”,
and mobile phones, into prisons. What does that mean exactly? What measures back up that statement?
To look at drugs generally, the Minister stated in the White Paper that the Government would:
“ensure that the perimeters of prisons are secure and maintained in a state that can help deter items from being thrown into the prison”.
What does that mean? What policy change next year will that mean? Ensuring that the perimeters of prisons are “secure and maintained” is a nice phrase, but what does it mean in terms of resources, focus and activity?
Also, on page 46 of the same document, the Government state that they will:
“continue to pursue and evaluate technology that can detect drugs including body scanners and drug trace detectors.”
What does that mean next year? What does that mean in practical terms for the Minister at the moment?
The Minister said on page 48 that he would look at telecommunications restriction orders to disconnect mobile phones or SIM cards permanently. That is fine and good, and according to the Minister the first disconnections will take place before the end of this year, but what steps is he taking to achieve that? How many disconnections does he expect? In how many prisons will telecoms restriction orders be available? How many phones does he expect to decommission?
Over the summer the new Secretary of State produced that nice, blank statement in the White Paper, and the aspiration is great, but I am interested in the beef behind it. I share Ministers’ aspiration to block mobile phones, but what does that mean and, if I went a year ahead through the magic of a “Doctor Who” TARDIS, how many prisons would have those restriction orders? How many phones would be disconnected? The White Paper is sending out signals about aspirations, without necessarily having any beef behind them.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I hope that my intervention allows him to get in a sip of water. I am listening to his powerful speech, but he has criticised the Government for being long on aspiration. I will tackle the point he makes in detail in my speech, but I want to say up front that a team that is long on aspiration but not focused on delivery would not have got the biggest—and only—increase for six years that the Ministry of Justice has had in its budget: £100 million for staffing and £550 million overall. That underscores our commitment to deal with the challenges in the prison system.
Mr Hanson
The Minister heard me say that I welcomed the additional resource, but if the Government cut 7,000 prison officers over six years and only decide to put something in urgently once the estate starts to creak —all the indicators that I mentioned are now heading in the wrong direction—in a sense, that is backtracking on a problem of the Government’s own making. However, I am saying to the Minister, “Let’s put that to one side.” He has some aspirations, and I am trying to tease out from him what the beef is so that he can build on them.
Some things are costly and cost-effective. Simple things can be done in the prison estate to help support the aspiration of the Secretary of State. We cannot address the issue of reoffending if we do not address the levels of violence or the safety issues that exist in our prisons. For example, what assessment will the Minister make of the lock-up regime, in particular in those prisons with serious levels of violence? If prisoners are locked up for 23 or 24 hours a day, of course they will face frustrations. What if no elements of support are in place for training, employment or drug rehabilitation, or if prisoners are not out of their cells doing things that might punish them, because they are in prison, but help with their reform so that when they leave prison they are in a better place? If such things are not in place, the Minister will again have a kettle that is boiling furiously. That shows the difficulties we face.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman is making a characteristically powerful speech. Does this not cut to the heart of the issue? If a substantial proportion of the prison population is locked up for 22 or 23 hours a day, prisoners’ frustration and the decimation of the relationship with the officers will be causing the tension. The officers are powerless to stop that, and it is directly triggering the increase in violent disorders.
Mr Hanson
I thank the hon. Gentleman—or my hon. Friend as I will call him—for his support of that particular assertion of mine, but it is one factor in a range of factors. Fewer officers are dealing with frustrated prisoners who have more and more challenging needs because of drug abuse and mental health problems and cannot participate in any important training, support or even recreation. That is part of the pressure cooker that is the Prison Service.
What strategy does the Minister have for looking at safer custody issues, the risk assessment changes or the prisoners coming in? When I was Minister, I regularly chaired a safer custody group. I do not know whether the Minister does that. Will he tell us whether he does, and if he does not, why? He should focus on what we can do to make custody safer. What assessment has he made of the pressures created by gangs in prisons? Such gangs cause difficulties, which prison officers, given their smaller number, are finding it more difficult to deal with. What innovations will he introduce to tackle prisoners’ mental health problems? We have an ageing prisoner population because of historical sex offences. What impact is that having on the care given by prison officers? Are they unable to deal with other types of prisoner because they have to invest more in that cohort of older prisoners? What assessment has he made of prisoners with sentences of imprisonment for public protection, whom we have talked about? Everyone agrees that those prisoners need to be released if they are over tariff and able to be released into society, but the assessment of support for them is not being carried out to the extent that we want it to be, so there is an element of frustration there as well.
All those things are in a difficult and challenging pot. Prison is never an easy place for the people who are in it, the people who work in it or the people who have policy responsibilities for it, but I want the Minister to put some more meat on the White Paper. I want more discussion—a discourse—with him and I want him to explain where he is heading. The Harris review made wide-ranging and simple recommendations, but the Government have accepted only 29 of those. Will the Minister revisit some of those recommendations to see whether they would help reduce the pressure on prison populations?
Finally—I have had a good run at the time available—as the Minister knows, there are measures that could be taken to help address the problems in prisons but that would be difficult to manage politically. If overcrowding is part of the problem of violence and stress in prisons, there are groups of people that we could look at removing from prison or sentencing to less time in prison. This is not an attack on the Government, who have indicated that they want to look at reducing the number of prison sentences of less than 12 months. There is no point sending someone to prison for 14 days or 30 days when they will come out and find their whole life in a skip in the centre of London, Birmingham or Newcastle; they will reoffend. There is no point giving many of the women my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston is particularly concerned about short prison sentences for not paying their television licences, or for offences linked to their lifestyle, perhaps involving drugs or prostitution, which could be tackled with a firm community sentence. The Lord Chief Justice told the Justice Committee as much last week.
There is a whole cohort of foreign national prisoners, which we talked about on Tuesday. In my experience, ministerial drive is needed to secure the removal of certain foreign national prisoners from the UK to their home nations, so which countries is the Minister focusing on? What efforts is he making to secure the transfer of such prisoners? Every prisoner who goes out to a foreign country leaves a space and allows pressure to be taken off the UK system.
I hope I have not rambled too much. The Minister’s role is difficult and challenging, but every indicator is going in the wrong direction. The Government have responded in part—they have set a series of aspirations. My purpose in securing this debate was to give the Minister a chance to flesh out those aspirations and allow other hon. Members to hold the Minister to account and ask him what he is going to do in the next 12 to 15 months, so that we can see whether there is going to be a change. I say to him in a non-threatening way that if, despite the actions he takes, the indicators continue to go in the wrong direction, the House will hold him and the Secretary of State to account for the actions that they could, should and must take to alleviate those pressures.
Prisoners and people who work in prisons have a right to safety, and the public whom we all represent have a right to see the people who leave prison after their sentences—I remind hon. Members that that is ultimately most prisoners—return to society in a way that does not lead to further reoffending and prison sentences.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate with you in the Chair, Mr Nuttall. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) for creating the opportunity for this matter to be debated.
We can all agree that we are at an acutely dangerous moment in the management of our prisons. I know that the Minister and his ministerial colleagues are not in the least bit complacent about that, but it has been some years since such a cocktail of problems has created such a sense of instability, insecurity and danger in our prisons. As my right hon. Friend clearly exposed, that is being driven by several complex and interlinked factors that require both immediate action by Ministers and long-term reforms to address some of the underlying drivers of the situation we find ourselves in.
My right hon. Friend talked about some of the most pressing issues that the Minister faces. He talked about overcrowding and the difficulties that creates for managing prisons and engaging prisoners in effective and purposeful activity. He talked about the dramatic staff reductions, particularly the loss of experienced staff. The Minister has ambitious recruitment plans to replace many of the officers who have been lost over the past couple of years. That is welcome, and I join my right hon. Friend in congratulating him on securing additional funding in the autumn statement. However, as we have heard, not only will we inevitably need to over-recruit, but time will need to be spent training and equipping new staff to carry out their roles in prisons. I would be grateful if the Minister said a little about the training that new staff will undergo.
There are other factors that relate less to the decisions that Ministers have taken over the past couple of years and more to the external things that are having a bearing on our prisoners. My right hon. Friend mentioned the dramatic rise in the use of vicious new psychoactive substances and the changing make-up of the prison population, which is making management of prisons an even more challenging task. I do not underestimate the difficulty for Ministers of dealing with that range of complex and pressing problems—I understand that it is difficult to deal with those all at once with immediate effect—but we cannot tolerate another day of the current danger and insecurity in our prison system. We are sitting on a tinderbox, and urgent action is needed to get our prisons back under control.
I do not think the answer can be toughening the regime alone, although it is absolutely right that prison staff and officers have effective control of our prisons; control must not be ceded to prisoners or groups of prisoners. Our prisons work when there is a management model that emphasises consensus between those in custody and those who control them, but in the end prisons must be in the hands and under the absolute control of governors and staff.
Too often, the kinds of activities that we have seen recently—in Bedford and Pentonville, for example—give us a sense of control being lost. As the past year or so has shown, toughening the regime alone will not address that. Under previous Lord Chancellors, aspects of the regime have been toughened. The incentives and earned privileges regime was toughened, and there has been a more restrictive approach to release on temporary licence. Appropriate use of such mechanisms may have a part to play in the good management of a prison, but it is clear that in and of itself, that will not be sufficient to return our prisons to the state that we want to see them in.
My right hon. Friend talked about the particular pressures that Prison Service staff experience. I am well aware that theirs is always a challenging and difficult job, and one that perhaps does not command the respect that it should in wider society. Indeed, prison officers have said that themselves and that was referred to in the evidence that Michael Spurr gave to the Justice Committee earlier this week.
When the Minister responds to the debate, I will be interested to hear about not just what he intends in terms of recruitment, training and professional development for prison staff, but what we can do collectively and what the Government can do to enhance the professional status and regard in which prison officers and prison staff are held across wider society; that is one way in which he can fulfil his ambition to recruit more easily and recruit high-calibre staff with the skills, competences and attributes he would look to have in our prisons. I hope he will be able to say a little on how he intends to improve prison officers’ status, remuneration, incentives —my right hon. Friend talked about that—and training, and what support he envisages will be available in prisons for staff who are under great mental and physical pressures, to ensure their continued and improved wellbeing.
Overcrowding is obviously a problem that has been building up over many years. The Minister will say, quite correctly, that the prison estate still has many old Victorian, unsuitable prison premises in the portfolio. It takes time to replace those with modern, fit-for-purpose buildings. I welcome the new build programme that Ministers have in train, but no matter how much rebuilding, repurposing and refitting of our prison estate Ministers are able to undertake, the underlying problem is the size of the prison population. We need to look at a means of addressing that.
I am afraid I am one of the people who just cannot see any objective case for our prison population having gone from about 45,000 20 years ago to more than 85,000 today. I know that crime has fallen in that period—I readily accept that—and some of that may be attributable in part to the use of custody, but the case for that correlation has not been compellingly made to me or, I suspect, the wider public in a way that demonstrates that the substantial increase in custody in the past 20 years can be wholly justified or explained. It really is time to be prepared to answer some hard questions about the number of people we incarcerate—something I was concerned to hear the Minister was only half-willing to grapple with when he was in front of the Justice Committee earlier this week; in some ways, I think it is still felt to be in the “politically too difficult” box.
I welcome what the Minister talked about when he came to the Justice Committee on Tuesday: attempts to divert offenders to alternative provision, away from custodial sentences. I also welcome the initiative first brought in under the coalition Government and now being rolled out under this Government of post-release supervision for those who have undertaken short custodial sentences. We have all known for many years that, where such sentences are appropriate—they often are not—the high rates of recidivism among that group of ex-prisoners should give us deep concern. I therefore welcome programmes to put post-release supervision in place for those offenders.
However, one consequence of that approach has been, perversely, to drive up the prison population in relation to the number of those who have been released following a short custodial sentence and then breach their post-custodial supervision arrangements. If we look at the latest offender management statistics, published for April to June, we see that of 5,512 licence recalls, 2,045 were of prisoners who had been serving sentences of less than 12 months before release, which represents an increase of 79% over the same period in the previous year.
There is a particular concern in my mind about the effect on women offenders, because they are more likely to be serving shorter sentences. Therefore, incarceration following breach during supervision on licence is likely to be bearing particularly harshly on them. While, as I said, I welcome the post-release supervision arrangements put in place, it is time for us to start asking the hard question of Ministers of whether we are now seeing an unintended consequence of the way in which the arrangements are implemented that means that more offenders are coming back into custody than might previously have been the case.
My right hon. Friend mentioned the long-standing concerns about IPP, or imprisonment for public protection, prisoners, which I share. I am concerned that, although four years ago the coalition Government removed the IPP sentence—that did not have retrospective effect—the rate of progress since then has been slow in releasing those prisoners in custody on an IPP arrangement, particularly because the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons shows progress has been “painfully slow” in releasing prisoners at the appropriate time.
IPP prisoners still form 16% of the prison population, and some have experienced very long periods of incarceration over the length of their tariff, especially those—about a fifth of them as of March last year—who had received an original tariff of less than two years. Bearing in mind that no one after 2008 will have received an IPP arrangement if they had had a sentence of less than two years—it was no longer possible after 2008—we are talking about some people who now, the best part of 10 years after the sentence has been imposed, are still in custody on an IPP arrangement. I venture to suggest to the Minister that that might be a group for early attention in looking at whether there are opportunities for some to be released.
A number of approaches could be taken. Obviously the protection of the public and risk factors will be on the Minister’s mind, and I understand that, but we must look both at opportunities to identify those prisoners who could and should now be released and at those who Ministers do not yet feel confident in releasing. What programmes are being put in place in our prisons to enable them to progress to the point where it will become safe for them to be released?
We know that the Ministry of Justice has set up a dedicated unit to look at the IPP prisoners issue. I have no idea what that unit has been doing, so I hope the Minister will enlighten us on its plans for the future and on the progress and impact it has been able to make to date.
Finally, I want to talk about a group that, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out, I am always concerned about in our custodial system: women in prison. It is my firm view that there are many women in our prisons who are there not because they pose a risk or threat to society but because they have been driven there by a set of circumstances in which they have been victims of abuse and traumatic life circumstances. Women in custody are more prone to self-harm, and there are many with complex needs.
There is widespread agreement about the opportunity to try to bring down the number of women in our prisons and the fact that prison closures, such as the recent closure of Holloway, offer an opportunity to reconfigure the custodial estate to meet the particular needs of women offenders. It is now nearly 10 years since Baroness Corston’s seminal report on the management of women in the penal system. At that time, she recommended that it was inappropriate for women to be in large custodial institutions and that most would be much better supervised in the community, making use of, for example, women’s centres, enabling them to stay close to their home, to continue to look after their children and maintain their community and family ties. She also said that, for that small group of women for whom custody is necessary, it would be appropriate to hold them in much smaller, local, secure units.
I want to ask the Minister specifically about his intentions in relation to that group of offenders. When I asked the Justice Secretary about the issue in the Chamber on 3 November, she said that she did intend to replace some of the old women’s prisons with small, local custodial units. However, I understand that that is not necessarily the kind of secure, very small and very local unit envisaged in the Corston report. I ask the Minister to be a little more specific about how local those local units will be. Given that not many women are in custody, and that there are fewer institutions across the country, women are inevitably held further from their families in many cases.
How small will those units be? How many women does the Minister envisage will be in each, and how will they be designed and adapted to meet the specific and particular needs of women in custody? What kind of regimes and opportunities does he envisage being on offer for rehabilitation and, indeed, to address the underlying problems that have led women into offending behaviour?
The Minister has a real opportunity right now, if I may say so, because this is probably a once in a generation reconfiguration of the estate. He has a real chance to do something bold and future-proofed—particularly for that small group of women offenders who need a custodial sentence. I hope he will be bold and will be able to offer if not specific plans, at least a willingness to explore as broadly as possible what those Corston units might look like in today’s context.
My final point is about new psychoactive substances; I want to press the Minister a little more on the proposals in the White Paper around attacking those pernicious substances in our prisons. I am aware that Ministers want a more assertive testing regime, and I understand why, but those regimes have historically not been successful. They have quite often run into difficulties such as, for example, motivating offenders to switch to the use of a different—perhaps less easy to detect—substance. There is a real issue in relation to those new substances, which, as the Minister knows, are constantly mutating and changing as new forms and versions of them are developed. I am interested to know how he intends for his new testing regime to keep ahead of that curve.
In the end, the answer to the rise in the use of those dangerous substances will not be found, to any considerable extent, in mandatory testing, but in offering purposeful regimes that get prisoners out of their cells and engaged in activities that improve their learning, their employment prospects and their social engagements. The incentive for prisoners to use such substances is to combat the boredom and distress that they otherwise feel when locked in their cells—for up to 23 hours a day, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn said. The answer must lie in a change of regime, which is not to say, of course, that the Minister is not right to want to do all he can to keep those substances out of prisons altogether.
As I said, I do not think that there are simple answers to the many problems now pressing on our prison system. However, as my right hon. Friend made clear, we now need very quick answers. We cannot go on with the pressingly dangerous situation that we find ourselves in. Like my right hon. Friend, I look forward to hearing how the Minister intends to put flesh on the bones of the White Paper, and how he intends to make an immediate difference to the situation that we face.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I think this is the first time; I may be mistaken. I first pay tribute to the staff who work in our prison estate, not only in England and Wales but across all nations of this Union. At the moment, they are all hard-pressed and they feel demoralised and isolated, and we ought to recognise that—and I think we do. I hope the Minister will say something likewise to reassure them that they are in his thoughts at what is an unquestionably difficult time for them.
We have heard two speeches and on the plus side both were excellent, but on the negative side they have left me very little to say. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) gave a characteristically powerful speech, in which he pointed out with great clarity that the direction of travel of the statistics is troubling. We ought to recognise the difficulties for prison officers, not only because it is polite and respectful, but because of the vivid statistic, mentioned by both Members who spoke, that 6,000 prison officers are assaulted each year while at work. That is up 43% on the previous year and translates, on the ground, to 16 assaults a day—three of which are serious assaults. In that context, it is no wonder that they feel demoralised.
The right hon. Member for Delyn began his speech on the premise that things are not quite right, which I think is somewhat kind. He laid out some pertinent questions, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s replies. He was right to praise the Minister’s aspirations, because there is no doubt that this is a difficult job—a point well made by the former Minister for prisons, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). It is not an easy job, and it is right to have those aspirations, but the right hon. Gentleman is also right to ask for some meat to be put on the bones of the White Paper. I hope the Minister will provide some clarity.
The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), my friend, gave an excellent speech, and she clearly has a keen and detailed interest in the topic. She was right to say that we stand at an acute point, and that a “cocktail of problems” necessitates the change that we all want to see. She was right to say that we need to work towards a consensual model, and that toughening the regime will not work. The relationship between inmates and officers is key, and she put that point very well.
I also pay tribute to the hon. Lady for raising what is not an easy issue to raise, as it is perhaps not politically sexy or attractive—the size of the prison population. I do not believe that we serve society, our prison officers or our youth well by locking people up for short sentences. The Scottish Government have introduced an assumption that short sentences are only necessary in the most extreme of circumstances. The point she made about people going in for short sentences, coming out on licence, breaching that licence and ending up in a perpetual circle in and out of prison, does not serve anybody well. I beg the Minister to have a serious and detailed look at the use of short sentences, and to try to at least recognise that the increasing prison population is a huge contributing factor in the problems that we are speaking about. The hon. Lady deserves credit for making that point.
Why have we ended up in this situation? As has been discussed, a cocktail of factors—including synthetic drugs, mobile phones, drones and other external factors—is causing this problem. However, I want to make it abundantly clear that I see one problem—resources—as more pertinent than the others. I am honoured to be a member of the Justice Committee. We travelled to Wandsworth prison a few months ago, and we heard from both prison officers and inmates about the stress being put on the relationship between the two by lack of resources. The majority of the prison population are locked up in their cells for between 22 and 23 hours a day, simply because there are not enough officers to get them out of the cell and into purposeful activity.
Detecting drugs with new measures, introducing mobile phone blocking systems and drone no-fly zones, and getting prisoners out of their cells for more than two hours a day all depend on resources. They depend on having enough prison officers to make them happen, and clearly we do not. We have lost 7,000 prison officers over the past six years, while the prison population has increased.
It is laudable that the Minister recognises that and notes that we need to increase the number of prison officers, but we have a huge retention and training problem. To June this year, there was an increase of 500 officers, but that took a recruitment drive of nearly 2,500. There is an endemic problem with prison officer morale that will make it difficult to get the number of prison officers that we need. The right hon. Member for Delyn crystallised it perfectly by saying that although we have ambitions to recruit another 3,500 officers—which I applaud; it is the right thing to do—current problems dictate that we will need to recruit some 8,000, or perhaps even more if the situation persists.
I will finish with a quote from the Justice Committee from earlier this year, which sets it out in stark terms. Even though we have differing views on some things, all members of the Justice Committee agreed on this point:
“In particular, we conclude that the fall in staffing levels…are bound to have reduced the consistency of relationships between officers and prisoners, and in turn affected safety.”
Without the numbers on the ground, we cannot get inmates into purposeful activity. If we do not get them into purposeful activity, their agitation and frustration grow, and the manifestation of that is the violence that was so adequately demonstrated in the statistics given by Members. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say, I recognise that his is a very difficult job and I would be grateful if he, too, could pay tribute to the service of our officers, who are so hard-pressed at this time.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. May I start by echoing the sentiments of the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) and paying tribute to the hard work of our prison officers, who face daily dangers and carry out valuable work? I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) for securing today’s timely and important debate, which I am pleased to be able to respond to. Given his experience as a Justice Minister and a member of the Justice Committee, his views on the current situation and what must be done are most welcome.
There is clearly an agreement that the current prison system is not acceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), a member of the Justice Committee, highlighted additional areas of concern, such as IPP prisoners. The state of our prisons and the growing levels of violence shame our nation.
Prisons are becoming increasingly volatile and dangerous environments for both staff and prisoners. In the 12 months to June 2016, there have been nearly 6,000 assaults on staff, 24,000 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners, an increase of 13% from the previous year. There are 6,000 fewer officers on the frontline than in 2010. Ministry of Justice statistics show that poor mental health and distress among prisoners is higher than among the general public. Incidents of self-harm in prison have increased by over 25% in 2016 from the previous year.
Nick Hardwick, the former chief inspector of prisons, has said that prisons are at their worst level for a decade. We have seen riots breaking out at Her Majesty’s prisons Moorland and Bedford and prisoners escaping from Pentonville. While the prison staff and the tornado teams who deal with these incidents should be commended, it is clear that prison conditions are simply not good enough. Violence continues to increase and safety continues to decrease.
The austerity experiment on our prisons has failed. Working in prisons has become less appealing and more dangerous. The presence of fewer officers, who are overstretched and overwhelmed, means a stricter and increasingly unsafe prison regime. It means that prisons cannot effectively reform and rehabilitate in the way that prisoners and wider society need.
Staff shortages meant that a prisoner was not allowed out to visit his dying mother. He was allowed a phone call, but it was too late; his mother’s life support machine had already been turned off. It has still not been confirmed whether he will be allowed to attend her funeral. Again, that is the result of staff shortages. When questioned on that issue at the Justice Committee on Tuesday, Michael Spurr of NOMS was not even aware of the incident. Will the Minister confirm when he became aware of that incident? How often do such incidents take place in our prisons?
Front-line prison officers leaving their jobs outstripped new recruits over the past year. Almost 14% of prison officers leave the prison after serving less than 12 months. The Government have failed to explain how they will deal with the problem of retention. Even more alarmingly, it appears that the number of deaths will not form any part of the assessment of how safe a prison is.
Yasmin Qureshi
I thank the Minister for that clarification.
Some 324 people have died in prison this year so far, which includes 107 suicides. It appears that assaults on prison officers by prisoners are not being appropriately dealt with. Although the Minister has said there is “swift justice”, and although we welcome a zero-tolerance approach to violence, it is increasingly clear that prison officers do not feel safe at work. Has there been any consideration of what impact consecutive sentences for assault will have on prison capacity and overcrowding?
It is clear that a range of hugely complex issues need to be considered in order to reform the prison system. While I welcome prison reform, I am afraid that the Government’s White Paper does not provide the rapid action that our prison system so urgently needs and has long asked for. It is a matter of particular concern that despite a sustained recruitment exercise, described by one Minister as going at “full throttle”, the net increase in public sector prison officers was only 440 last year.
While the commitment to increase the number of prison officers by 2,500 is much needed, it is not a cause for celebration. Four hundred of those jobs have already been announced, and it is 2,500 extra after a reduction of more than 6,000 on the frontline. Where will the first 400 go? How will they be allocated to prisons? How were the 10 most challenging prisons identified? They do not appear to be among the worst prisons for violence and self-harm. As it stands, this is far from being the biggest overhaul of our prisons in a generation.
The lack of detail in the White Paper is worrying. It is difficult to believe that these proposals have been fully thought out. Instead, they seem to have been hastily assembled. That is indicative of the lack of detail in the Ministry’s proposals on, for example, mandatory drug-testing. We are told that the drug testing regime will be enhanced,
“supporting governors to enable drug testing on entry to and exit from prison as part of a more extensive testing programme, increasing the frequency and range of drugs tested for”.
Putting aside whether mandatory drug testing has proved effective, given the widespread availability of drugs in prisons, that could add thousands more tests each year, but there is no analysis of the impact on cost and staff resources, especially as both are in short supply.
Yasmin Qureshi
I am not disagreeing with the White Paper; I am saying that it fails to deal with a lot of issues. There are a lot of unanswered questions in it. On one level, the Government want there to be more drug testing, but the question we are asking is: what about the impact on staff and resources? The White Paper singularly fails to provide answers on the details. For example, it says there will be rehabilitation and education programmes, but who will provide those? Where will the money come from? Will there be an unlimited pot? A number of issues are not clear in the White Paper. I look forward over the course of the next few months to hearing how the Department will deal with those issues.
What do the Government think they will learn from testing on entry and release, given that prisoners will most likely simply avoid drug taking in the run-up to those periods? The argument that counting the problem—and not even counting the problem in a particularly robust way—is the same as dealing with it seems unrealistic, at best.
Overcrowding is another issue contributing to the level of violence in prisons. As of July 2016, 76 prisons—just over 60%—were overcrowded. Overcrowded prisons held 9,700 more prisoners than they were designed to hold.
The White Paper sets out a programme for building new prisons, but also points to more prison closures. Since coming to power in 2010, the Government have announced the closure of many prisons, with a combined operational capacity of over 4,100. Again, the Government’s policy is muddled. Are they trying to build their way out of overcrowding or will they address the number of prisoners coming into the system?
Finally, we all acknowledge that the prison system is no longer working and is increasingly unsafe. The Justice Secretary continues to say that prison reform is a priority, but the level of violence in prisons has not even stabilised, let alone begun to improve. Urgent action is needed now, not in a few months or a few years. The matter goes beyond politics. Livelihoods are at stake and lives are at stake, and the fact that we have unsafe prisons must not be ignored.
One of the main reasons why prisons are unsafe is the number of prison officers who were made redundant and the reduction in their number. We have been told that we need at least 8,000 prison officers to deal with prison safety and prison issues. The Government do not seem to have got anywhere near achieving that. Will the Minister think about the prison officers who have been made redundant? Has there been any consideration of the idea of re-employing them, even temporarily? The Government say they are trying to deal with the matter, but if they had not cut the number of prison officers in the first place, we would not be in the mess we are now in.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. This debate has been conducted sensibly and the former prisons Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), made a powerful case.
The challenges facing our prisons are indisputable. The statistics make grim reading, as do many reports from chief inspectors of different prisons. I do not dispute much of the right hon. Gentleman’s analysis of the problem. He rightly referred to our White Paper, which responds quite well to the challenge, although he was right to challenge us on the detail, as did the Labour shadow Minister, and to ask when implementation will take place.
The White Paper commits us to introducing legislation in the next Session on a number of measures. As I said to the Select Committee, we will introduce a Bill covering some of those measures. However, some do not need legislation and we will crack on with them. Over the next few weeks and months, the Justice Department will make several announcements on many of the issues that the White Paper touched on, demonstrating how we will implement what we have discussed in it.
Our brave and valuable prison officers work hard in our prisons and do a tremendous job. Whenever I visit one of our prisons, I make sure I spend time with the staff. I spend time with members of the Prison Officers Association and other staff to hear their experience of the challenges facing them, because I firmly believe that to understand the front-line challenges there is no substitute for speaking to those who are doing the job.
That is why it gives me great pleasure to announce—the House is aware that we have been in discussion with the Prison Officers Association on health and safety, pay and pensions—that we have come to an agreement with the association’s national executive committee on a new pay and pension package for front-line staff that it will recommend to their members. We have also agreed a significant number of health and safety reforms, as well as new powers for governors to deploy their staff. That is a big step. Many questions have been asked about retention and how we value our prison officers. Hon. Members will hear the details of the deal after the debate, but it goes a long way to show how we value prison officers and should help to retain the best officers in the service.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate. I was involved in parliamentary business in another part of the estate.
The Minister’s announcement is very welcome. In my constituency, I have three prisons where the staff are represented by the POA, and there is a private prison in Doncaster where the Community union, which I am a member of, represents a number of people working in the justice sector in that establishment. Has the Minister spoken to representatives of the Community union to make sure we have consistency across the prison estate, both private and public?
Caroline Flint
I am sorry if I was not clear. Will the terms and conditions, numbers and all the other factors the Minister constructively announced a moment ago be shared by the private establishments as well as the public ones?
Mr Gyimah
Obviously, private prisons determine pay and conditions. The deal we have agreed is for members of the Prison Officers Association in bands 3 to 5. I will write to the right hon. Lady with more details.
I echo the concerns raised by the right hon. Member for Delyn on this important topic. I hope the new money we secured for staffing, the new money for the Ministry of Justice and now the new deal on pay, pensions and health and safety indicate that, as I said in my intervention, our interest is long not just on aspiration. We are determined to deliver. This is all happening in the four months the new team has been in post.
The right hon. Gentleman rightly challenged us on the White Paper and on providing concrete plans to tackle drugs, phones, recruitment and the old Victorian estate. We have announced a comprehensive plan to tackle these and other crucial components of the prison system. Despite the inevitable time lag—it will take time because some of the problems have been long in the making and did not arise overnight—we are working to make sure that what can be delivered today will be delivered, and we are confident that we will see lasting benefits in the coming months and years.
As we set out in the White Paper last month, we will invest £100 million to recruit an additional 2,500 staff. Reference has been made several times to the number of staff in 2010, but we have closed 18 prisons and secure detention centres since that date. More importantly, our desire to recruit 2,500 extra staff is based on evidence. We want to create a system in which every prison officer handles the cases of six prisoners. That is what we call the new offender management model, which was recommended in the Harris review, which Members have mentioned. We are implementing it via our new staffing model.
The investment will provide the capacity for prison officers to play a dedicated officer role and to build constructive relationships. As the former prisons Minister is aware, we are talking about a people business: it is about relationships and about prison officers being able to listen prisoners’ frustrations, to diffuse tensions and ultimately to reduce the level of violence. That is a vital component of our plan to stabilise and then decrease the level of violence, self-harm and suicide, as well reforming offenders more generally. With nearly half of all offenders going on to commit crime within a year of being released, we believe that giving each prisoner a dedicated officer will help prisoners to turn away from crime in the long term.
We recognise the challenge in recruiting an extra 2,500 staff. That is why, as I told the Select Committee, we will launch a number of initiatives to help us to do that.
Yasmin Qureshi
The Minister says that 2,500 extra staff will be employed, but achieving the things that he has mentioned will require far more than 2,500 prison staff.
Mr Gyimah
That figure is 2,500 new staff over and above what we would ordinarily recruit. In the Select Committee, the National Offender Management Service chief executive, Michael Spurr, made it clear that in practice that means we will have to recruit 4,000 staff next year and 4,000 staff the following year. It is a challenge, but that is why we have new resources and investment. We will also do it completely differently from how it has been done historically. In the past, prison governors did not have the freedom to recruit themselves. They could not hold open days or advertise locally. People who ended up being recruited into our Prison Service had never visited their place of work or met anyone they will work with beforehand. In addition to the national recruitment effort, we will give the governors of the 28 most challenging prisons the power to recruit for themselves, and that will make a huge difference. It is a question of someone seeing an advert on the internet versus seeing that their local prison is recruiting and they could get a local job.
A question was asked about pay supplements and where they would apply. In fact, that is already happening. For example, HMP Feltham can pay £4,000 extra per person in recognition of how difficult it is to recruit there. Many of the people that Feltham would interview might be choosing between a job there and working at Heathrow airport, which they might feel is a less aggravated environment in which to work. That is why in those establishments the governor can use a supplement to attract staff. For our 10 most challenging jails, we had a target of recruiting 400 staff and we allocated £14 million for that. We are halfway to that target already, so we are making progress.
We all need to recognise that prisons today are in a very different place from where they were 10 years ago. The issue of new psychoactive substances has been mentioned, and we cannot gloss over that. Those substances are incredibly dangerous. In one incident, even the officer who went to help someone who was on those drugs had to be hospitalised because of how potent the drugs are. I mentioned in the Select Committee that taboos are being broken. Prisoners never used to attack female prison officers, but we have seen such incidents, including potting. Also, prisons magnify the community outside, so gang violence is being imported into our prisons. We are also seeing serious cases of mental illness. Yes, staffing is part of the solution, but the problem with which we are dealing, as the right hon. Member for Delyn recognises—he is nodding—is incredibly complex. We must ensure that we deal with it.
Richard Arkless
Of course I welcome the proposal to recruit 4,000 prison officers in each of the next two years. Is that a net figure and, if so, what is the gross figure that the Minister is aiming for? We have a huge retention problem, so to get to a net figure of 4,000, we would need to recruit substantially more. What is the figure?
Mr Hanson
I think the Minister means that the 4,000 each year is a gross figure and, at the end of that, there will be a net figure of the 2,500 to 3,000 he has mentioned. Otherwise, he is committing to 8,000 new prison officers in the next two years. I would welcome that, but I would not want him to commit to it because he might have to increase his expenditure significantly.
Mr Gyimah
Yes. The Treasury would not welcome a commitment to new expenditure in this debate.
There are other challenges. We mentioned the challenges of mobile phones, and the right hon. Gentleman asked about the telecommunications restriction orders blocking mobile phones and other technologies. The legislation allows a prison, where mobile phone usage is suspected, to get a court order to block that specific mobile phone. It is a tool in a prison’s armoury, but we need to deal with the problem on the industrial scale that it is happening on in our prisons. The work that we are doing with mobile phone companies to block signals is the most effective way to ensure that we deal with the problem not on an incremental basis, but on an industrial scale.
Mr Gyimah
We already have mobile phone blocking in some of our prisons. One challenge with mobile phone blocking is that in some prisons in urban areas we could end up blocking the mobile phones of people who are not in the prison. That is why we are developing a bespoke solution, working with the operators, and we have signed an agreement with them to go ahead with three jails early next year and then on that basis roll it out across the estate.
As for psychoactive substances, much has been said about drugs and our approach to them. We have trained more than 300 dogs to detect psychoactive substances. The point of mandatory testing, other than deterrence, is to help, because if someone is on those drugs, they need treatment, and the only way we can know that they are on the drugs is by testing and finding that they need help to come off them, or punishment where that is necessary.
Kate Green
I ask the Minister to keep the effectiveness of mandatory testing under careful review, particularly in relation to those substances, because if they keep being reformed and redesigned to make detection more difficult, the testing will not keep up with the changes in the make-up of the substances being used. I am not saying that he should not be doing mandatory testing and I understand his point about a deterrent effect, but I ask him to keep the effectiveness of that approach under review and to undertake to report to the House regularly on what it is achieving.
Mr Gyimah
Of course we will keep the effectiveness under review. Drugs are such a problem in terms of prison violence, safety and the effect on our prisoners that we ought to do so because we have to deal with the problem, and we will keep it under review.
A question was asked about drones and no-fly zones. We are looking to work with drone operators to programme the co-ordinates of prisons into drones so that if someone buys a drone from the operator and tries to fly it into a prison, it just collapses before it reaches the perimeter. That is technologically possible. On the point about the physical infrastructure, we have seen improved netting and CCTV, which help in dealing with that challenge.
Caroline Flint
Many of these issues affect both public and private prisons. Will the Minister give me an assurance that the Government will take on board some of the issues about staff ratios just as much for contracts for private prisons as they will for public prisons? I would welcome it if he would write to me on that issue.
Mr Gyimah
Of course we look at the entire prison estate when we look at all those issues. Prisons are there to protect the public. All prisons, whether private or public, have the same objectives, and the measures that we are looking at apply across the prison estate.
When it comes to drugs and phones, a lot of crime underpins that activity. People make money from it, which is why we are investing in a new intelligence hub and a search capability. We will say more about that in due course.
I would like to say something about probation, which has not been touched on and is important if we are to turn around offenders. In addition to making prisons places of safety and reform, we must ensure that prisons work hand in hand with probation if we are to achieve lasting change with offenders. It is clear that performance at community rehabilitation companies, which manage low-level offenders, varies widely, and therefore we have launched a review of operations and standards. Public protection is our top priority, and we will take the necessary action to ensure that the probation system reduces reoffending. As with our plans for prisons, I want a simpler, clearer system in which probation is focused on outcomes rather than processes and with increased transparency and accountability. I want specific outcome measures that focus on getting offenders off drugs and back into work. We will look at what additional measures—
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Durham County Cricket Club
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Durham County Cricket Club and the England and Wales Cricket Board.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir David. It is also a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak about one of Durham’s passions—cricket—and the absolutely disgraceful and shameless way in which the England and Wales Cricket Board has treated Durham county cricket club.
I want to start with some of the background on County Durham’s great cricketing history. The club dates back to 1882. The Riverside ground at Chester-le-Street in my constituency of North Durham has hosted six test matches since 2003, and memorably hosted the Ashes match against Australia in 2013. Most recently, in May, Sri Lanka visited the Riverside; I will talk later about the significance of that match and how it impacts on the issues that the club faces today. In 1992 the club joined the county championship and, after waiting 16 years, won the title for the first time in 2008, retained the trophy in the 2009 season and then won it again, for a third time, in 2013.
Throughout that process, the ECB has had a major influence on not only the Durham club but other clubs as well. One of the main decisions taken by the ECB a few years ago was to encourage county grounds such as Durham to hold test matches. That has led to a large amount of expense on the part of Durham cricket club to ensure that the standards needed for those matches are maintained. It has been a success, not only in making sure that those test matches are run efficiently but in bringing revenue into the club and wider community. That has been one of the key points: the local community has very much been a part of Durham county cricket club’s journey.
County Durham has a very vibrant amateur cricket network. Most villages in County Durham have a cricket pitch and a cricket club. Most former collieries used to have cricket grounds and cricket teams. I look out of my constituency office in Sacriston on to the Sacriston cricket club, which is very vibrant, run by volunteers and has an active youth section. That situation is duplicated not only in my constituency but across County Durham. I pay tribute to those volunteers—mums and dads—who support junior cricket, and to older constituents who give up their valuable time to support local cricket in County Durham.
The Riverside has been a success. It has certainly been a boost to the economy of the town of Chester-le-Street, and has also been a boost to the wider region. It has also engendered a good following and new fans; people who were perhaps not natural cricket fans have come to enjoy cricket through the experiences they have had at the Riverside. Importantly, it has also turned many young players in Durham into huge success stories.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a really strong case. Does he agree that the test matches, in particular, have made good days out for families in Durham, and have introduced a lot of young people and children to that standard of cricket, which is very much to be applauded?
Mr Jones
It is, and it is very important that the test matches and other events there have been family events. The other thing that the club has done—I pay tribute to it for this—is that it has actively gone out and worked with local communities and young people. It has not just gone for the easy targets; it has actually dealt with some very difficult-to-reach individuals who have then got into cricket. That has been part of the ethos of the club from the start: it has been community-based in Durham.
We have actually produced some notable successes—Ben Stokes and Keaton Jennings, to name just two—for the national squad. In this country the county sides develop young players and put them forward for our national squads. The ECB’s decision, therefore, to relegate the club to division two of the county championship for the upcoming 2017 season, strip the club of the ability to hold test matches and then punitively deduct 48 points at the start of next season is clearly going to have far-reaching effects on the club’s viability. It is not clear to me whether the ECB had fully thought through the implications of its decision in terms of the cricket fan base in the north-east, the knock-on effect on producing professional international cricketers and the important impact on the local community.
Losing the ability to hold test matches will result in fewer opportunities for the Riverside’s 15,000 capacity to be met. The opportunity to see world-class cricket in the north-east will obviously be diminished, and it will also have a devastating effect on local businesses in Chester-le-Street that are dependent on the cash input that a test match brings to the local town. It also robs the wider north-east of the opportunity to showcase ourselves internationally, which is something that cannot easily be replaced. Certainly, for small businesses, that cash injection from test matches is very important not only for local shops but for local hospitality; I am told that the increased footfall from just one test match can be equivalent to up to a month’s takings.
Thinking about the younger generation of players that are coming into the game, it is quite ironic that the ECB’s current slogan is
“from playground to the Test arena”.
Well, the decision of the ECB to penalise Durham in the way that it has will stifle the dreams of many young, aspiring cricketers not only in County Durham but in the north-east.
I need to cover quickly the events that have led to the situation that we currently find ourselves in. Let us start with the test match against Sri Lanka in May. In order to host the test match, Durham had to pay the ECB a fee of £923,000. It is very odd that supporting county grounds have to pay the ECB, but that is the way it has been—although I understand that it has now been suggested that that should change. There were some important impacts and partly because the ECB scheduled that test match so close to a match at Headingley, gate receipts in Durham were dramatically lower than had been hoped.
Clubs in the north-east—and possibly Glamorgan—do not generate the huge corporate interest and money that southern clubs do, but the ECB does not seem to take that into account at all. I am told that ticket prices for a test match in the north-east have to be lower than they are in the south because of the economic buying power, but the ECB does not regard that as relevant.
If we fast forward to August this year, the chief executive of the club called players, following rumours in the local press that the financial situation was dire, to reassure them that the club was not going bust and all contracts would be honoured. Mr Harker was right. I want to put it on the record that the club has not gone bust, irrespective of what the ECB is trying to say. Talks were taking place between the club, potential investors and the ECB. In October this year the club was forced to accept a £3.8 million financial aid package from the ECB with draconian conditions. It has been described to me by those involved as not only a take-it-or-leave-it option but a gun-to-the-head option, as if to say, “If you don’t take this, there will be no further support.” Those are not the actions of an organisation that is there to foster cricket in all our regions and in the north-east.
Draconian conditions were attached. Durham was relegated from the county championship division one and docked 48 points for the next season, a handicap that would make it almost impossible for the club to make its way back to its former position. Also, points would be docked from future cup competitions. The situation was completely unprecedented in English cricket. This had never happened before. Also, the Riverside ground was told it could no longer hold five-day test matches, which is the only way that clubs such as Durham can raise large amounts of finance. That route has been cut off completely and, as I said earlier, local fans in the north-east have been denied access to first-class international cricket.
As if such penalties were not bad enough, the ECB then imposed a salary cap on the club from April 2017 to 2020. That means that the club will not be able to pay players above a certain threshold. That is to be determined by the ECB board on an annual basis. That will not only have a negative impact in terms of attracting international cricketers to come to play for Durham but place question marks over whether aspiring and developing cricketers will stay at Durham.
The financial difficulties facing Durham are not unique. Other clubs are in a similar situation and have mounting debt. Glamorgan was bailed out by the Welsh Assembly. Hampshire was facing financial difficulties. Indeed, Yorkshire, famous for its cricket ground, has debts of around £18 million, but it is in a fortunate and unique position because it has a very rich benefactor who also happens to be the chairman of the current ECB. Durham’s only crime is that it has not had access to a rich benefactor with deep enough pockets or good enough connections to be able to see it through.
The news has been devastating for supporters throughout the north-east. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and I have had many representations from supporters who are constituents. When the news was announced, I wrote to the ECB to find out why the punishment that the club had received was so arbitrary and punitive. I asked whether the offer was a take-it-or-leave-it option. Also, I wanted to understand how the ECB regulations and the penalties that were imposed on Durham were arrived at.
There is, I understand, a set of ECB regulations for deducting points from clubs that get into financial difficulties, so I wrote to the ECB to ascertain how the regulations have been used in relation to Durham. I wrote to the ECB and asked for a copy of the financial regulations so I could see how its actions had been arrived at. I had a reply from Tom Harrison, chief executive of the ECB, on 18 October. I had asked whether he could furnish me with a copy of the regulations. I thought that would be a straightforward task. I thought the ECB would be able to produce them and explain how the points deductions were arrived at. However, in his reply, he said:
“With regard to points deductions, the ECB Board had to consider the points deductions under ECB’s Financial Regulations and the fact that, but for the ECB’s financial offer, Durham CCC was facing imminent insolvency. We do not currently publish the ECB Regulations governing points deductions, but we are reviewing that...in light of this case.”
So what is the ECB’s big secret? Why would it not publish the regulations? There is clearly a complete lack of transparency, which raises concerns for me and many of my constituents. I am quite tenacious in trying to get to the bottom of issues, and my two moles in the ECB have now sent me a copy of the regulations, which make very interesting reading. They cover the issue of a club becoming insolvent, but Durham was not. So I looked at the regulations to see if I could work out how the points deductions were arrived at.
Paragraph 6.4 on page 13 of the regulations states:
“A points deduction pursuant to Regulation 6”—
—the regulation that covers the financial failure of a club and bankruptcy—
“shall be imposed in accordance with the Appendix attached hereto and otherwise on the following basis”.
So then we go to the appendix at the back. It is a pretty simple system. If a club becomes insolvent, 50 points will be deducted from the current club or its successor club in the county championship. Six points will be deducted in the Clydesdale Bank 40 and four points will be deducted in the Friends Provident t20. If we add those together, that is 60 points that could be deducted from the club.
Durham were relegated and then had 48 points taken away; if 50 points had been taken away, they would have gone into the next division. But where did the additional 48-point deduction come from? There is no mention in the regulations about the penalty of taking away test matches or of caps on salaries, so it is clear to me that the ECB has ignored its own financial regulations. What we need from the ECB as a matter of urgency is a clear explanation of how it arrived at that points deduction. It is not clear to me that it was in line with the financial regulations; my mole, whom I talked to yesterday, said exactly that: that the decision of the board is clearly not in line with those regulations.
The chair of the ECB, Colin Graves, who also used to be the chairman of Yorkshire and was a founder of Costcutter convenience stores, clearly does not understand his own rule book. Two weeks ago, in an interview on the Durham situation in The Daily Telegraph, he said:
“The punishments are there within our rules and regulation of penalties for financial irregularities for not being sustainable. We did not create them on a wing and prayer. They are there in the financial laws of ECB.”
I am sorry, Sir David, but the ECB was on a wing and a prayer, because it was clearly not in line with the regulations. Mr Graves clearly knows quite a lot about cost cutting, but he is not an expert at cutting corners when it comes to interpreting the ECB’s rules. What he told The Daily Telegraph is completely wrong.
As for the draconian measures, the ECB needs to explain how its decision was arrived at. There is no reference to a club in difficulty; the reference is to clubs that are bankrupt. I reiterate that Durham was not bankrupt. In looking at how the decisions were reached, we need to know not only the chronology of the meetings, but who was in the meetings that took the decisions. I am told by another mole in the ECB that the decision to penalise Durham was taken on a train and then endorsed by an ECB meeting conducted by telephone conference. If that is so, it is not the way to arrive at such decisions.
If the ECB was to take such unprecedented steps, surely a document should have been produced to explain the rationale for them, with a reference to the regulations, for the consideration of those taking the decision. I challenge the ECB to publish details of the process. It is not clear to me, or my two moles—or many people in the cricketing world to whom I have spoken—how the decision was reached.
I have been speaking to people in and connected with the ECB in the past few weeks, and I do not think that openness and transparency are the first things that come to mind when the ECB is mentioned. Matters to do with financial regulations should be in public documents. The Rugby Football Union’s financial regulations are published on its website. What has the ECB got to hide in not releasing the information—unless it is to cover up the reasoning for and justifications of the punitive measures it took?
I want to explore how the decision was reached and who took it. The press has raised concerns about the role of Colin Graves, including his role in relation to Yorkshire cricket. It is clear that he, a wealthy man—or his family—bailed out Yorkshire county cricket club. Without that support it would clearly be in the same position as Durham.
Some have suggested that Mr Graves took the action because there would be a financial benefit to Yorkshire and other teams, as there would be one fewer ground at which to hold test matches. I have no evidence to prove that, and I certainly do not suggest that that was the sole reason for the decision. However, in his interview in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Graves claims that he no longer has any financial interest in Yorkshire cricket. I understand that he has put the debt, which is £80 million, into a family trust, which someone else now operates. All well and good, perhaps, but he should explain who the beneficiaries of the trust are.
The actions that Mr Graves has taken as a board member of the ECB will clearly benefit not him directly, perhaps, but his family. In most organisations or companies, an arrangement of that kind would mean absenting oneself from the decision in question. That is not because the individual would personally be trying to gain from it, but because of the idea that someone should not be seen to influence something that they or their family could benefit from directly. Mr Graves needs to explain the relationship.
I understand from my mole that at the meeting in question there were other ECB members who did not take part. In one case that was because the member used to play for Kent, which would benefit from Durham’s relegation. If that applied to one board member, why did it not apply to someone with a family interest in a club that would benefit from Durham’s situation? I do not say for a minute that that is why Mr Graves took the decision, but in any organisation decision making needs to be seen to be open and transparent, and beyond reproach, because of the possibility that decisions will be questioned.
Another thing that came up in the Daily Telegraph interview is the way in which county cricket gets test matches, bidding for them and having to pay the ECB for them. The way cricket operates in this country is that clubs generate players locally, to play at national and international level. The ECB generates large amounts of cash from television rights for covering test matches. I am told that something like 60% of that is retained by the ECB and less than 40% is returned to clubs. That is clearly the wrong way round. The clubs produce first-class players and need support at grass-roots level, and should be getting it. My mole also tells me that the ECB has reserves of £73 million. Money is sitting there that could be used at local level, not just to support existing clubs but to bring tomorrow’s generation of kids into cricket.
There are also allegations—I have no evidence for them, but my mole tells me that this is quite open—that being an ECB member involves quite a good life, as far as the way it spends money to support its executives is concerned. That is up to the ECB, if it is what it wants to do, but if it means starving county cricket of much needed resources, that cannot be right.
I should like the Minister to think about the fact that while the ECB hoards money centrally and does not use it to support county cricket, public money is being used to support local cricket. In the case of Durham, there has been £3.9 million from Durham County Council and £800,000 from the local enterprise partnership. Some £6 million was put into Glamorgan on a local basis. Can it be right that in this country the ECB generates huge amounts of money from television rights and other things, which does not go to local clubs, while we expect the taxpayer to support local clubs, because people want them and enjoy them? It cannot be right.
The lack of transparency continues in the way the club operates at the moment. I want to talk about the appointment of its new board. It was announced a few weeks ago that Sir Ian Botham would be the chair of the new Durham board. It is a very strange situation; I was told of his appointment on the day of the announcement about deduction of points and relegation. He was appointed several weeks later. A condition set by the ECB was that he should become chair of the new Durham county cricket club.
Personally, I have nothing against Mr Botham; he has made a huge contribution to English cricket and should be commended on his tireless charity work throughout the country. However, there is a question over how independent he will be as chair. Is he speaking there on behalf of the ECB or on behalf of Durham? Interestingly, in the last few weeks—since he was appointed—he has got good headlines, but he has said nothing at all about the way in which Durham as a club has been treated regarding the points deduction. It will be interesting to see over the coming weeks whether he will be a real champion for the club or just a mouthpiece of the ECB.
My next point is about the reformation of the board and what role the ECB will have in appointing the board’s new directors. Is that yet another condition of the loan? If it is, Durham county cricket club will basically be an arm’s length organisation of the ECB, with individuals who do not question anything the ECB does, but simply implement instructions from on high. That cannot be right; it is not in the best interests of cricket in this country, including County Durham, and many fans who loyally support the club will have a very low opinion of it.
What concerns me in all this is that the fans—the important people who support cricket in this country and in County Durham—seem just to have been completely forgotten in this entire process. Have their opinions been taken on board? Have they been consulted? Have they been given information? Clearly not, and that cannot be right if we want vibrant local cricket on a regional level in this country.
On the ECB and its finances, I have mentioned the situation whereby money is kept separate and some is then sent to clubs. The interview with Colin Graves in The Daily Telegraph mentions a change in that clubs in future that do not get test matches will be given up to £1 million. Again, we do not know how that figure has been arrived at. Likewise, the arrangement whereby clubs compete for test matches is to be scrapped. I welcome that, because in future, clubs such as Durham—well, Durham has been taken out of the equation, but other clubs—will not have to pay punitive charges up front to the ECB to secure a test match.
We need a more fundamental look at the way in which English cricket is financed. Clubs such as Durham, which have been completely taken out of test cricket by this decision, will not be helped by the change, but the important thing is that we know how decisions about other clubs are taken. Which club gets which test match in future will be interesting. Again, that comes down to the transparency that we need to make sure the right decisions are taken.
It is scandalous that in 2016 we still have an organisation that is as clouded in secrecy as the ECB is. The first mole referred to the ECB as a very private club, which takes decisions and does not like being questioned when it does things. There is interaction between the ECB and Government, not only in the examples I have given in which public money goes into supporting English cricket, but in respect of the support for English cricket from Sport England and others.
A condition of the Government’s providing that money should be that the ECB reforms the way in which it operates. Transparency has to be one of the key issues. Such things as having £73 million in reserve cannot be right in this situation. Is the current model sustainable in the long term? We cannot have a situation in which people who might be perceived as having direct, vested interests in the ECB’s decisions are part of those decisions. If they are involved, they should at least provide documents to the public and a fully transparent approach should be taken.
In conclusion, I have a couple of things to ask the Minister. I know he is standing in for the Minister with responsibility for sport, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who is on ministerial business elsewhere today, but I would like a meeting with her to discuss in more detail not only Durham, but wider governance and the ECB.
I would like the Minister to address the situation in which Government money—whether that is Sport England money, local enterprise partnership money or Welsh Government money—is going into cricket, when there is clearly enough money in cricket being hoarded or held by the ECB. It is not being used for what most fans would want it to be used for: developing first-class cricket around the country at a local level and providing facilities for young talent. My fear for Durham in future is that the excellent work that Durham has done to engage with young people—boys and girls—and to encourage them to play cricket will be lost, as the emphasis will really be on considering what the ECB wants, rather than what local people want.
The way this has been done is a scandal. Loyal fans who have supported the club over many years—partly through a passionate love of cricket, but also because of a sense of loyalty to their local team—have been completely disregarded. What is the purpose of the ECB? Is it to protect its own interests and be a cosy club, or is it to support fans and young people who actively want to participate, and to encourage people to get involved in cricket? That is the clear question. This type of secrecy and lack of transparency cannot continue in 2016.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir David? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for securing the debate. I am not sure that I will be able to continue with the detailed forensic analysis, but I will do my best. I got to know about this issue, as we all did, from our local press in the north-east and from the volume of emails that suddenly came into my inbox from local people who were deeply concerned about the relegation decision on 3 October. I have pursued the issue alongside my hon. Friend, because I am currently chair of the northern group of Labour MPs.
For those who are not aficionados of Durham cricket club, I will give a quick résumé. It was established in 1882 and had minor county status until December 1991, when it was awarded first-class status. It was the first cricket club to be given the status for 70 years, and it was one of 18 first-class county cricket clubs in England and Wales.
Durham’s first-class county status was made conditional on the building of a new test match-standard cricket ground, on which work started in 1990. The Riverside ground, in my hon. Friend’s constituency, was completed in 1995, and the headquarters of Durham county cricket club have been there ever since. In 2010, the club signed a sponsorship deal with Emirates airline that gave the sponsor stadium-naming rights for six years. That contract was extended for a further seven years in February.
Durham has won the county championship three times, most recently in 2013 and, before that, in 2008 and 2009. It also won the Friends Provident trophy in 2007 and the Royal London one-day cup in 2014. As a minor county, it won the championship seven times, and was the first minor county ever to beat a first-class county in the Gillette cup when it beat Yorkshire in 1973. That might be an important point, given what my hon. Friend said about the influence of Yorkshire. When Durham was still a minor county, it went for a record 65 matches without defeat between 1976 and 1982. I could go on with various plaudits about the club. I am trying to demonstrate that it was an extremely good club that did a huge amount for cricket and raised the profile of cricket in the north-east. That has made the relegation decision so very hard to bear for local people.
Durham county cricket club filed its accounts late, and those accounts showed that it owed £7.5 million. The retiring chairman of the club, Clive Leach, admitted that it could not meet its liabilities for the year, but the situation was very much presented as a series of cash flow difficulties, rather than a need to go immediately into insolvency or administration. We also know—I will say more about this later—that the club was applying for some additional funding that would have helped with the situation. Now, the ECB has agreed to help the club with its debt problems by giving it £3.8 million of financial aid, which will go towards allowing the club to maintain its commitments to salaries and to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and to meet operating costs. It will also settle some of the club’s substantial debts, and the focus will then be on restructuring the existing debts.
Dr Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I will talk later about the letter I have written to the ECB and the response I received. What is most interesting about the letter is what is not in it, rather than what is. The money owed to the ECB is not mentioned.
Currently, there is an offer of support—£3.8 million of financial aid—that is tied to restructuring, but it is also, as my hon. Friend so clearly outlined, allied to a series of sanctions. Durham will be relegated to the second division of the Specsavers county championship and will start the 2017 season with a 48-point penalty in the competition, a four-point penalty in the NatWest Blast and a two-point penalty in the Royal London one-day cup. All non-player related ECB competition prize money due to Durham for the 2016 season is to be refunded to the ECB or withheld until all debts owed by the club to the ECB have been settled. The club will not carry out any future capital redevelopment works without the prior agreement of the ECB, and the club is to be subject to a revised salary cap. There is an indication that all those measures will be subject to review and ongoing scrutiny by the ECB.
As my hon. Friend so clearly set out, this punishment is unprecedented. Never has the ECB imposed such a severe penalty on a club, nor has any punishment been so wide-ranging, including a financial penalty, a points penalty, relegation and the removal of the ability to host test cricket. What Durham can do is quite limited.
Dr Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend again makes an excellent point. That is what it feels like, but this is about the hugely damaging nature of the penalties for the future. The penalties will prevent the club from easily getting back to the first division or getting into a position of financial viability. That is the underlying worry that we all have. As the team will no longer be in the top division, it will not have matches with county clubs such as Yorkshire and Lancashire, which bring quite a lot of crowds because they are quite close to Durham. Instead, the club will play counties such as Essex and Kent, and it will be much harder for those supporters to get to Durham. The club anticipates that gate numbers are likely to be reduced because of the penalties, and it will be difficult to increase those.
There will also be a knock-on impact on the local community, because the penalties strip Durham of its right to hold test matches. It is the test matches that bring new people into watching cricket. Some constituents are concerned about an impact on the area’s economy because restaurants, pubs, guest houses and hotels will lose money, and the area is already struggling economically.
As I said earlier, the ECB interestingly failed to mention to me—in fact, it, seemed to have failed to take this into account when it was putting the sanctions in place—that representations had been made to Durham County Council and the local enterprise partnership to see what they could do to help the club overcome its cash flow difficulties and financial problems. The club received a loan—£800,000 from the LEP—on 16 October, which was only a couple of weeks after the ECB made the relegation decision on 3 October. Why could the ECB not have waited at least a couple of weeks to find out what Durham County Council was going to do, if anything, to help the club? In fact, the council did a lot on 16 October to help the club, agreeing to it becoming a community interest company, which means that it cannot be sold privately. That was important because the previous private sale of Durham county cricket club brought substantial debt. That did not seem to be acknowledged anywhere by the ECB.
A £3.74 million programme of financial assistance to Durham County Council was agreed; effectively, the council has taken shares in the community interest company. It has also been promised a share of special fee payments. Previously—this does not seem to have been acknowledged by the ECB—the council loaned the club £4.3 million in two tranches. The local community—if we can say this—via the council, was trying to do its bit to acknowledge the difficulty and see the club through a difficult period so that things could improve a bit and the club could accept some restructuring.
I chair the northern group of Labour MPs, which met on 18 October to discuss the issue, ably led by my hon. Friend, who knew some of the details. I agreed to write to the chief executive officer of the ECB and to the Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to ask whether he would consider having an inquiry into the issue. I received a reply from the ECB on 4 November and from the Chair of the Select Committee on 30 November.
The letter that I wrote as chair of the northern group was pretty similar to the letter written by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. We outlined our concerns about how the decision had been made, particularly the lack of transparency on how the matter had been handled. We outlined our basic understanding of the club’s financial situation, and we acknowledged the need for financial assistance from the ECB, but we wanted to know what discussions had taken place between the ECB and the club before the relegation decision was made. We asked the ECB to set that out clearly so that we could have a better understanding.
We asked how the sanctions were presented to the club. Were the sanctions up for negotiation, with an opportunity for the club to challenge them, or were they pretty much, as we were all told, take it or leave it? We asked for more information about the decision-making process. I was alarmed to hear my hon. Friend say that this might have happened on a train via some sort of telephone conversation, because in our letter we asked how the decision was made and who was involved. In particular, we wanted to know how the ECB arrived at the range of sanctions that were applied and the regulations that had been used. We said that the sanctions seemed rather extreme. We also said how illogical it was to strip Durham of its status as a test cricket venue, because that is the only possible way for the club to get itself out of financial difficulty. The sanctions seem extraordinarily punitive and stupid if the ECB really is interested in keeping cricket going in Durham. We highlighted some issues with the local economy of the north-east, which the ECB does not seem to have taken on board at all.
It is sad that the letter of reply from Tom Harrison did not answer any of our questions. The letter contained little detail. There were some good things, and I will start with those. We asked for a meeting with him, which he has offered. We will take him up on that offer in the coming weeks—we have asked him to come to speak to the northern group of MPs. I will follow that up. He also assured us that the actions had been taken with the
“express intention of saving, preserving and growing cricket in the North East; that is…our primary objective.”
Well, if that is his objective, he is not going about it in the right way at all. He said that the ECB had been working hard with Durham to find a solution to its financial problems, but there was nothing outlining the nature of that work, what the ECB was doing, or anything like that.
Tom Harrison said that Durham’s financial problems were the “most significant” he had seen but, again, he gave no evidence. That does not seem to chime with what we have heard about the situation at other clubs, so we will challenge him on that, too. He said that the ECB had
“consulted…stakeholders including Durham City Council”.
Durham City Council has not existed for quite some time—I assume he meant Durham County Council—but, again, he did not say anything about the outcome of those discussions. As we know, the discussions were incredibly positive and perhaps would have enabled the ECB to see the club’s financial circumstances in a different light. He went on to say that he thought the ECB had helped the club’s future sustainability.
We asked Tom Harrison what regulations the ECB used, how it made these decisions and whether we could see the regulations so that we could understand and be assured that the club was not being treated unfairly. He wrote back:
“We do not currently publish the ECB Regulations governing points deductions, but we are reviewing that position in light of this case.”
That is extraordinary. At the time, I did not realise that the regulations were sitting on my hon. Friend’s desk—he got them through another avenue. We will now formally ask for the regulations to be given to us, and we will ask for a more detailed explanation.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Absolutely. We need to have far more information in the public domain, particularly on how the decision was made.
Tom Harrison concludes:
“We understand that these conditions are difficult for the club”.
What an understatement. The ECB has plunged the club into a really difficult, if not impossible, situation, and all he talks about is the ECB’s hope that restructuring will help the club. He also says:
“A strong, financially robust Durham County Club is a huge asset for the game.”
He talks about the club’s importance to supporting cricket in the north-east, but there is nothing on how the club will do that.
I intend to write back to challenge most of the points in that letter. I have a helpful response from the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who has invited us to talk to him about the particular issues with this decision that we think need to be subjected to much more public scrutiny. There are also the issues with Durham County Council, the local enterprise partnership and how the ECB and, indeed, perhaps the Government, will consider support from the public for clubs such as Durham.
The saddest thing in the ECB’s response is that it has consistently failed to acknowledge that the club operates in difficult local economic circumstances. There are not huge numbers of businesses with lots of money to give to the club, and there are not huge numbers of wealthy benefactors. We are in a much more difficult and much more disadvantaged situation than many other clubs. The ECB said in the letter that it had singled out Durham because it wanted Durham to act as a deterrent to other clubs that might think they could get a loan from the board or financial support from the ECB, which is truly shocking. The ECB has failed, at every level, to acknowledge the difficult circumstances that Durham faces. Instead of exemplary penalties, the ECB should have been thinking about how to help Durham address its difficult financial and economic situation. That is the biggest challenge that we need to send back to the ECB today.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for raising this important issue. He has always been a firm advocate for his constituency, his county and his region, and on this issue he is no different.
I have a deep love for the game of cricket. I played to county level as a teenager, and I know what cricket can do to unite communities. Cricket is a sport of which the UK can be proud. It is enjoyed by schoolboys and girls, and by spectators who may be immobile in their home. I am proud to be talking about such an important issue today.
From what we have already heard, we can agree that the situation surrounding Durham county cricket club is serious and has ramifications beyond the club. Nobody disputes that the club found itself in difficult financial circumstances, but it is fair to say that the rescue package offered by the England and Wales Cricket Board has satisfied few people. It will not be lost on people involved with the club that the ECB has said openly that it hopes that its action will serve as a deterrent to other clubs. Although the club’s immediate future appears safe, it has been stripped of the ability in the long term to generate additional revenue through prestigious test match fixtures under an ECB-mandated ban, depriving up to 15,000 people per match across the region of the opportunity to see English cricket at the very top level.
As we have heard, the knock-on effect to local businesses will be substantial. Businesses benefit hugely from the test series, which brings sell-out crowds and overseas visitors. Publicans and hotel owners have already remarked how their businesses will be hit due to lower footfall, at a time when people in the local tourism industry are already concerned about what will happen post-Brexit.
It is welcome that one-day and Twenty20 international cricket will still be played at the Riverside ground. I also welcome Sir Ian Botham as chair of Durham county cricket club, and I wish him the best of luck in restoring the club’s finances and rebuilding it as a leading force in county cricket. However, for many, that is scant relief for a club that has already built an enviable track record in cricket through a much-vaunted academy system and first-class infrastructure. It is highly valued. Despite being the youngest county club in first-class cricket, it has produced excellent former and current England test players, including Paul Collingwood, Ben Stokes and Keaton Jennings, to name a few.
The points deductions for all competitions mean that the club will start in the second division on minus 48 points, which will hamper its ability to be competitive in future as it struggles to keep its star players. In competing at the highest level and providing the ground and infrastructure required by the ECB to host test cricket in the first place, the club appears to have been a victim of its own success. Some may say that it overreached itself in order to compete with Lord’s, the Oval, and Headingley, but questions have been raised about how the ECB has encouraged clubs to blind-bid for test matches, while guaranteeing a quota for London grounds; ultimately, it has not been an equitable or transparent process.
Can the Minister push the ECB to be more open about how county clubs bid on test cricket, to ensure that it is available to everyone throughout the country and not concentrated at a few clubs? Can he also get assurances from the ECB that it is still committed to maintaining first-class cricket in the north-east of England and making it accessible throughout the country? Furthermore, can he also ask the ECB to detail how it came to decide on the severity of the sanctions taken against Durham county cricket club? Given that other first-class clubs have significantly higher debts than Durham did at the time, will the ECB ensure that rules to maintain the stability and competitiveness of the league are evenly applied in future?
As I said from the outset, we cannot ignore Durham county cricket club’s situation. We must have a sustainable financial model for our top-class cricket clubs. However, many top-flight clubs have high debts that would be unsustainable without test matches or wealthy financial backers, while others have experienced financial problems and required local authority backing to sustain them.
The ECB should take action to ensure a more transparent and equitable funding model for top-class cricket, to keep it accessible to all and fair to our clubs. I hope that the Minister has taken note of the many great points made in this debate, and I urge him to give answers that will be satisfactory to everyone here and those who enjoy Durham county cricket club.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Rob Wilson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing this debate and on what can only be described as the forthright contributions that he and others have made. The sports Minister would like me to put on record her apologies for not being here; she is attending an international conference in Abu Dhabi on cultural protection. If it is any small consolation, I am a cricket-mad watcher and player, so I have a little knowledge about cricket that I hope to contribute to this debate.
We can be in no doubt about the depth of feeling about the recent challenges faced by Durham county cricket club, which have been described with passion and conviction in this debate. The great interest that the hon. Member for North Durham takes in Durham county cricket club’s well-being, as both a supporter and an advocate in Parliament, has been clearly heard. I do not know about any moles that he has, but I certainly feel that he has put a cat among some pigeons somewhere in London.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about Durham’s situation. The club has made some major contributions to English cricket, as others have said, since it joined the ranks as the newest of 18 first-class counties in 1992. Durham was the first minor county to achieve first-class status in more than 70 years, which highlights the mountain it has climbed in the past couple of decades. The county demonstrated its ambition early, when Ian Botham agreed to play for it in its initial first-class season.
Durham has gone on to bigger and better things, providing world-class, home-grown England players such as Steve Harmison and current captain Paul Collingwood —a former England T20 world cup winner—as well as having won the county championship on three occasions, as others have said, with the last time as recently as 2013. My own memory spans back to Paul Collingwood’s century against the West Indies in the 2007 test match at the Riverside when he became the first local Durham player to hit a test century at the ground.
It is a matter of great regret to all cricket lovers that Durham has had such serious financial problems recently. The fact that it will have to begin next season in division 2 of the county championship is clearly not considered a satisfactory outcome for the county. The ECB contends that it felt that there was a possibility that Durham would cease to exist, which would obviously have been an even greater loss to the area. The ECB therefore provided a £3.8 million package of funding in what it saw as the most viable way to secure the cricket club’s continued existence. I recognise that many supporters will not agree that the totality of the terms is a good solution, but it should be essential for all parties to share the end goal of securing the future of Durham—not just saving cricket in the north-east, but developing and growing it.
I understand that the ECB has been working with Durham to preserve the club in the face of financial problems that the ECB, as the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) said, regards as the most significant that it has seen in the professional game. I also understand that the ECB has worked with the chief executive and the board of the club throughout the last year and consulted with its stakeholders to ensure that Durham can continue to play in all three domestic competitions.
Mr Kevan Jones
I thank the Minister for how he has responded. Can he ask his ministerial colleague whether she can get an explanation from the Department of how the points were reached? It is clear from the ECB’s own financial regulations that it cannot make those penalties. That is a basic answer expected by cricket fans in the north-east and Durham.
Mr Wilson
I can do better than that. I had a conversation with the sports Minister when I found out that I would be responding to this debate. She has agreed to meet the hon. Gentleman—and the hon. Member for City of Durham too, should that be appropriate—and will do so as soon as it can be arranged to everyone’s convenience. The hon. Gentleman can then ask her those questions directly.
The ECB support included making an advance on the annual fee payment of nearly £1.3 million, with which it intended Durham to be able to meet pressing ongoing salary, HMRC and operating costs. The ECB has informed the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that its board felt that the cricketing conditions attached to that support reflected the scale and gravity of Durham’s accumulated financial issues.
The hon. Gentleman asked about concerns around the decision-making process. Obviously I have not been party to the mechanics of that process or to the entirety of the ECB rulebook—he may have more access to that than I do because of his moles. However, if there is any discrepancy, I urge transparency. I understand that the ECB has offered to meet the hon. Members; I encourage them to take up that offer as soon as possible.
I understand those who primarily see the local impact and who feel that the penalty is particularly harsh. The Riverside has hosted international cricket every year since 2000 and it will host it again in 2017 in a T20 international against the West Indies. Removal of test status may be an unpalatable penalty, but the ECB believes it is a necessary part of the response to enable the club’s financial recovery. It has confirmed that Durham will continue to generate revenue via the TV deal with Sky by hosting international T20 and white ball cricket, despite the removal of test match status.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the hoarding of income from fees. To be clear, the ECB is a full signatory to the Sport and Recreation Alliance code of conduct for rights owners, which pledges investment of broadcast revenue back into the grassroots of sport. I hope that that is of some comfort to him.
Mr Wilson
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I think it is best if he takes it up directly with the sports Minister when they meet.
The ECB and Durham will need to work together to bring back viable test cricket to the Riverside at the earliest opportunity. The ECB believes that there is a strong and sustainable future for Durham in meeting the growing demand for white ball cricket that will inspire the next generation, and an attractive growth opportunity to inspire fans to attend and generate a sustainable income for the business, ensuring that the club returns to a firm financial footing.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the ECB does not currently publish its regulations governing points deductions, but in the light of these events it is now reviewing that position. I hope that it will proceed quickly to the right conclusion so that concerned stakeholders can benefit from improved transparency. Indeed, such rules are always better in the public domain.
The hon. Gentleman raised some concerns about Colin Graves. I know that disquiet has been felt in some quarters over the ECB chairman’s role in relation to connections to Yorkshire county cricket club and the awarding of test matches to particular venues. Of course, any allegations of improper behaviour should be taken very seriously indeed, but the ECB has again reiterated that it believes that such claims are entirely unfounded and that the chairman neither derives benefit from the Graves trust nor plays a role in match allocation.
Mr Wilson
I am glad that we have been able to clear that up and that it is on the record. I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that absolutely clear. That cat among the pigeons is off on another trek.
It would not be appropriate for the Government to become involved in the financial affairs of individual clubs. However, the Government’s new sports strategy, “Sporting Future”, which was published last December, makes the wider governance of sport a high priority. It contains a requirement for national governing bodies, including the ECB, that are in receipt of public funding to agree to a new code for sports governance. The new sports governance code was launched last month and will come into force from the next funding cycle in April 2017. One of its requirements is that organisations must have strong leadership in place, with the right checks and balances to minimise the likelihood of integrity issues arising.
The Government are fully committed to tackling corruption in sport at all levels. Working closely with our arm’s length bodies, we will continue to work with domestic and international sports stakeholders in the wider fight to eliminate corruption from sport. We expect all sports bodies, including the ECB, to adhere to the principles of good governance, financial stability, and transparency. The new code will help to promote those principles to all bodies in receipt of public funding.
Sport England is providing £20 million to the ECB over the current funding period to help to deliver on its challenging whole sport plan to increase participation in the wonderful sport of cricket, as well as focusing on talent development in the women’s games and in disability cricket.
Mr Wilson
I hope to come to that very point in just a moment.
In addition, £7.5 million will go directly from Sport England to the Cricket Foundation to extend the Chance to Shine grassroots cricket programme, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman is well aware of, for a further three years. Since 2010, Sport England has invested more than £42 million in community projects and facilities to get more people playing cricket, aiming to reach more than 400,000 young people and develop more than 1,200 new satellite clubs on school sites.
In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency of North Durham, more than £67,000 of Sport England funding has been invested into five community projects and facilities since 2010. For example, Burnmoor Cricket Juniors and Chester-le-Street cricket club have benefited from getting more young people involved in the game and from improvements to pitches—this is literally grassroots investment. Across County Durham as a whole, more than £379,000 has been invested by Sport England in 23 community cricket clubs and facilities. These are the kinds of clubs at which public investment must be targeted. Through that investment, we have greater potential to nurture new Harmisons and Collingwoods in the future for the benefit of both Durham and England—although some may argue that we need them out in India right now.
Dr Blackman-Woods
It is really helpful to have on record the money going into grassroots cricket, but one of the points that we have been trying to make this afternoon is that inspiring young people to get involved in cricket and building up local cricket grounds partially depends on having a cricket club in Durham that is able to host international test matches. It is a way of bringing world-class cricket to the area to inspire young people and others. We do not want to see that money wasted or given to grassroots cricket without looking at test cricket as well.
Mr Wilson
I understand the concern about test cricket and I am sure there will be further debate about it when the hon. Members meet the ECB. However, international cricket will continue at Durham county cricket club with Twenty20 internationals, including against the West Indies next year. I hope that that means that international cricket, at least in the form of limited overs games, will be able to continue at Durham, and let us hope that in the not-too-distant future full-blown test cricket can come back to the Riverside ground.
The ECB is the custodian of the game, which must protect its health, and I agree that it is important that cricket in Durham continues to thrive, not only for elite performance but for those thousands of young people and amateur players who look forward to their weekend or after-school games. Increased participation is vital to the lifeblood of any sport, helping to feed the elite level from a healthy grassroots base.
Finally, a strong, financially robust Durham county cricket club would be a highly desirable outcome from this process and a huge asset for the game, allowing Durham to continue to play a vital role in developing England talent, enriching our domestic competitions and supporting the wider growth of the game. As I have already said, I understand that the ECB has offered to meet the hon. Gentleman and the other members of the northern group of Labour MPs at their convenience; I hope that meeting takes place very soon. I also understand that Durham is now looking forward to the coming season with the aim of returning to the top tier of the county championship at the first opportunity. I wish Durham the very best of luck in that ambition, and in securing a more prosperous and sustainable future.
Mr Kevan Jones
I thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) from the Opposition Front Bench for their contributions. The Minister did very well in outlining the importance of cricket in communities such as Durham at a grassroots level, and my hon. Friend also stressed its importance. However, if public money is going to the ECB, it must be conditional on full transparency, because as a result of what has happened there is now a level of mistrust among cricket fans in the north-east and people from other clubs who have spoken to me over the last few weeks. For credibility purposes, the ECB could do itself a great favour if it shone a spotlight on some of the ways in which it operates. In some cases, those ways of operating lead to suspicions and accusations, even if those suspicions and accusations are unfounded.
Mr Rob Wilson
I forgot to answer that point when the hon. Gentleman made it earlier during my remarks. The £20 million funding from Sport England is subject to the current cycle of requirements and assurance processes that runs to 17 April next year. The new governance code will go even further and will apply to future funding agreements between Sport England and the ECB. I hope that clears up that particular issue.
Mr Jones
It does, and I thank the Minister for that clarification. This is an important issue and it will be one of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and I will raise when we meet the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). I will put on the record my thanks for the Minister’s courtesy in informing me herself that she was not going to be here. There are some Ministers who could take lessons from the way she interacts with parliamentary colleagues.
The issue of transparency is an important one, because without transparency I do not think any public money should be put into the ECB. As for the way forward for Durham county cricket club, we need a vibrant club. It has a large amount of support from local people, who love it for the sport it provides.
However, the one thing that the ECB could do that would restore some faith in it in the north-east would be to review the points penalty, because, as I think I have explained today, no one can justify how that penalty was arrived at. If the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting, most cricket supporters in the north-east, and certainly my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham and I want a vibrant way forward for the cricket club, then going into the new season without the 48-point penalty would be a step forward. That would be seen as fair and it would mean that the ECB could at least get some credibility back. After the way it has acted over the past few months, it will take a lot of time and effort to get any credibility back among local supporters of cricket.
I will put on the record my thanks to you, Sir David, for chairing this debate, to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting for her contribution, and to the Minister for his reply.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Durham County Cricket Club and the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Written Statements
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Marrakesh Climate Change Conference
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Climate Change and Industry (Mr Nick Hurd)
The annual conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations framework convention on climate change took place in Marrakesh, Morocco, from 7 to 18 November. The United Kingdom was represented by myself (Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry) who has been negotiating for the UK and promoting British business. The conference was described as an “implementation COP” focused on starting the process of turning the first global climate change deal, known as the Paris agreement, into a clear blueprint for action.
The UK aims for Marrakesh were to: (a) strengthen action and ambition; (b) make progress on implementing the Paris agreement; and (c) demonstrate the UK’s leadership on climate change. These objectives were achieved.
(A) Regarding strengthening action and ambition, there were two key outcomes:
The Marrakesh action proclamation underlined that the global commitment to tackling climate change is irreversible, calling for raised ambition and strengthened co-operation.
Announcements made by Governments, businesses and other non-state actors further emphasised the global momentum and the action being taken. On behalf of the UK, the Minister of State pledged support for many initiatives that will support countries in meeting their emissions reduction targets as the world aims to achieve carbon neutrality in the second half of the century.
(B) Regarding progress on implementing the Paris agreement, consensus was secured on all of the areas where decisions were mandated, including the terms of reference for the Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage, and the Paris Committee on Capacity Building. Further progress included:
The first meeting of the countries who ratified the Paris agreement (CMA1);
Discussions on detail of the rulebook to support implementation of commitments and setting a deadline to finalise by 2018 with a review in 2017;
Agreement for an inclusive and transparent consultation on mitigation commitments ahead of the facilitative dialogue in 2018 to assess progress, in order to inform the next round of national pledges on mitigation;
Agreement that the adaptation fund should serve the Paris agreement subject to decisions on governance and modalities to be taken at COP24 (in 2018); and
Agreement to a five-year work plan on “Loss and Damage” which will start in 2017. This will include a review of the sources of finance for loss and damage but does not admit new or separate financial arrangements for loss and damage.
(C) Regarding demonstrating UK’s leadership and commitment, we:
Announced that the UK had ratified the Paris agreement. On this occasion, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy reiterated that we look ahead to continuing our leadership on climate action and ensuring that British business continues to play a key role in the new global low-carbon economy. We believe it will benefit the UK while we implement our industrial strategy to deliver an economy that works for all.
Co-led with Australia the production and presentation of the $100 billion road map on behalf of donor countries, setting out how the goal of mobilising $100 billion of public and private climate finance by 2020 will be achieved.
Hosted a Green is GREAT pavilion, showcasing British strengths in managing the impact of climate change and providing a platform to show and sell British innovations.
Underwent our second “multilateral assessment” setting out progress to meeting our 2020 emissions reduction targets and lessons that could be shared.
The positive outcome from Marrakesh will help to implement what was agreed in Paris more effectively. It caps a year of continued momentum on climate change, including the rapid entry into force of the Paris agreement, and agreements on phasing down hydro-fluorocarbons under the Montreal protocol and offsetting the growth in civil aviation emissions at the International Civil Aviation Organisation. From Government and private sector commitments to reduce emissions, it is clear that the economic and political drivers behind the global transition towards a low-carbon future—as well as the commercial opportunities that transition affords—remain.
[HCWS297]
56th Horserace Betting Levy Scheme
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Karen Bradley)
On 9 November 2016 the Chair of the Horserace Betting Levy Board (the HBLB) informed me that the HBLB had been unable to approve a recommendation from the Bookmakers’ Committee as to the terms of the 56th Levy scheme. Under section 1 (2) of the Horserace Betting Levy Act 1969 (the Act), it therefore now falls to me to determine those terms. The Act allows me to determine a new scheme for the said period, or direct that the current scheme shall continue to have effect for that period.
In the March 2016 Budget, the Government set out a timetable for replacing the current Horserace Betting Levy by April 2017. It remains the Government’s intention to replace the current Levy scheme by this date. However until such time as the legislation has passed, the existing statutory requirements remain. Therefore my determination for the 56th Levy scheme will only apply should the new Levy not be in place by April.
With this in mind, and having considered the arguments put forward by both betting and racing, I have decided to direct that the current Levy scheme should continue to have effect for 2017-18. In making this determination I have had regard to the offer made by the Bookmakers’ Committee and taken into account the racing members of the board’s reasons for rejecting this offer. Any discussions or negotiations about voluntary Levy contributions in respect of offshore remote betting operators are outside the scope of my statutory role in making this determination.
Having concluded the determination, I would like express my disappointment that the HBLB and Bookmakers’ Committee were not able to agree the Levy scheme and that it has been necessary to refer this matter to Government.
[HCWS300]
Better Combat Compensation
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
Today I am publishing a consultation on proposals to provide better compensation for deaths or injuries sustained by servicemen or women in combat. Copies of the consultation are available in the Library of the House and on the www.gov.uk website.
The Government are proud of the armed forces compensation scheme which provides compensation to service personnel who suffer illness or injury attributable to their services or, in the case of those who have died, provides it to their families, whether or not anyone was legally at fault. Separately, the courts may award damages where the Ministry of Defence has been found to be at fault; however, that often leads to lengthy legal cases alleging battlefield negligence.
The Government have been considering options to provide relief for service personnel and their families who may otherwise have to pursue lengthy and stressful claims in the courts. In line with our commitment to the armed forces covenant, we plan to provide better compensation by introducing an enhanced scheme so that members and veterans of the armed forces and their families receive compensation for injuries or death in combat equal to that which a court would be likely to award if it found negligence.
As part of this reform, we intend to clarify in primary legislation the long-standing common law principle that the Government are not liable for damages as a result of injuries or deaths sustained in combat. This will address the “judicialisation of war”, whereby judges second-guess military decisions using criteria that are appropriate for civilian life, but not for the battlefield.
The Iraq Inquiry report by Sir John Chilcot underscored the often challenging circumstances which can contribute to deaths or injuries sustained on the battlefield. The Government are committed to learning the lessons and are reviewing ways in which we can better plan, equip and operate, so that deaths and injuries can be avoided, where possible, in future.
This package will provide relief for individuals and families who in the future will be awarded better compensation without having to pursue lengthy legal action. It will also ensure that the armed forces are able to take the rapid and high-risk decisions essential to operational effectiveness without being inhibited by the risk of future legal claims.
[HCWS299]
A-Level and AS Qualification
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
In April this year, the Government announced that GCSEs and A-levels in a range of languages with smaller cohorts will continue and therefore will be reformed in line with other GCSEs and A-levels. This fulfils a commitment made in 2015 to work with the exam boards to ensure the continuation of these qualifications.
The reformed GCSE content for modern foreign languages, published in 2013, is suitable for all the modern languages currently available, and the exam boards are developing specifications for these GCSEs.
At A-level, we have worked with the exam boards to develop specific content for modern languages with smaller cohorts. The Government are today opening a consultation on this content, which will apply to A-levels (and AS) in Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Greek, Modern Hebrew, Japanese, Panjabi, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish and Urdu.
The content for modern languages with smaller cohorts is largely identical to the reformed A-level (and AS) content which applies to French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Italian and Russian. This was developed by the independent A-Level Content Advisory Board (ALCAB), appointed by the Russell Group to meet the expectations of higher education, and was published in 2015.
This content for modern languages with smaller cohorts addresses the risks associated with the assessment of smaller numbers of candidates, including the challenges of recruiting specialist examiners. The requirement to demonstrate speaking skills is not included in the proposed content, which is consistent with current AS and A-level qualifications in languages with smaller cohorts—with the single exception of Urdu (in which speaking skills are currently required). To secure a suitable level of rigour which is comparable for all modern languages, the Government propose a new requirement for modern languages with smaller cohorts. The proposed content would require students to apply language skills (reading, writing and listening) in combination, by responding to spoken and written sources addressing common subject matter.
The A-level (and AS) content for modern languages with smaller cohorts will apply to courses beginning in September 2018. The current specifications for these languages will remain available for courses beginning in September 2017.
I can also confirm today that A-level history of art and AS and A-level statistics will continue to be offered in England following the exam board AQA’s decision not to offer these qualifications for new courses starting from September 2017. We believe there is value in having a broad range of high-quality choices available to A-level students and our intention has always been that there should continue to be A-levels available in these two subjects. I am therefore pleased that the Pearson exam board has confirmed that it intends to develop new AS and A-levels in statistics and a new A-level in history of art for teaching from September 2017.
[HCWS301]
Early Years Education
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
The Government have today published their response to the recent consultation on changes to the funding of the free early years entitlements for three and four-year-olds. The Government response can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/early-years-funding-changes-to-funding-for-3-and-4-year-olds
This includes the introduction of an early years national funding formula. This will provide a fairer funding system for nurseries, preschools and childminders.
We are delivering our manifesto commitment to double the free hours of childcare provided for working parents of three and four-year-olds, from 15 to 30 hours a week. Many parents want to go back to work, or work more hours, but cannot afford to because of the cost of childcare. This policy will make childcare more affordable and support parents to return to work, or to work more hours, if that is what they wish to do.
We are backing this with an additional £1 billion every year by 2019-20 including £300 million per year to increase Government funding rates. We are committed to allocating this record level of investment fairly and transparently so that early years providers can deliver free childcare on a sustainable and high-quality basis.
That is why we consulted on proposals to introduce a new funding system that is fair, transparent and maximises funding to providers. Our proposals to improve the way we allocate funding have been positively received and today, I can confirm our final funding policy. Key features are:
a new early years national funding formula from April 2017 that will increase Government funding rates in 80% of local authorities;
a minimum funding rate of at least £4.30 per hour for every local authority;
a requirement for local authorities to pass 95% of their funding to providers;
additional funding, worth £55 million per year, to support maintained nursery schools until the end of this Parliament (2019-20);
a new disability access fund worth £615 per child per year to support disabled three and four-year-olds to access their early years entitlement; and
a requirement for all local authorities to have inclusion funds to channel additional support to children with special educational needs.
These changes will put early years providers in a stronger position to deliver the free entitlements on a sustainable basis. They will help to ensure that every child, whatever their background and individual needs, can access the high-quality early education they need to prepare for school and improve their life chances. And from September 2017, they will support the delivery of 30 hours of free childcare to nearly 400,000 eligible working parents, thus making it easier for them to get on and balance work with their family lives.
Education lies at the heart of this Government’s ambition to make this a country that works for everyone—and today we are reaffirming our commitment by announcing this new, fairer way of funding our early years. It will ensure the dedicated individuals caring for our children have the support they need to give every child the best start, especially when looking after those who are most in need.
[HCWS306]
Illegal Wildlife Trade: Hanoi Conference
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Andrea Leadsom)
The Hanoi conference on illegal wildlife trade took place on 17 and 18 November 2016, bringing together leaders from across the world to secure international political commitment to action on tackling the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). The Hanoi conference was the third global conference on IWT, following the London conference in 2014 and Kasane conference in 2015. I was delighted to attend the conference on behalf of the UK, alongside His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. The conference was successful, with 42 countries and the EU adopting the Hanoi statement by consensus and 23 countries, the EU and six international organisations pledging new and specific actions in the statement annex to deliver on their commitments from London and Kasane.
The UK played a key role in supporting Vietnam as chair and host, including direct financial support and seconding staff to the conference secretariat. Our contribution and leadership were widely recognised and commended by international partners. At the conference, I was able to announce an additional £13 million in UK funding for IWT and a number of new initiatives, including expanded British military training for African park rangers; a project with China to deliver joint training to African border forces; additional funding for Interpol to expand its work with key nations, tracking and intercepting illegal shipments of ivory, rhino horn and other illegal wildlife products; and up to £4 million for the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC).
Finally I was also pleased to announce that the UK will host a fourth high-level meeting on IWT in 2018, to ensure that this urgent global issue stays at the top of the political agenda and that we continue to deliver on our manifesto commitment to lead the world in tackling IWT.
The UK was able to lead further progress in the margins of the conference. I hosted a meeting of ASEAN heads of delegation, attended by the Duke of Cambridge, where I pressed for enhanced collaboration in this critical region, particularly on enforcement. The Philippines, chair of ASEAN in 2017, agreed that IWT would feature on the agenda.
In my meetings with Vietnamese Ministers, I welcomed recent positive steps taken by Vietnam to tackle IWT, and encouraged them to intensify further demand reduction and law enforcement efforts, including in respect of specific cases recently highlighted by NGOs and the media. I made clear the UK’s commitment to ongoing practical co-operation between our two countries on these issues.
That so many countries and organisations came together once more in Hanoi to agree further action on IWT is a positive signal of ongoing political attention and also a consensus on the importance and urgency of the issue. We will remain focused on driving forward this momentum and ensuring the commitments made in Hanoi are delivered in the lead up to the next event in London 2018.
[HCWS295]
Blue Card Directive
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
I am confirming the Government’s decision that the UK will not opt into the European Commission’s recent proposal for a revised Blue Card directive, published on 7 June 2016.
The proposal seeks to increase the EU’s attractiveness to highly skilled workers from outside the EU. It runs counter to the UK’s view that decisions on who comes to the country are best framed at national level in accordance with national assessments of economic need. It would also undermine our ability to reduce net migration.
[HCWS303]
Report of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
In accordance with section 36(5) of the Terrorism Act 2006, David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, has prepared a report on the operation in 2015 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006.
I am today laying this report before the House, and copies will be available in the Vote Office. It will also be published on the website: www.gov.uk.
I am grateful to David Anderson for his report. I will carefully consider its contents and the recommendations it makes, and will respond formally in due course.
[HCWS302]
International Financial Institution: Contingent Liability
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Priti Patel)
In 2015, the UK agreed to be a founder contributor of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As set out in the summer Budget 2015, HM Treasury made an initial capital instalment of US$122,180,000, and committed to subsequent payments of the same amount by the UK Government over the four years from 2017 to 2020. The UK’s overall capital contribution will total US$3,054,500,000, of which these five payments together will make up 20% of “paid-in” capital contribution requiring a cash transfer. The other 80%, $2,443,600,000, is “callable capital”—the AIIB has the right to call for payment for these shares if there is a crisis affecting the bank’s assets or loans. As the paid-in capital is an investment, in return for which we get an asset of a share of the Bank, the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast this payment as a financial transaction. Financial transactions do not add to public sector net borrowing.
Payment of the second annual contribution of $122,180,000 is in line with the authority provided by this House under the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (Initial Capital Contribution) Order 2015. Parliamentary approval for this will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Department for International Development.
Further, the payment of the second instalment of the capital contribution incurs with it a contingent liability. In line with the AIIB articles of agreement, the contingent liability rises in line with the amount of callable capital paid. As such, the UK will increase its current contingent liability of $488,720,000, incurred when the initial capital instalment was paid by a further $488,720,000 to a cumulative total contingent liability of US$977,440,000. A Departmental minute to this effect was laid before Parliament on 1 December 2016 to give at least 14 sitting days’ notice of the intent to incur a contingent liability. The notice period will be completed on 9 January 2017.
Although the AIIB has the right to call for payment of this callable capital incurred when the initial capital instalment was paid, no such instance has occurred in any multilateral development bank in the past. If the liability were to be called, provision for any payment would be sought through the normal supply procedure.
In joining the AIIB the UK has demonstrated its support for China’s initiative to establish the AIIB to address the historic shortage of infrastructure investment in Asia. The AIIB will support economic growth in the region and drive up living standards. The UK’s membership will deepen economic ties with Asia and create opportunities for British businesses.
[HCWS305]
UK International Development
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Priti Patel)
Our world is changing. So our approach to development needs to adapt and keep pace with it. DFID will champion an open, modern and innovative approach to development.
Today I am publishing “Rising to the challenge of ending poverty: the Bilateral Development Review 2016” and “Raising the standard: the Multilateral Development Review 2016”.
These reviews build on the Government’s UK aid strategy published in 2015 and set out how UK aid will be focused on ending poverty and tackling great global challenges like mass migration, disease and climate change. It demonstrates how investing 0.7% of national income in international development will meet Britain’s moral obligation to the world’s poorest and work in the UK’s national interest.
The bilateral development review sets out how DFID will respond to these global challenges and contribute to a more prosperous, secure and stable world. DFID will follow the money, the people and the outcomes to make our aid more effective, transparent, and accountable to the poorest people in the world and to the taxpayers who fund our programmes.
The multilateral development review builds on a systematic assessment of the performance of 38 multilateral institutions funded by the UK through DFID. The review sets out how the UK, as a committed champion of the multilateral system, will work with its multilateral partners and press them hard to take radical action so they continue to raise their performance. We will back high performers while also pressing them to improve even further.
A copy of these papers and an accompanying document can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-12-01/HCWS296/.
I will also place a copy in the Libraries of both Houses and make further copies available in the Vote and Printed Paper Offices.
[HCWS296]
Strathclyde Review: Government Response
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
On 27 October 2015 the Government commissioned Lord Strathclyde to lead a review into secondary legislation and the primacy of the House of Commons. Lord Strathclyde published his report on 17 December 2015. The Government have today published their response to the review and the four related parliamentary Select Committee reports, a copy of which can be found online. As I informed the House at business questions on 17 November 2016, Official Report, columns 395 to 396, although the Government found Lord Strathclyde’s analysis compelling and we are determined that the principle of the supremacy of the elected House should be upheld, we have no plans to introduce new primary legislation at this time.
Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-12-01/HCWS304/.
[HCWS304]
GREAT Britain Campaign: Machinery of Government Change
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
Policy responsibility for the GREAT Britain campaign will transfer from the Cabinet Office to the Department for International Trade from 1 December 2016.
[HCWS298]
House of Lords
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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HIV Diagnosis: Clinical Guidance
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Gould of Potternewton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the forthcoming review of testing guidelines in 2017, what steps they are taking to ensure new national clinical guidance is adopted by the National Health Service and local authorities to reach people in the United Kingdom still living with undiagnosed HIV.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, we welcome the new HIV testing guidelines from NICE, which are particularly timely on World AIDS Day. Early diagnosis of HIV through increased testing carries huge benefits. Progress is being made and in 2015 the rate of undiagnosed HIV fell to 13% from 25% in 2010. We will keep working with partners to use the guidelines to encourage people to get tested and fight the stigma associated with HIV.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his reply. Can he elaborate a little on the Government’s plans for promoting the guidelines to raise awareness—which I hope they will do—and monitoring the use of the guidelines to reduce the 17% rate of undiagnosed HIV and the continuing levels of HIV? The responsibility of government is absolute in making sure that the guidelines are adopted. On the same basis, can the Minister indicate what support or otherwise the Government are giving to ensuring that PrEP is made available to all those who might be at risk of HIV transmission?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, the undiagnosed rate of HIV is not 17%, as the noble Baroness said. That was in 2014. It is 13% now. So there is an improvement here and the trend is in the right direction. We have a whole range of programmes to try to improve the rates of testing, including self-sampling, and 1.1 million people attended GUM clinics last year. There is the HIV Prevention Innovation Fund and all the work being done by the Terrence Higgins Trust. There is a Question on PrEP later. Perhaps I could deal with it then.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton
My Lords, I must declare that I was on the innovation panel for Public Health England.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, all those living with HIV, particularly those diagnosed late, require significant levels of care for both their physical and mental health. Does my noble friend agree that specialist doctors and nurses in the NHS provide exceptional care for those living with the virus, and join me in paying particular tribute to the work of pioneering centres, such as the Ian Charleson Day Centre at London’s Royal Free Hospital, which have made a real difference to the lives of thousands of patients?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I am very happy to do that. It is extraordinary how healthcare has changed a fatal disease into a chronic disease in just 20 years. I have a quote from the PHE report that was produced today, from a white lady who has HIV. She says:
“Just a few words from someone who has been living with HIV for nearly 20 years: it’s not that bad and there are times when you forget you have HIV. Eventually, even when you remember you’re positive, it’s no longer an issue”.
That is an illustration of just how far we have come in 20 years.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is very dangerous to go around without knowing your HIV status? Will he organise some more publicity, particularly for women, because men seem to have more help than women?
Lord Prior of Brampton
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Early diagnosis is absolutely critical. We have made huge progress. The WHO guidelines aim for 90% of people with HIV to be diagnosed. We are at 87%. Sweden is the only country in the world that has hit the 90% target. I point to the It Starts With Me programme, which is based around individual responsibility and is co-ordinated by the Terrence Higgins Trust, which is making great progress.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the initiatives taken by the Government in this area but does the Minister accept that the NHS itself could do more, particularly in accident and emergency departments and in primary care? Would he be prepared to convene a meeting with NHS England to discuss how the NHS could be persuaded to be much more proactive in relation to testing?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I am very happy to arrange a meeting of that kind. We are expecting an announcement very soon on the PrEP issue and it may be worthwhile having that meeting after that announcement.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, a high percentage of people living outside London compared to those in it are unaware of their HIV infection. It is 24% compared to 12% in London. Are the Government doing anything in the regions to replicate the good practice that we are beginning to see in London, so that that situation disappears?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I think more is done in London simply because there is a greater incidence of HIV there. I was not aware of the difference between those two figures—the 12% and 24% which the noble Baroness referred to. I should like to look into that point and write to her.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, one of the largest groups within the population who have got this disease through heterosexual transmission is the British black African community—men and women. There are 30,000 cases there. As of last year, estimated undiagnosed cases were increasing within this population. Can my noble friend the Minister please outline what initiatives are specifically aimed at raising awareness and avoiding the late presentation prevalent among that community? In particular, as many in that community are members of faith institutions, what is being done to engage them in raising awareness?
Lord Prior of Brampton
The black African community, male and female, is a group especially vulnerable to HIV, as identified in the work done by NICE. It is a part of the population where special efforts must be made to increase early testing. The work done by the Terrence Higgins Trust in the MARPs programme has also identified that community as extremely important. I think we will see greater targeting of the about 13,000 people in the population who are living with undiagnosed HIV.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister referred briefly in his opening Answer to the question of stigma. I do not know whether he will have heard some testimony from people living with AIDS on the “Today” programme this morning—probably not, as he may well have been working already. It showed that they were subjected to shocking levels of prejudice, most of which appears to come from ignorance. Can he expand a little on what the Government are doing to encourage the right kind of information, not just for people who have AIDS or might be vulnerable to getting it but to the wider population whose attitudes are, frankly, a little prehistoric in quite a lot of cases?
Lord Prior of Brampton
That is a very insightful question. If we look back over time it is a lot better than it was but, as the noble Baroness says, it is still far from good enough. The education programme needs to go beyond just the people who have AIDS to the wider population, to get a greater degree of understanding. Perhaps I could investigate that issue a little further and write to the noble Baroness.
HIV Global Epidemic: Young People
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to tackle the global HIV epidemic among adolescents and young people from key populations.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, our youth framework puts young people at the centre of international development efforts. Tackling youth HIV, including among key populations, is critical to ending AIDS as a public health threat. Our investments support young people to make safe, healthy and informed choices to protect themselves, and their peers, from HIV and other life-threatening illnesses.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his response. I am also pleased to see so many red ribbons being worn today on World AIDS Day. We know that HIV and AIDS have a disproportionate effect on the most marginalised groups in society, particularly men who have sex with men, drug users, transgender people and sex workers. Such people might not be able to access services which are integrated into our broader health systems for the obvious reason that in some cases they may be in jail. Is the Minister prepared to review DfID’s approach to HIV in both its HIV-specific programmes and in its programmes which address HIV within broader health and development interventions?
Lord Bates
The noble Lord and I had a very interesting afternoon yesterday when we attended the Stop AIDS conference. Some incredible presentations were given, with a lot of information. Given that HIV is such a huge health threat globally as well as in this country, it is essential that we do everything and remain open to new information when it comes. We are the second-largest contributor to the Global Fund, which is doing tremendous work in this area—£1.1 billion was announced in July. But there is more to be done. An international development committee report on this issue is currently with the Secretary of State and I will certainly feed in those views and see what more can be done.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, is it not absolutely essential that this country should use all the means at its disposal to get our Commonwealth partners, in the overwhelming majority of whose countries homosexuality is sadly still a criminal offence, to repeal their cruel and inhumane laws in accordance with the provisions of the Commonwealth charter, to which they have all signed up? Is it not impossible to organise effective health campaigns in countries where being gay is criminalised?
Lord Bates
My noble friend is absolutely right in this respect. You need open societies. Good health promotion initiatives can happen only in open societies where people can talk freely. You would have thought that that message would have got through. Sadly, it has not reached everyone. We need to be sensitive because, at the same time as addressing the issues with our Commonwealth partners, we also need to continue to have access and to work with them to help the people who need that help. My noble friend Lady Verma held a very useful round-table meeting at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Valletta, Malta, last year. When the Commonwealth Heads of Government come to the UK in 2018, I very much hope that we will follow up on that work.
Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that prevention is always better than cure? Does he also agree that the advent of an effective treatment for AIDS has spread the news that it is no longer necessary to practise safe sex? Will he therefore ensure that prevention in the form of barrier methods of contraception that have a double purpose, such as condoms and the diaphragm, are promoted alongside the treatment for AIDS?
Lord Bates
We will certainly do that. In fact, the areas of the world where we are seeing levels of infection increase are often in eastern and central Europe, where the issue is with injecting drugs. Good health promotion initiatives with that key population group are also important and are all part of the effort to eradicate AIDS.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, the high rates of HIV infection among young women in Africa, in particular, reflect, at least in part, their powerlessness in terms of sexual relationships. Does the Minister agree that this accentuates the need for DfID programmes that focus on the education and empowerment of young women to be continued?
Lord Bates
That is absolutely right and it is what we are focusing on. I think I am right in saying that HIV is still the largest killer of adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa. We need to move much further in that area. That is why it is encouraging that the Global Fund is spending a large proportion of its money in low-income countries. At the same time, we need to provide better civil society networks and social networks that can help young people when those tragedies happen so that they can access treatment and antiretrovirals. As my noble friend Lord Prior will be saying, people can have a better quality of life here living with AIDS, and that should be more widely available in southern Africa as well.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, PEPFAR and the Global Fund are of crucial importance across the world. Will the British Government encourage the incoming Administration in the United States to maintain the levels of funding and not diminish them?
Lord Bates
We must give credit to PEPFAR, and to George W Bush, who set it up, for the work it has done around the world in tackling this disease. Certainly, that would be our expectation. We have a very close working relationship with USAID in this area and we fully expect that it will continue, into the future, to tackle and achieve the global goal of eradicating HIV as a public health threat by 2030.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, good nutrition is important for all of us, but it is particularly important for those living with HIV or AIDS. Can my noble friend say what is being done to ensure that there are proper trigger points when DfID is providing aid so that nutrition is taken as a key point, particularly when treatments cause wastage, lipid malabsorption and other issues to do with dietary needs?
Lord Bates
My noble friend is right to point to this. When we look at HIV strategies and DfID’s work around the world and with our partners in the World Health Organization, it is very dangerous to see them siloed. Strategies must be cross-cutting, across all the interventions and all the humanitarian responses which we have to this disease, to bring hope and prevention in the attempt to eradicate AIDS by 2030.
HIV: Barriers to Treatment
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Cashman
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of barriers to accessing treatment to prevent the spread of HIV; and what steps they are taking to address those.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, HIV treatment in itself is preventive. HIV positive people are now being given early access to HIV drugs, resulting in an undetectable viral load, which makes it very unlikely that the virus will be passed on to others. To ensure that we continue to make progress in preventing HIV, NHS England and Public Health England will say more about their further plans for a new programme in the next couple of days.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his response and indeed for his commitment on this issue. However, there has been much prevarication and procrastination over who is responsible for providing access to PrEP, a drug that is known to prevent transmission of HIV. More people are at risk than ever before, so will the Government explain how they are working with NHS England and Gilead, the supplier of PrEP, to take the lead on this issue? If the price of PrEP does not decrease, how and when will the Government ensure that those at significant risk from HIV will have access to it?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, negotiations have been going on between NHS England, Gilead and others, and we expect a positive outcome in the very near future—in the next few days. I cannot comment on the details at this time, but as soon as we have that information, I will ensure that it is placed in the Library of the House of Lords immediately.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former participant in the PROUD project and as someone whose former partner was HIV positive. The reasons why some men do not use condoms are many and complex. Why will the Government not fund PrEP when it has proved so effective in preventing HIV? Would the Minister not agree that having PrEP on the NHS would potentially save the NHS money?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, one of the purposes of the Act promoted by my noble friend Lord Lansley was to remove the Secretary of State, and indeed politicians, from these very difficult clinical decisions. That decision will be made by NHS England, and we expect a positive decision to be made in the very near future.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, Ministers cannot evade their responsibility for the NHS in the end. NHS England is not a clinical body; it is a quango wholly owned by and wholly responsible to government. The decisions it has made have been purely about money, and it is continually endorsing crude rationing of services and the restriction of drugs. In the current agreement with the drug companies, the Minister’s Government have received nearly £2.5 billion back in rebates from those companies. Why on earth has his department allowed the Treasury effectively to ambush that money, instead of it being spent, as it should have been, on innovative new drugs for NHS patients?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I think the noble Lord will agree that there is a clinically driven process, through the specialised commissioning groups and the clinical priorities group within NHS England, that attempts to look at all these drugs in an objective, clinical way. Surely it is better that these decisions on priorities should be made by clinicians acting in that way than by politicians, who are subject to all the pressures of which we are all only too well aware. Of course affordability is an issue in assessing whether a new drug should be commissioned; it always has been and always will be. The £2 billion, which the noble Lord has mentioned before and which I think comes from the PPRS, is taken into account when setting the overall budget for NHS England.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, one of the significant barriers to effective HIV treatment is that it is often present with a co-infection such as hepatitis. What steps are the Government taking to identify, diagnose and treat people who are co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C, the most deadly form of the infection?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I am afraid I cannot answer that question, or at least I could answer it in only a very inadequate way. I would like to reflect on it and write to my noble friend as soon as I can.
Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)
My Lords, what progress is being made in the development of a vaccine against AIDS?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I do not like to have two questions on the trot that I cannot answer, but I do not know the answer to the noble Baroness’s question. I shall have to research it and write to her.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, what steps are being taken to ensure that prisoners have access to treatment, testing and care while in prison? They are more likely to be drug users, more susceptible and more likely to be from communities that do not get themselves tested, even when they are in good health. Could the Minister say something about prison health?
Lord Prior of Brampton
There is a particular problem in prisons, as the noble Baroness refers to. There is a higher incidence of HIV in prisons, for all the reasons that she has alluded to. The NICE guidance and the PHE resources report that came out today echo her point. We have to reinforce and redouble our efforts in prisons to identify HIV earlier through better testing.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the HIV virus is a very difficult virus, and that this is one of the problems of getting a vaccine?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I thank the noble Baroness for coming to my rescue on that. It is very difficult, as she knows, because the HIV virus is complex. What is remarkable is the extraordinary advances that have been made in treating HIV over the last 20 years; that has been a real triumph of the pharmaceutical industry. I will still write to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, about vaccines.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton (Lab)
My Lords, I was not going to refer to vaccines but to something else, but a report on the radio this morning said that South Africa believes it has developed a vaccine that will prevent HIV. Maybe we could find out more about that in due course.
I wanted to ask the Minister about barriers, of which there seem to be two. My noble friend has raised one—stigma—and I got the impression that the Minister felt it was perhaps not as serious as it used to be. It is very serious; there are still many examples, particularly of women, who will not go to a clinic, thus creating a barrier, because of the stigma that is attached. The other barrier that is equally important is that local authorities that fund testing are having huge difficulty in raising the funds to do so. Maybe we should be looking at whether there is a positive way in which the Government can help with resources to local government.
Lord Prior of Brampton
Frankly, this is an area where government can never do enough. We should take some comfort from the fact that the level of undiagnosed HIV is consistently coming down; it is now down to 13%, and we are within touching distance of the WHO’s 90% level. So we are making progress, but I accept what the noble Baroness says. On stigma, I am sure there is much more that we can do.
Flood Defences
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the announcement in the Autumn Statement of £170 million to be invested in flood defence and resilience measures, and in the light of damage to farmland and property caused by the recent floods, whether they intend to extend the provisions of the Flood Re scheme to farms and small businesses.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. There are no plans to extend Flood Re, because it is based on council tax bands and was specifically designed by the insurance industry for households at the highest flood risk. This would include farm-houses under a domestic policy. We are, however, working with the British Insurance Brokers’ Association, BIBA, which is launching a commercial product very shortly that provides flood insurance to businesses.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his Answer and refer to my interests in the register. Does my noble friend agree that this insurance must be affordable? Does he further agree that it is particular rural areas that have suffered extensive damage from recent and historic flooding? Will the Government agree that the 2% increase in the insurance premium tax will be spent on flood defence measures to make sure that flood damage will be less pervasive in future?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, it would be fair to explain that £2.5 billion—a six-year capital flood programme allocated to DEFRA to 2021—is the route to protect more than 300,000 homes, 205 miles of railway and 340 miles of roads. This is the way that we will overwhelmingly ensure that more of not only our urban but our rural areas are better protected. Included in that programme will be £1.5 billion of benefits for agriculture. However, I will bear in mind what my noble friend said and will write to her.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister resist any suggestion that the insurance companies should make a contribution for flooding, bearing in mind that any contribution made would lead to higher premiums in areas that already have higher premiums than those affected by flooding?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I understand what the Lord said. The whole purpose of Flood Re is precisely to give householders—53,000 home insurance policies are now backed by Flood Re—the benefit of affordable insurance, but I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.
The Earl of Kinnoull
My Lords, I am grateful. I declare my insurance and farming interests as set out in the register of the House. Does the Minister agree with me on two points? First, Flood Re is very much in its start-up phase—it began trading only in April this year, and 53,000 policies is, in insurance terms, not very many—and the concept will really be proven when the first claims are successfully settled and paid. Secondly, once that is done, however, it would be sensible for the Government to engage the relevant parties in conversation about extending the concept of Flood Re—which is different from Flood Re itself—to small businesses, which I think would be greatly to the benefit of this country.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I am conscious of the noble Earl’s experience in the insurance industry, but it is fair to say that Flood Re is financed to cover up to £2.1 billion in claims. To give a sense of scale, that is seven times worse than the flooding in 2007. I hope that the BIBA product will advance further understanding of how best businesses, and small businesses in particular, can avail themselves of what the noble Earl described: a Flood Re-concept policy.
Lord Spicer
My Lords, is it possible that we waste a lot of money on flood defence systems? Especially around rivers, you do not abolish flood-water by spending money on defences but simply push it on elsewhere. In my former constituency, I did wonders for Upton upon Severn and ruined the lives of people in Tewkesbury.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, the whole of the taxpayer’s financing of this is predicated on receiving the best value we possibly can. Perhaps under the natural capital programme, with the further £15 million following on for schemes such as those in Pickering, Holnicote and Upper Derwent, we can have whole catchment systems on rivers such as those my noble friend mentioned, whereby we engineer the use of natural capital.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, the scheme ought to be extended to the poorest and most vulnerable individuals caught up in the floods—that is, people such as the tenants and the farm workers who do not meet the rather restricting qualifying criteria that currently exist.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, perhaps I should say to the noble Baroness that, in fact, Flood Re does include leaseholders for up to three flats and contents insurance, but above three flats it becomes a commercial policy. So in point of fact there are permutations to the scheme. I want to emphasise that Flood Re is an industry-owned and managed not-for-profit reinsurer; it pools the risk of flood claims and is targeted, with a subsidy, to lower-income households.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Lord Greaves
I am grateful. Last February, £450,000 was allocated to a vital scheme to improve a culvert, called Victoria Clough, in the small town of Earby on the boundaries of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but nothing has yet happened. Is there a problem of capacity or resource constraints in getting the schemes going in Defra, the Environment Agency or anywhere else? If there is, would it not be sensible to let a competent local authority take it over?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I think that I had better look into the individual case that the noble Lord has referred to and come back to him. Generally speaking, we are confident that this £2.5 billion allocated to Defra over six years is going to make a very substantial difference, but we need continually to review the situation.
Business of the House
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal
That the debate on the Motion in the name of Lord Liddle set down for today shall be limited to 3 hours and that in the name of Baroness Pitkeathley to 2 hours.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for detaining the House as we have some important debates but I wish to raise an issue that has come to my attention this morning and which I think should be brought to the attention of this House.
Noble Lords will recall that, when the noble Baroness the Leader of the House made her Statement on the Government’s intentions regarding the Strathclyde report, it was warmly welcomed by this House; we were grateful for her comments and tone and the way that she has handled this issue. My understanding from that Statement and the debate was that we should abide by all conventions of this House and recognise our role as a second Chamber.
However, this morning—literally five minutes before I came to the Chamber—I found on my desk a report from David Lidington, the Leader of the House of Commons, on Strathclyde. The foreword of that report says:
“Whilst recognising the valuable role of the House of Lords in scrutinising SIs, the Government remains concerned that there is no mechanism for the elected chamber to overturn a decision by the unelected chamber on SIs. We do not believe that it is something that can remain unchanged if the House of Lords seeks to vote against SIs approved by the House of Commons when there is no mechanism for the will of the elected House to prevail. We must, therefore, keep the situation under review and remain prepared to act if the primacy of the Commons is further threatened”.
This is, again, a basic misunderstanding of how statutory instruments operate. This has never been an issue about the primacy of the House of Commons, but the primacy of the Government regarding secondary legislation. SIs come not from the House of Commons to this House, but from the Government to both Houses. They do not have to be considered by the House of Commons first—there is no mechanism to ensure they are considered first by that House. The conventions of this House are clear that, in exceptional circumstances—which I think has been five times since the Second World War—this House may reject a secondary instrument.
I appreciate that there is some difference between the Government’s understanding of SIs and ours, but I did really believe that the Government understood the conventions of this House as enshrined and accepted in the report of my noble friend Lord Cunningham, which was accepted by both Houses unanimously. When the noble Baroness the Leader reported to this House, we welcomed the content and her tone. She said—in an entirely reasonable comment—that,
“The Government are therefore reliant on the discipline and self-regulation that this House imposes upon itself. Should that break down, we would have to reflect on this decision”.—[Official Report, 17/11/16; col. 1539.]
I think that is entirely reasonable. Should the conventions break down, it is entirely reasonable that the Government should look at those conventions and perhaps revert to the Strathclyde review. However, that is a long way from what David Lidington says in his report. I have two questions for the noble Baroness. Do the Government still accept the Cunningham report and the conventions of this House as being the guidance underpinning our work, and to which we should adhere as a self-regulating House? The noble Baroness said in her Statement that, having considered the matter carefully, legislation would not be introduced. As I say, I have not had time to read the report published today in its entirety as I received it literally only five minutes before today’s proceedings in the House commenced. However, it says:
“We must … keep the situation under review and remain prepared to act if the primacy of the Commons is further threatened”.
David Lidington refers to that as being just the Lords seeking to vote against an SI. Does that mean that if somebody tables a fatal Motion, the Government will review the Strathclyde report and will be prepared to act? Or does it mean that if this House ever votes against an SI, legislation will be brought forward under the terms of the Strathclyde report?
I have enormous respect for the tone of the noble Baroness’s Statement and its understanding of this House. My criticism is directed not at all at her or at the Statement; it is directed entirely at what the Government now appear to be saying in David Lidington’s report. I would be very grateful to her if she could answer my questions but the Government need to reflect further on the Lidington report, and whether it should be withdrawn in the light of my comments today.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. I am sorry that she takes the view that she does. All I can say is that the Government of course recognise the conventions of this House. I reiterate what I said last week:
“We recognise the valuable role of the House of Lords in scrutinising SIs, but there is no mechanism for the will of the elected House to prevail when they are considered, as is the case for primary legislation”—
as the noble Baroness said, and I said—
“The Government are therefore reliant on the discipline and self-regulation that this House imposes upon itself … This House has an important role to play in scrutinising and revising legislation, and the Government recognise this”.—[Official Report, 17/11/16; col. 1539.]
Because of the constructive way this House works, we do not believe that we need to introduce primary legislation at this time. What I said last week remains the position of the Government. The tone I used and the constructive debate that we had is exactly what we need to see in this House. I reassure the noble Baroness that my Statement last week stands, as do the thought and intention behind it.
Brexit: UK-EU Relationship
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Liddle
That this House takes note of the best options for the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the European Union following the referendum vote to leave.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as co-chair of Policy Network, a member of Cumbria County Council and Pro Chancellor of Lancaster University, all of which stand to lose as a result of Brexit.
In opening this debate, I am aware that in your Lordships’ House I have somewhat predictable form on Europe. I do not resile from the judgment I made earlier that Brexit will be the worst disaster for the United Kingdom since appeasement. But my focus for today’s debate is forward looking: given where we are, what would be Britain’s best possible relationship with the EU in future?
It is a particular pleasure to have the benefit of the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, today. When I was in No. 10, it was a great privilege to work with Foreign Office officials of Peter Ricketts’ calibre. He joins a long and distinguished line of former diplomats who in their candour make a remarkable contribution to the work of this House. I look forward to his maiden speech today.
On the substance, I hope the House will allow me to be specific, clear and at times blunt. For the economy, there is no better solution in the national interest than Britain’s continued full participation in the single market. With Brexit we can no longer be members with voting rights—but forget the vague waffle about access. What matters is: first, that we stick to the EU rules and standards and update them as new rules are made; secondly, that we continue to make payments to the EU budget—forget that £350 million a week for the NHS; if Brexit goes bad, we will be cutting the NHS—and thirdly, that we accept directly, or, if the Prime Minister insists, indirectly, the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice as EFTA members largely do through their separate EFTA court.
Such a course is overwhelmingly in the interests of jobs and living standards in the UK. Remaining a member of the customs union would be very much second best. While the customs union secures tariff-free access for manufacturing and food exports and avoids the complex bureaucracy of rules of origin, it leaves out services. In other words, it secures free trade in goods, where we have the largest balance of payments deficit, and fails in that objective in services, where we have our largest surplus. The future of the services sector would then depend on negotiating a comprehensive free trade deal with the EU, which would have to be far broader in scope than either Canada or Switzerland have been able to achieve.
I say to my Labour friends: when talking about services, do not imagine that this is just about protecting the interests of bankers—and when you talk about bankers, remember that they produce a lot of tax revenues that go towards the NHS and the welfare state. Services, where we excel, are much bigger than the City. Brexit threatens our position as a centre of TV and film distribution, our lawyers’ rights to represent clients in European courts, and the commercial strength of a whole range of services where free movement and the mutual recognition of qualifications are huge benefits to Britain—especially the ability to send highly qualified people on client assignments anywhere in the EU.
Free movement may be politically poisonous within the UK but it is the rock on which the business models of many of our most successful and advanced companies in digital, creative and professional services are built. Ending up as a member of the customs union would therefore be very much second best. Yet even that is threatened by the vanities of Dr Liam Fox, because being members of the customs union would greatly restrict our ability to cut new trade deals with the rest of the world. Dr Fox has convinced himself of this strange logic: it is in the national interest to forgo membership of the single market, which secures free trade for nearly half our exports, in return for the highly uncertain prospect of negotiating new British trade deals with the rest of the world, with all the complexities and political constraints that come with them. In my view, the so-called opportunities of Brexit are largely delusional vistas.
Similarly, we must stop talking nonsense about becoming an offshore Singapore, or a haven of social dumping, as many on the continent believe that the Government plan. Full participation in the single market on fair rules should be the aim. Corporate tax policy will be the big test. There is no way the EU will agree to our full participation in the single market if Great Britain, the second-largest market presently in the EU, sees itself as a Cyprus, an Ireland or a Luxembourg. Rather, we should be offering full co-operation with the EU to fight corporate tax avoidance.
People did not vote for these outcomes on 23 June. There is no mandate for making these choices. The leavers say that in the referendum they always made clear that Britain would be leaving the single market. Yes, they did say that—but at the same time they assured voters that Britain could have its cake and eat it and enjoy unrestricted free trade with the rest of Europe. The reason leave won on 23 June was that not enough people were convinced that there would be a real economic downside to leaving the EU. Therefore, they voted to “take back control” because they believed that it would be largely cost free.
However, we can see the downsides emerging already: a sharp sterling devaluation that will cut living standards in every year of this Parliament; widespread investment uncertainty; and a grave loss of tax revenues forecast by the OBR. For all those reasons, full participation in the single market must be the top national priority, and it is the job of the Prime Minister to show leadership in the national interest and spell out the realities to the Redwoods and Foxes on her own side. That message would echo positively around Europe and completely change the atmosphere for the Brexit negotiations, which I fear on the continent is rapidly becoming poisonous.
Many people on our Benches, here and in the other place, will say, “What about free movement? What about immigration? Haven’t the British people given a clear instruction to the political class—most of all to the Labour Party, with its claim to represent working people—that something must be done?”. I take that point with two crucial qualifications. First, any new policy must be based on clear evidence, not simple prejudice. As Hugh Gaitskell once famously wrote of Evan Durbin, the nature of social democratic politics is,
“the pursuit of truth to the bitter end”.
Secondly, we must never ever stigmatise migrants in the way that some leavers did. The rise in hate crime and social media abuse and the fact that many people feel they are no longer welcome in our country since 23 June is appalling and offends our basic values of equality and humanity. This is the slippery slope that leads to the end of tolerance and the end of an open society. But, yes, migration, both internal and external in the EU, must be better managed.
Free movement is not a uniquely British problem. Several member states accept the need for reform, including eastern Europeans, as long as we are prepared to continue to assist them financially with their economic development. Britain should have taken a lead on these questions in 2012, but that would have involved as a quid pro quo a greater willingness than the present Government were prepared to show to share the burdens of the refugee crisis. Regrettably, we did not take that lead and it may now be too late. However, the UK should still put its weight behind arguing for a Europe-wide rethink, not just British exceptionalism—although the EU’s current negotiations with the Swiss on free movement may give us a peg on which to hang our coat.
Nationally, we could do much more to manage migration better. Our national approach to it has fallen victim to the besetting British preference for laissez-faire. So let us have a bigger migration impact fund that acts quickly, and let us bring in proper enforcement of minimum wages and labour standards. However, I believe that the core of the problem in Britain lies in our highly flexible labour market, with too many businesses locked into a dependence on low-skilled migrant labour. Let us explore how we might reregulate our labour market, particularly where the problems are worst—in agriculture, food processing, hospitality and social care. We should consider setting up statutory tripartite bodies, on the models of the wages councils and training boards, with responsibility for raising skills, productivity and wages in those sectors. And why not give such bodies a mandate to recruit young trainees from parts of our country where decent training places and job opportunities are in short supply? Employer reliance on migrant low-skilled labour needs to be cut—but, in my view, it will take a dose of market interventionism to achieve it.
Finally, we must present ourselves as sincere, committed partners of our friends and allies across the Channel. Britain has so much to give on security and defence. I accept that the Government stress their commitment to NATO, and NATO remains crucial—but NATO is not enough. In today’s circumstances, of all circumstances, we cannot give the impression that we will prioritise the United States over our allies and friends in Europe. I want to believe President Obama’s assurances about President-elect Trump, but I fear that, for once, Obama’s fundamental decency and respect for the office he holds are obscuring his real fears. I really want to be proved wrong—but to be seen to kow-tow to a maverick Trump will only isolate Britain further in Europe.
The common security challenges that Britain and Europe face are broader than defence in the classic NATO sense: failed states, religious extremism, terrorism, climate change, the social and economic consequences of desertification in Africa, and structural pressures from tens of millions of young unemployed people in the emerging world searching for a better life in Europe. We need a common partnership with our European friends to address these questions. Outside the EU, that will be far more difficult.
Does Brexit then require a fundamental rethinking of the European security architecture? Perhaps it does. How about a revival of a western European union, with decision-making executives consisting of Britain, the big EU member states and the highest-level representation of NATO and the EU institutions? I do not have a clear answer—but, my goodness, I wish we had an Ernie Bevin at the Foreign Office and not a Boris Johnson.
We have to ask ourselves where we want to end up as a result of Brexit. Today, Britain is a European power with some considerable global reach. By all means, let us be global, but let us not delude ourselves. This nation has never for long been able to cut itself off from the continent—and when it has tried, the results have been disastrous, as with the two world wars in the last century. The best option for Brexit Britain is that we remain a European nation with the closest possible economic and security ties with our European friends and neighbours. That is the reality of Britain’s position in the world. With Brexit—and despite Brexit—let it remain our patriotic destiny as well.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I greatly look forward to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who has been at the centre of these matters for many years. We will learn a lot from him. I do not disagree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, although I must say I thought that the reference to Hugh Gaitskell was quite amusing—I do not remember that Hugh Gaitskell was a particularly strong fan of the European Community, as it was then.
In the very brief time available to me, I want to make three quick observations. First, like many others, I was appalled, frankly, at the weak government defence of our judges against the Stalin-like denunciations that we saw in the press. They were a chilling reminder of the past, and perhaps the journalists who wrote the articles are too young to remember what went on in Europe in the middle of the 20th century. Nevertheless, I do not think that the judges’ decision, whichever way the appeal goes, made very much difference. Either way, it is absurd to try to keep Parliament out of the process of Brexit, just as it would certainly be very unwise for Parliament to attempt to block or delay the triggering of Article 50. A much better approach by the Government would have been and still would be to flood both Houses of Parliament with a really deep analysis of what is actually going on in this area. So many generalities seem to skate over the actual processes of reforms and changes that are going on in the European Union and indeed in the world at this time, so instead of giving Parliament too little information my recommendation would be for the opposite. Give us too much. Let us debate it at enormous length and then approve going forward with Article 50.
If a really deep analysis were put before Parliament, it would show straightaway that the binary arguments between soft and hard Brexit are pretty good nonsense. I know they are beloved of columnists—one in the Times is at it again today—and a number of colleagues in the other place and even members of the Cabinet still seem to think that there is some hard and fast division. The reality is quite different. In fact, on the control of our borders, there are dozens of ways of controlling immigration and tightening present processes. Some are already in use by the European Union. We are told that the free movement of labour is a fundamental principle, but the world has moved on. Those fundamental principles are no longer fundamental, nor are they a great freeing and liberating force for Europe.
Secondly, on the question of whether we can possibly be in the single market or not, I beg noble Lords opposite to understand that the single market is a totally transformed creature today, perforated by new supply chains in this digital age and by interglobalisation not only of products but of processes. There are a lot of practical sector arrangements to be set up, and they are complex. Indeed, informal discussions are going on now with many new markets outside the European Union—the place where 60% of our exports go. These so-called fundamental principles that are said to present such dilemmas are not fundamental at all. There never has been much freedom of services; it has only partially existed.
A new path is opening out for both the UK and the rest of Europe—a new common partnership to quote the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. It is a new relationship with an open Union. The peoples of Europe are becoming increasingly and restively aware that this new path is opening out and I hope that our leaders have the wisdom to see it, understand it and now follow it.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, the hand dealt to the Prime Minister is not of her choice. The nation is split. The vote of 52% to 48% was not overwhelming and 63% of the electorate did not vote to leave. The referendum was a simple question, leave or remain, but one lesson learnt from the poll tax is that simplicity can lead to gross unfairness.
We have been in a legal framework which, after over 40 years, is complex to say the least. It is therefore not simple to exit and those who imply that it is are misleading the public of the UK. The vote was to leave, not how to leave, nor was it a future roadmap after leave. Can exit be cost-free? No is the honest answer, and I for one will not support the economy taking a hit as a price.
The coalition Government commissioned 32 reports on what membership of the EU meant for the UK’s national interest. These balance of competences reports showed that the UK benefited from membership of the EU, which is why we hear so little about those reports. I had first-hand experience of one related to food safety and animal health and it was clear that membership produced,
“real benefits for the UK”.
What on earth does “taking back control” mean in this area? We are not going to leave the United Nations, the World Trade Organization or the Codex Alimentarius Commission. We will not leave the World Organisation for Animal Health, the OIE, we will not tear up treaties on the law of the sea or climate change. Our rules relating to food production, food safety, animal health in food production animals, food import and export rules and labelling are all set by those other organisations and will not change, so we are not in control. We have to co-operate with others to function as an island nation and the world’s fifth largest economy. Keeping it simple and quick is dangerous and will ruin our country.
At this point I still support and trust the Prime Minister on this issue. The plans must remain within government because the negotiations will be very public—the 27 will see to that. However, the Government must involve Parliament to which they are accountable.
Given the narrowness of the vote on 23 June I would have supported the Prime Minister reaching out in the national interest beyond her tribe, but when she looks across the Dispatch Box, I can see why she did not choose that path. As a nation we are in enormous uncertainty and that is affecting our economy and social cohesion, and all because her predecessor gambled the nation for peace in his party and lost. She must not do that. Those at the centre of the 27 will not want other members to see a large exiting member succeed in being better off out than in. It is crystal clear that that will not be allowed to happen. But so much needs changing in the EU that change while the UK exits is inevitable. Exiting cannot be done in two years. We will waste six months at the start after March and we will need six months at the other end to finish off the European Parliament, so as I say, it cannot be done in two years. The change will have to be agreed and paid for with transitional arrangements so as not to damage the 27 or the United Kingdom. Calamity for the UK will result unless this is agreed and therefore there comes a time when the outline for the future is clear or clearer for the UK outside the EU. We will then have two marked routes that were not available on 23 June.
How can anyone claim that the final decision was made in a 15-hour slot on 23 June 2016? That was the start decision and no mandates flowed from it. It is perfectly reasonable, responsible and indeed democratic to consider how, at some time in the future, the final decision should be made. Another referendum could well be needed and justified, so it must include the future of the UK by including 16 and 17 year-olds in the decision. Yes, I was a remainer in 2016 but I was a non-joiner in 1975. I am a Delors convert from the 1980s and I am also a free man. I am not a prisoner of the Brexiteers, the Government or the Opposition, and I will not vote to invoke Article 50 unless the points I have made are accepted.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in a number of respects. This referendum was a decision to leave the EU but it was not a decision to leave the single market or the customs union. I accept that many people who voted to leave wanted it to be but, as a substantial number of subsequent polls have shown, the thinking is in terms of a future relationship that gives access to the single market outside full EU membership. Membership of the single market is essential for investment, jobs and future growth, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, explained so fully.
It is now more than five months since the referendum and there is still no clarity on the Government’s strategy. Instead we seem to have a confusion of strategy with objectives. The Government have said on several occasions that they want the “best possible deal” with the EU. However, that is an objective, not a strategy. I am beginning to wonder whether the Government have a strategy at all because different Ministers say different things. The Government have a duty to tell Parliament what they want our relationship with the EU to be and for Parliament then to examine that proposed relationship. It cannot be kept secret. It would be far better to have a Green Paper with options to consider before Article 50 is triggered, and perhaps it is still not too late.
Nevertheless, we need first to secure an outcome that enables us to stay in the single market and the customs union and avoids non-tariff barriers. Secondly, we need an agreement that continues inward investment into the UK from those seeking access in turn to the EU. Thirdly, we need to acknowledge that immigration is important to drive enterprise, growth and productivity while at the same time committing more resources to the training of UK employees, along with an EU-wide review of migration policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has just suggested. Fourthly, we need to enable UK citizens to live, work and learn securely elsewhere in the EU, with similar rights for EU citizens. Finally, we have to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom. If there is a final decision to leave, it should be with a transitional period of, at the very least, two years to permit some negotiation of individual trade agreements.
I have never understood why the Government chose March 2017 to trigger Article 50. Currently, EU leaders seem to be aiming at a hard Brexit, but it is just possible that that position could change once the French and German elections have been held and the policy of those countries has become clearer. We need to maintain flexibility, but the timing is now not on our side. We should remember that this is not just a trade issue. There is a huge number of issues relating to EU law, justice, agriculture, fisheries, defence, home affairs and the environment among many. Two years’ negotiation will not be enough.
It is vital that we do not end up out of the EU on World Trade Organization rules. The World Trade Organization will require detail of our tariffs and quotas. That process could take several years. Outside the customs union, business and our wealth creators would be bogged down in red tape, coping with the rules of origin and non-tariff barriers. We do not want that.
I have concluded that whenever the Government conclude their negotiations they should give the British people the right to decide in a referendum whether they wish to leave the EU on the terms negotiated. Parliament must have a role during those negotiations, but the British people must be empowered to make the final decision.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I declare a non-financial interest as chairman of Migration Watch. This is a massive topic, but I will stick to that part of it I know about. It is quite clear that immigration was a major factor in the outcome of the referendum. Some would say it was the major factor, but it is clear that a satisfactory outcome on immigration is essential if we are to have a good future relationship with the European Union. This needs a calm approach. We should try not to attack the motives of people who disagree with this.
What might be an outline? I mentioned to your Lordships yesterday that Migration Watch has recently published a clear and simple proposal. I will set that out, because so much of the debate on immigration is generalities. There are some specific things we can easily achieve, and other things that will be at the heart of the negotiation and intersect with the trade matters that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, raised.
We believe we should continue to have free movement for all EU citizens, unless they wish to work. That would mean that tourists, students, business visitors and the financially self-sufficient, such as pensioners, would continue to have visa-free access. The same would apply to senior staff transferred between international companies. There would be no need for restrictions on marriage, provided that all this was reciprocal. There is no reason why our fellow members of the EU should not agree to that. The overarching purpose is that we should retain to the maximum possible all the social and historical links we have with Europe, which we greatly value and I am sure they do, too.
The crunch comes to the question of workers. That is what lies behind the problems we have had in the UK. Happily, the facts are rather helpful. If noble Lords look at the numbers, 70% of migrants from the EU—people coming for more than a year—are coming to work or to seek work. Secondly, 80% of those are in low-paid work.
We therefore propose that anyone from the European Union who wants to come here to work should first be required to get a work permit on terms similar to those that now apply to non-EU migrants. There are plenty of things around the edges: do you have a quota—probably not—and do you have the same conditions? We can talk about that. Essentially, we suggest that we let them all come, but if they want to work they will need a work permit. The effect of that would be remarkable. It would reduce net migration from the European Union by something of the order of 100,000 a year. That is a big advance in terms of what the public want to see in our immigration policy.
Of course, there is a lot of detail in this that I will not go into. I look forward to giving evidence to the EU Sub-Committee on Home Affairs next week. For today, I just suggest that we have a guiding principle: namely, that we are leaving the EU but we are not leaving Europe. That is so obvious that one should hardly need to say it. It is surely fundamental to how we approach our continued relationship in terms of the movement of people. By achieving some substantial reduction in the numbers, we will be able to reduce the strain on our society that we have been feeling in recent years. Indeed, today’s immigration figures are a reminder of how much more needs to be done.
The public clearly want this dealt with. It is now for the Government and Parliament to get it done.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, the Motion before us is not limited to economic issues, although the debate so far has understandably concentrated on them. I would like to take a slightly broader look at our future relationship with the EU. Of course, the social and economic issues associated with the four freedoms will inevitably take centre stage over the next few years, and it will be an anxious time for many. I hope it will also be a time of opportunity for at least some, perhaps many; we will see. The as-ever excellent Library Note for this debate usefully sets out the options as they might be understood on the economic front. Inasmuch as I have any confidence as to what will emerge after the present cat-and-mouse phase unfolds, I suspect it will be nearer to the Singapore, Turkey or Canada end of the spectrum, as opposed to what is hoped for—perfectly properly and rightly—by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. We do not know; I claim no divine insight into this. But amid the uncertain labyrinth of discussions and negotiations that will have to take place, I hope that our sights can be raised above the purely economic horizon.
The original concept of “Europe” was never primarily economic or, for that matter, geographical. Geographically, there is not really a continent of Europe; it is simply a peninsula at one end of the great Asian landmass. We speak of Europe because a great civilisation developed there, shaped by Christianity and other forces ancient and modern—a civilisation that gave birth to modern science, in any serious sense of that word. While the original founders of the EU in the immediate post-war years had a certain economic view, they were also concerned to lay down foundations to avoid future conflict and were influenced by Catholic social teaching at the time. More recently, a more secular spirit has been to the fore that has left Europe rather ill equipped to deal with the new religious presence in its midst, and the growing presence of Islam in particular.
My plea is simply that, alongside the inevitable concentration on what promises to be a difficult economic negotiation and transition, we should especially promote the continuation and deepening of the educational, artistic, scientific and—yes—religious ties that over the decades and centuries have made European civilisation what it is today. Whatever we mean by “soft Brexit”, that would precisely promote a soft Brexit beyond the mere economic understanding of the term. The riches of our cultural destiny will continue to be European, whatever our precise future economic relationship with the EU proves to be.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate and I look forward tomorrow, in the debate led by the most reverend Primate, to discuss in more detail the cultural aspects of our European heritage. I will stick to the economic arguments today. The options for the UK’s future relationship with the EU are straightforward. As an independent country in Europe, the fifth largest economy in the world and the second largest contributor to NATO, we will be indispensable to European security and prosperity, as Mark Carney pointed out yesterday. We are a powerful country and getting more powerful as the discredited EU empire stagnates and begins to crumble.
This week the OECD, which has consistently got every forecast wrong, now agrees with the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the IMF, which also has an appalling track record of forecasting, that we will be the fastest-growing economy in the western world this year. So why do some embittered remoaners suggest that we do not have a strong hand to play against EU countries whose economies are suffering? I think their objective is clear—they want to stay in the EU and ignore the referendum result. They have largely given up on the ploy of a second referendum, except for some noble Lords, and will now try to make the case that the single market is essential to our future and that the people did not vote to leave the single market, just the EU. It is not so. People voted to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws and staying in the single market completely thwarts those aims. If we stay in the single market, the ECJ decides our law, we will have to pay in to the budget and accept freedom of movement. That is not taking back control.
Since the referendum, we have had nothing but good economic news. Countless businesses have voiced confidence in a UK free of the dead hand of Brussels. Nissan and Aston Martin have announced massive new investment. Jaguar Land Rover has just announced that it wants to double UK car production and make the UK the centre for electric vehicle technology. I hope that the Government will find the £400 million infrastructure investment needed for the Midlands to make that happen. Facebook, Apple and Google are expanding their UK operations. Massive new office blocks are going ahead in the City. Employment is at a record high, retail sales have rocketed and exports are surging, thanks to a lower pound. The pound needs to fall a bit more, in my opinion, if we are to boost our manufacturing industry.
Therefore, as a pre-eminent economic power in Europe we need not fear the end deal. We are in a position of strength. I hope that our opening bid to the EU will be, “We will not put tariffs on you if you do not put tariffs on us or try to freeze out the City of London”. We want a free-trade deal between us and the EU. If they do not accept that view then we should move quickly to World Trade Organization rules, since that is the only alternative. As my right honourable friend Peter Lilley said at the weekend,
“it is better to end uncertainty by reaching a second-best outcome speedily than haggle endlessly over a better deal that may never materialise”.
So we either have tariff-free trade or WTO rules—rules which benefit us.
The EU exports about £80 billion more to us than we do to them. Yes, that includes German cars, French cheese and Italian Prosecco, as Boris pointed out recently, perhaps not in the most diplomatic way. If they impose tariffs on us then we can reciprocate and we will make a huge profit out of it, but we do not need to go down that route. Of course, the EU is desperate to save this failed project at empire building. It has to keep the political project together even if that means accepting huge economic losses to make a political point. However, it could be a very different EU we face in 12 months’ time, and it may be one which is in no position to punish the United Kingdom.
We are a great country and we should have confidence in our ability to go from strength to strength, working economically and militarily with all our friends in the whole world who share our value systems, our culture and our belief in freedom. That is what the British people voted for, and the Government must deliver full and fair Brexit.
I conclude with this point. I am a passionate defender of this House and the role we perform. However, the Daily Mail, which may not be favoured reading among noble Lords, put it in its own unique way last week:
“If the Lords tries to sabotage such a move, that house of washed-up cronies and dodgy donors will be signing its own death warrant”.
I am one of those, too. The people have spoken and we should know our place.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I fundamentally disagree with every word that the noble Lord spoke, apart from the fact that we are a great country. I disagree not as an embittered remainer but as someone who cares passionately about the future of my children and my country. My sense is that we still have absolutely no idea of our destination, let alone how to navigate the journey towards Brexit, and it is clear that whatever the result of the negotiations, it is simply not possible to have a better deal with the EU than we have now.
I did not want Brexit but I respect the result of the referendum, which was clearly not a mandate for a hard Brexit. However, like John Major, I feel that we, the 48%, are subject to the tyranny of the majority. I reflect that Mr Farage and Mr Nuttall would not have exercised the same restraint had they lost by the same margin. This is the most profound change for our country since the war and it is imperative that the Government’s plan should be presented transparently and be subject to proper scrutiny. I trust that at the very least the Minister will be able to tell us when we can expect a Green Paper.
The negotiations will be extraordinarily complex and the timescale uncomfortably tight. The EU is not a monolithic block and once Article 50 has been triggered the leaders of the other 27 member states will have to agree a position at various points in the process, from the initial guidelines through to ratification. They will all have their specific views, as well as a common view about the need to retain the integrity of the EU, and throughout this time many will be preoccupied with national elections. The timing is excruciating, all the more so because it is determined by party politics rather than pragmatism.
The actual period of negotiation will be an absolute maximum of 18 months and, if there were no agreement, falling over the cliff edge would be a disaster. In the debate on Article 50 last week, there was general agreement about the need for a transitional bridge, as long as we know the destination, but I am unclear about the Government’s position so I would be grateful for clarification from the Minister. Transition also relates to funding. In August the Chancellor said that British businesses and universities would have certainty over future funding and that the current level of agricultural funding would be guaranteed until 2020. What would happen if there were a lengthy period of transition? What would the funding settlement be then?
There has been speculation over the past few days about whether or not it would be possible for us to remain a member of the EEA and therefore the single market during a transitionary period, which would provide stability, although I am advised by experts that sectoral agreements, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, will not work. Like my noble friend Lord Liddle, I believe that to secure our future prosperity we should remain in the single market, full stop, but until all the negotiations are properly concluded it is an absolute necessity and I wonder if this is the Government’s plan.
The negotiations will determine the future of our country and our position in Europe and in the world. Our relationship with other member states is of the utmost importance and to get the best possible outcome, good relationships and good will are imperative, but they are currently in short supply. Everything that leading members of the Government do or say seems to exacerbate the tensions. The views of our partners are hardening, including, sadly, over the status of EU nationals living in the UK and vice versa. No doubt the most fervent Brexiteers will say that this demonstrates how right we were to leave but I believe that this could have been very different if Mrs May, back in July, had made a unilateral gesture in enabling all EU nationals living here before the referendum to remain. This would have set the tone for the whole of the negotiations, rather than seeking to use human beings as cards to be traded. I am glad that my friend Keir Starmer is still urging unilateral action, which would stand us in very good stead in the negotiations.
Our politics, policies and the economy will be dominated by Brexit for years but it is also a critical issue for the whole of the EU and the deal that is ultimately concluded will have a far-reaching effect on defence and security—especially crucial in the light of the US election. These are areas where we bring much to the table and it is necessary for the peace and stability of our continent that close security co-operation with our partners continues, including enhanced intelligence-sharing. What role do the Government envisage for the UK in the EU’s common security and defence policy? It is crucial for the UK but also for the EU that we get these things right. Our fragile world needs a strong EU and confident member states in which democracy is underpinned by liberal values. We must not forget our history.
Lord Ricketts (CB) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I am delighted and honoured to join your Lordships’ House. I am grateful for the overgenerous comments made in my direction this morning and not a little daunted to be speaking after such experienced parliamentarians as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon.
I will start with a word of sincere thanks to the staff of the House for their professionalism and thoughtfulness at every stage, and to my sponsors. I have known the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, since he was appointed Governor of Hong Kong. In fact, I was the official who met him on the steps of the FCO on his first day. He bounded up to me and said, “Peter, I am not going to wear that hat”—and indeed he did not. The noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, has had to play the role of sponsor and mentor before, since I succeeded him in the Foreign Office as Permanent Under-Secretary. I am thinking of wearing a label around my neck saying, “If found wandering, please return to Lord Jay, thank you”—like Paddington Bear.
My career in the FCO began in the year after we joined the European Economic Community and it ended in the year that we voted to leave. I have to confess to the House that I am left deeply worried about the longer-term damage that that decision will do to this country. The mood I find in Europe is not one of wanting to punish the UK but of great sadness that a country that has done so much for peace and prosperity on the continent should be turning its back on this project, at a time of such turbulence and danger in the world. The European countries see the European project as still being a great deal better than the alternatives of narrow nationalism on the continent.
I was keen to make my maiden speech in this debate because the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is absolutely right to put the focus on the key issue: the future relationship of this country with the EU. The Brexit negotiations and the transitional arrangements, which I personally am sure will be necessary, are means to an end. The end will be the future enduring relationship that we have with our neighbours on the continent. In last week’s excellent debate on the EU Select Committee report I heard the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, quote Article 50, which refers to the need for a future framework for the relationship. I found that an important insight. I am sure that Parliament should be consulted over the terms of our proposition to our other EU partners, to muster as much national support for that as possible—but, along with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and other noble Lords I think it is now urgent to begin to assemble the building blocks of what that future relationship will look like.
The most important element is the one where there is still the least clarity—and other noble Lords have already referred to it. It is where we are going to strike the balance in our proposal between the freest possible access for goods and services to the European market and whatever controls on immigration are judged to be necessary. Those shark-infested waters are probably not ones for a maiden speech, but I will make one observation: while you can, in the excellent catering outlets of your Lordships’ House, have your cake and eat it—provided you pay for it—I am not sure that that is a sufficient basis for our policy towards future relations with the European Union.
Without going into the detail of trade, I will take up what other noble Lords have said about the scale of our trade with our EU partners. I will take France, the country I know best, as an example. We export £32 billion-worth of goods and services a year to France. That is twice our total exports to China and five times our total exports to India—and that is to France alone. So, although it is clearly vital to have “new and dynamic trading agreements” with parts of the world beyond the EU, as the Prime Minister put it, surely it is a top priority to ensure that those arrangements apply to our trade with the European Union.
I will touch briefly on four other building blocks of our future relationship, all of which I think have already come up in the debate. First, there is the importance of close co-operation on fighting terrorism and organised crime. As ambassador to France, I was there at the time of the appalling terrorist attacks this time last year and I know from experience the importance of our co-operation on these matters, not least for the security of British citizens in Europe. I know that the intelligence, security and law enforcement communities in Europe respect the professionalism and capacities of our own security and intelligence agencies. It seems vital that we maintain the operational co-operation with our European partners, which means being part of the information exchange networks, and instruments such as the European arrest warrant.
Secondly on foreign policy, my personal judgment is that we will want to continue to co-operate with European neighbours in a whole range of foreign policy areas. I note, for example, that the UK votes more often with France in the UN Security Council than it does with the United States—so I hope we can have a continuing forum for active co-operation on foreign policy, not just a place where we passively align ourselves with EU decisions.
Thirdly, on defence, which is a complex subject that I shall not go into in detail today, I believe that our know-how and the professionalism of our Armed Forces are greatly respected around Europe, as other noble Lords have said. I believe that the European Union does some useful work in its relatively modest missions around the world, civilian and military, and that we ought to have the opportunity to continue to be part of that. It will be positive if the EU finally decides to invest more in defence research and equipment, as recent reports have suggested. I think we can be completely relaxed about the prospect of a European army; it is never going to happen. Nations with serious military forces, such as France, will never agree to put them under supranational European control. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, posed an interesting question about future European security arrangements, and I am sure that the House will come back to debate them.
Finally, and following the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, there is the position of EU migrants in this country and of British citizens in EU countries. It is clearly vital. There is obviously an ongoing argument about how quickly an agreement can be made, but I do not think that there is opposition to the principle.
Establishing a list like this seems to be a useful part of building a consensus around what our offer should be.
I shall say a brief word in conclusion on bilateral relationships with our European neighbours. Although they cannot replace formal co-operation, as ambassador in Paris, I was constantly struck by the depth and breadth of the web of relationships between our countries. Of course, there is a relationship between the two Governments—defence is an example—but the web goes but far beyond that. There is the sheer movement of people. We counted 12 million British visits a year to France and a similar scale of visits to other European countries. Within that are exchanges: parliamentary, educational at all levels, cultural, artistic and sporting. All areas seem to contribute greatly to the strength of the relationships across the channel, and history is never far behind. During my four years as ambassador in France, we commemorated the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, the 200th anniversary of Waterloo—that was a tricky one—and the 600th anniversary of Agincourt. So history is always there.
I believe passionately that the future of this country will remain inextricably linked to our neighbours across the channel and will continue to be influenced by what happens there, and I look forward to continuing to contribute to debate in your Lordships’ House on those issues.
Lord Monks (Lab)
My Lords, I think I speak for all noble Lords when I say that the House very much appreciates the benefit of speeches and advice from distinguished former diplomats. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, shows that he will be a worthy addition to the ex-diplomats Bench and to the House more generally. He has, as he hinted, filled most of the top jobs in the FCO. His last three jobs have been Permanent Secretary, National Security Adviser and our man in Paris, making for an enviable and attractive CV and a stellar record of achievement. Originally from the West Midlands, he now sits as Lord Ricketts, of Shortlands, which is in Bromley, for those who do not know. Coincidentally, that is just up the road from where I live, so we are not far off being neighbours. His speech today will have whetted your Lordships’ appetite for more, much more, and his advice will be invaluable as we go into the difficult waters we are debating today: our relationship in future with the European Union.
That is what I turn to now. I want to deal briefly with two things. First, I shall take on some fantasies which are around in the current debates and secondly I shall talk a little about the responsibility of the Government to combat them. First, the cake-and-eat-it approach still seems to be alive, judging by the photograph in the press this week. Of course, it is ridiculous. This is a divorce. We are divorcing the rest of the European Union. I know there can be amicable divorces, but from my experience with friends, acquaintances and family, there are not many, and most have a considerable degree of bitterness. As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, said, the sense among the Governments in the rest of the European Union is that we are inflicting damage on a great and noble project which they have invested a tremendous amount of their lives in. That feeling is very powerful, and they are not going to roll over easily and give us the deal we would like. This is a two-way process, and what exactly do we have to offer? What exactly are we saying that we will do for them when we are asking them to do things for us?
That brings me to the next fantasy: that we have a choice between a hard and a soft Brexit, and that somehow it is in our gift which particular route we take. In fact, we are unlikely to obtain a soft Brexit, which I very much regret. Unless we are prepared to succumb to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and to accept free movement of labour, I do not believe that we will get it. The stance of some of the Ministers concerned on this side of the Channel is not conducive to building the kind of sensitive, close relationships that would be needed to get a deal like that. By the way, it will be very difficult to get a transitional deal, too, unless you are clear what you want to transition to and people can see the steps on the way. Unless you have the end destination clear, you are not going to get the transition very clear either.
The other fantasy I want to touch on, which I think has been mentioned by others, is that somehow, if we are out of the European Union, we are free and will trade with the rest of the world. There is nothing in the European Union holding us back from trading with the rest of the world. Belgium does more trade with India than we do, last time I looked. Nobody in Germany is complaining about being held back from being one of the world’s premier exporters. Our problems are self-inflicted, and if our balance of trade is not good, it is down to us to fix it rather than blaming others for it.
My final remark is that as the options of what is open to Britain post-Brexit become apparent, the Prime Minister should keep open the option of changing course. There is a chance that when all the other things have proven too difficult, too expensive and too complicated, we will find that this is not a good thing and that the best deal we can get is membership of the European Union. Perhaps the Minister might comment on whether we will keep that option open as well as the others that are on the table.
Baroness Valentine (CB)
I will limit my remarks today to the impact of our relationship with continental Europe on London’s talent mix. London is possibly the most successful and concentrated service-sector economy in the world, and given that it contributes nearly a third of the nation’s tax take, it is important that it continues to flourish.
There are roughly 1 million mainland Europeans in London, but only 19% of them would have the right to stay under existing visa rules without their EU rights. Two things worry me: first, our moral duty to these people, and secondly, the impossibility of running the economy in the absence of willing and able workers such as these. The official Vote Leave campaign proposed that there should be,
“no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK”.
Polling from ICM for British Future found that 84% of the British public supports letting EU migrants stay, including three-quarters of leave voters.
I am concerned about the impact on the economy of removing European workers both now and post-Brexit. In some of London’s high-growth small businesses, particularly in technology, often one-third to one-half of staff come from all over Europe. Research from Oxford University’s Migration Observatory found that around two-thirds of European workers in the financial and professional services sector across the UK would not have the right to stay under existing visa rules.
My contention is that not only do we need to continue to welcome the global talent, including students, that supports London’s position as the most highly skilled city in the world, we also need for the foreseeable future to attract those with medium-level skills in cyclical industries such as construction, and in sectors where the majority of the labour force is currently foreign-born. Today we do not have enough people to build the houses we need, even with European workers. Furthermore, London attracts more international visitors than any other city, and global tourism is growing. However, EU citizens make up half the labour force.
In the long term, there is no doubt that we can train more locals—for example, now that we have the somewhat overdue but welcome decision on airport capacity, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, is leading a taskforce to develop talent from all around the country, and HS2 has its training college at Doncaster—but none of this can happen overnight. Business needs time to plan, invest and resolve challenges, and the education system needs to do better at providing people with the right skills. In the meantime we need transitional arrangements with Europe that recognise that there will be a continuing need for overseas workers with a range of skills while we seek to train sufficient willing and able people to meet our economic needs, and we urgently need to clarify the status of those continental Europeans already here.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Liddle on his excellent opening speech. I agreed with every word. I also join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, on his maiden speech.
I believe that Britain’s membership of the European Union is firmly in our national interest, extending both our power and our prosperity. So while I respect the verdict that was delivered by the British people in the referendum, I genuinely fear that leaving will have disastrous consequences for both our economy and our international standing. Last week’s Autumn Statement gave us the first glimpse of the scale of the economic impact when the Chancellor unveiled an economy that as a direct result of Brexit is worse off in every respect: growth and productivity will be lower, borrowing and inflation will be higher, wages will stagnate and living standards will fall.
It is therefore vital that in the forthcoming negotiations we achieve an outcome that minimises any further harm to growth, jobs, or living standards. As my noble friend said, this surely means that the Government should make a firm commitment to remaining a member of the single market. Ensuring that businesses are able to trade on the same terms as they do now has consistently been shown to be the least damaging future arrangement, offering the greatest opportunities for future growth. Yet the Government are signalling instead that they favour an extreme hard Brexit, taking us out of the single market and the customs union, apparently regardless of the economic cost.
For Britain to achieve an outcome that minimises the harm to our economy and puts growth, jobs and living standards first would require a marked change in the Government’s position, but it would also require a marked change in the nature of the debate in this country. It requires a far greater level of honesty about what it is possible to achieve in the negotiations and about the trade-offs that will be involved. The debate we are currently having in this country is instead a harmful mixture of dishonesty and delusion. Some senior Ministers, maintaining a pattern established in the referendum campaign, continue to pretend that they see no possible downside to Brexit and that the entire economics profession is mistaken. In reality they are ideologically committed to a hard Brexit and would be very happy to sacrifice the living standards of working people to achieve that goal.
Other members of the Government seem to have adopted a more sincere delusion about what the outcome of the negotiations will bring. Holed up in Whitehall, prevented from meaningful engagement with their EU counterparts until Article 50 is triggered, they have convinced themselves that a terrific new deal will be on offer, giving Britain all the things we like about the single market while we give up virtually nothing in return. I am sorry to say that all too often leading members of my own party seem willing to collude in this fantasy, complicit in creating the fiction that our economy can be protected within the single market while at the same time confident that we can achieve some as yet unspecified reforms to freedom of movement.
This is an extremely dangerous fiction to collude in, and at some point in the next two years, this collective denial will collide with reality. As every European leader has made clear, this is not a deal that will ever be on offer. There will be no UK membership of the single market without retaining freedom of movement, so as a nation we will at some point have to confront a stark choice: do we end freedom of movement, or do we stay in the single market?
If the promises made on immigration turn out to be undeliverable, the backlash will be catastrophic for our democracy. Yet how could a democratic Government knowingly and deliberately pursue a policy of leaving the single market that would cause such economic self-harm to our nation? Unfortunately, it is a choice for which the British public have in no way been prepared. Although the referendum was decided by a narrow margin, the Government have sought to govern only for the 52%.
As other noble Lords have said, leaving the single market was not on the ballot paper on 23 June, and those who voted to leave the European Union will have undoubtedly included both opponents and supporters of the single market. Yet the Government have made no attempt to create a national consensus, or to discuss the difficult choices and inevitable compromises we face. When we eventually have to face up to reality, the only way to avoid a political crisis will be with a political solution. Decisions of this magnitude cannot be taken by the Government or even Parliament alone; they require far greater democratic legitimacy. As the details of the choice become clear, the British people must be involved again in helping to make this vital decision.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I was fortunate, when a Minister in the Home Office, to benefit from the clear thought and wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who was my right-hand man for much of my work. Today, your Lordships have benefited from those same clear thoughts and wise words. I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord—he is not my noble friend, but he is my friend—and we welcome him here.
Much has been said about the involvement of Parliament in the whole of this process. This is the 15th debate on the EU since we had the referendum result. It rather reminds me of the Maastricht treaty debates. This country spent three times as long debating Maastricht as any other country in the EU. I hope that we will allow our Ministers to get on with their jobs at their desks and get us the best deal, rather than constantly bringing them to Parliament.
The four freedoms of Europe have been mentioned. Of course it is right that our friends in Europe have been promoting the idea of freedom of movement as being absolutely sacrosanct, but I hope my noble friend will remind them that they did not think that the free movement of capital and services were equally sacrosanct, as my noble friend Lord Howell said. They dragged their feet and prevaricated, however much we tried to push them. It has been a long and painful process to bring the EU forward on that front.
I am an inherent free trader. Some have said that when we leave the EU, we will be the beacon of free trade for the world. I am not so sure about that. Bilateral trade does not equal free trade. I would like it to, but it does not. Let us look at what is happening in the USA. President Obama is a protectionist. He raised tariffs with China. Mr Trump is going to take that further. Some in the press today say that that will be good because we can do a bilateral deal with the USA more quickly. The USA is protectionist and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, we will never get a better deal with the EU than the one we have at the moment. That is a sadness for those of us who believe in free trade. We will all be the poorer for future President Trump ripping up the TPP. It affects us as well: without free trade we will be poorer throughout the world.
I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, said about the importance of London. It is incumbent on us all to stress to our European friends that London is the financial centre of Europe—not just the EU, but the whole of Europe. Indeed, in some respects—look at the London Metal Exchange—it is the financial centre of the world. It is hugely important that that continues for the trade of metals throughout the world.
I ask my noble friend the same question that I have asked before. Is she confident that we have the right quality of negotiators? We have not negotiated a free trade deal for more than 40 years. What is she doing to bring in expertise from the private sector and, indeed, perhaps to use the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts? It would be helpful to know.
I would like to question just one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in his Motion. He refers to the EU; I am not certain that we can look at the EU as a single entity anymore. I can see quite massive changes in the EU. Let us just take the example of Ireland—we are going to have a different relationship with Ireland than with the rest of the EU.
So my closing words to my noble friend are: let us be innovative and let us be flexible. I hope that the Government will take that approach, because that is what will get us the best deal with all the other countries.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, it is indeed a delight to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts. He is most welcome to your Lordships’ House. While thanking my noble friend Lord Liddle for the opportunity that he has given the House today, I am tempted to respond to the Motion by simply saying that the best option for the UK’s future relationship with the EU is to revisit the whole decision, either through a second referendum or as a manifesto pledge at the next general election.
When the leave campaign beckoned a small majority of the British people to vote with them in the referendum, they were effectively organising Royal Assent for the law of unintended consequences. For instance, only this week, it was revealed that leaving the EU means leaving Euratom, the body that regulates the nuclear industry and the safe disposal of nuclear waste across the continent. This might not seem a big story in itself, until one wonders—as the Financial Times did this week—what is to happen to the 3,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste to be left in the European Torus project in Oxfordshire? I declare an interest: I live near there. I must admit that I had not realised that there was going to be a problem with nuclear waste if we left the European Union. Euratom is a perfect example of how Europe shares risks, skills and costs and it is now yet another asset to be thrown on to the Article 50 bonfire.
Brexit is indeed becoming a learning curve—a curve of the vertical take-off variety. Every day brings a new Brexit-based challenge to our national interest that simply was not foreseen. I can understand why the Prime Minister is having sleepless nights about Brexit right now. The trouble is, British businesses and British workers will be having sleepless nights about Brexit for the next decade, in all probability. To carry on from my noble friend Lord Liddle, the only person who will never have sleepless nights is President Putin. For him, the possibilities are Shakespearean: “Brexit, pursued by a bear”, a Russian bear.
The complexity mounts. From this side of the House we can see the astonishing sight of our British Government having their policy on the verge of being completely paralysed by a Brexit process that no one can fully understand, no one can perfectly define and no one can realistically manage. Even some leading leave voices must now at least privately acknowledge that they never understood just how many concentric circles of complexity would ripple out from a national decision to leave the European Union, but too many of those voices are what I will call Brexit Bennites—noble friends on our Benches will know what I am talking about. They are acting as if cancelling our membership of the EU is simply a matter of political will. There is no point in anyone any longer saying that “Brexit is Brexit”. It is not and never has been as simple as that.
There is no such thing as a clean Brexit break. There are always going to be unexpected items in the Brexit bagging area. Transition is essential. The Labour Party is quite rightly resisting the hard and fast Brexit and has called for full, tariff-free access to the single market. The democrat in all of us will, of course, say that the referendum result must stand. But I, for one, do not know what that really means anymore. The events of the last six months have shown that there are as many forms of Brexit as there are shades of grey.
Let me be clear: I believe that all parties, including my own, must keep the option on the table of the British people changing their mind and thinking again about the decision of 23 June. It may be an unpalatable call but I believe that it is emphatically where we are.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, who spoke for many in this Chamber when he talked of his respect for the European Union’s contribution to peace. We have had 70 years of peace in western Europe and I believe that the European Economic Community very much contributed to that.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, on his forceful maiden speech, in which he made powerful points in respect of security, foreign policy and defence. We must remain in a relationship with our European neighbours. We must feel that we can get together with the 27 other countries to formulate policies in these areas.
The debate has focused to some extent on the single market in recognition of the fact that nearly half our exports go to the European Union, and a substantial amount of goods comes from the EU. The free trade negotiations will be a strong part of the Government’s policy, but unfortunately we have had no indication from them of their objectives. They speak in general terms. I support the concept of a Green Paper spelled out by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. Setting out the Government’s objectives in a Green Paper would not undermine the negotiating procedures. If Parliament is to play a significant part in this, as the High Court has suggested—and we will hear from the Supreme Court fairly soon—it must be given information on what the objectives are.
The consequences for European security initiatives are significant. Europol, the European arrest warrant and Prüm are very valuable in our battle against invasions of our security, and particularly against terrorism. We must recognise that terrorism is a plain fact with which we have to deal at this time. ISIS is not the only object of this.
The European Union has made a considerable contribution to our research. Nuclear fusion might be a casualty if we do not get significant funds from the European Union towards this research. The process of transition over several years ought to be spelled out. I think that we can adapt our objectives over that period.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Liddle for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. I thank him most warmly for the passionate conviction and hard-headed analysis with which he introduced it.
I think that all of us, if we are honest, know that one of the problems with the referendum was that it was not about the European Union but about a lot of alienated and disenchanted people who are bewildered and frightened by the challenges of globalisation and do not see how they fit into the pattern. We shall have to go on working very hard indeed at tackling that perception in this country because we failed as a political community to bring home the reality that we are inescapably locked into an international community in terms of climate change, terrorism, crime, trade and culture. Those issues are all interdependent across the world. History will judge us by our success in mastering the governance of those realities. But at the same time people feel personally less and less significant and they feel left out. If we are really to learn lessons from the predicament we are in, the challenge we all face is how we enable people to rediscover a sense of identity and significance within our society, and lead them in that context to an understanding of the realities of an international community. For example, we will not be able to solve the problems of climate change on our own. We shall, of course, have to continue to co-operate with the Germans, the French and the Americans—that is absolutely clear. The same goes for terrorism and international crime. As has been well argued, the same also goes for the economy.
There is one other issue which I want to discuss briefly in the time available. At the time of the Maastricht treaty something very significant happened for people living in the European Union—they acquired European citizenship. Going back to my school days, when I studied ancient Rome, I learned that citizenship is a very serious concept. People will in effect be stripped of their citizenship and will wake up to the implications of that only when it has happened. That is why, in my view, it is important to insist that we reach an understanding with others in the European Union on citizenship, and all that flows from that, before we activate Article 50, because after we activate that article this will be just another issue for negotiation. However, it is not just another issue. Thousands of British people across Europe and thousands of people in this country have in good faith built a future for their families and their relatives, their home and their work—everything—on the understanding that they were European citizens who had the rights of European citizenship. That is no small matter—we are taking all that away. We ought to be absolutely clear, before Article 50 is activated, how we will replace what has been taken from the people.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, one issue, little debated, is a presumption in discussions about Brexit that the EU is a known, unchanging quantity—an edifice of predictable structure. Is that so? Preparing for promotion exams way back in the 1950s, I was taught to view world affairs through three windows, labelled military, economic and political. Let us glance at the EU thus.
On the military aspect, will the 27 go forward with their European army? That has not found favour with any Administration in this country but it has been discussed, and championed, again recently in Brussels. How might that impact on NATO, our security and our military relations with the EU countries?
Economically—my second window—attractive as the European currency is, there are enormous difficulties with the concept of one size fits all; for example, in Greece. The underlying problems are unresolved and a fix for the resulting strains is a known unknown. Will it impact before Article 50 negotiations end?
On migration, there is less press coverage this year than last, but it—and the root causes of the crisis—are unresolved. Turkey may renege on its undertaking to take back illegal immigrants. Alongside that, high numbers of unemployed youth—for example, in Italy and Spain—also makes for potential unrest. The EU of today will not be the same economically in two or five years’ time.
My third window—political—is the most important. At one extreme is the “ever closer union” mantra; will it make progress in the immediate future? More immediate are the possible changes in the faces of the 27 at future EU summits. The known is that national elections in EU countries will bring new faces and maybe changes to the collective view of the 27. An unknown: might it not be 27 any longer if another country were to follow the UK into the “out” lobby?
Therefore is the EU of 27 as solid or predictable as is assumed? All empires throughout history rise, then fall. The European “empire” will one day have to tread a similar path—maybe, but probably not yet. To borrow Zhou Enlai’s comment, speaking of events that took place two centuries previously, “It is too early to say”. But will tomorrow’s historians be idle for all of two centuries before writing the definitive tale of the European project? I, for one, doubt it. I hope that my glances through these three windows will not mean I totally fluff my EU exam paper. Whatever happens on continental Europe needs greater debate and consideration.
Lord Selsdon (Con)
My Lords, when I first joined your Lordships’ House, I think 50 years ago, I was grabbed by the Leader of the House, Lord Jellicoe, who said, “My dear chap, there’s going to be a lot of development in Europe and this European lark is going to take a long time to come about. We’d like you to think—would you be willing to serve on the Council of Europe?”. I had a full-time job and I was not highly paid. I assumed that if I went and did this, my pay would be deducted. But then I found myself on the Council of Europe, and everyone was rather kind to me. Shortly after that, Lord Shackleton came up to me and said, “I wonder if you’d join the EETC?”—he was chairman of the East European Trade Council. I said yes, and before long I found that I had been absorbed by other people far more intelligent than me, and that my job was that of a pen-pusher. When we had the original referendum, I was secretary and treasurer of the Conservative Group for Europe, and we introduced the slogan: “Britain in Europe: it’s our business to be there”. We were thinking about trade—exports and imports. Now, suddenly, we find that from a relatively weak economy, we are in a rather strong position globally and able to trade globally. I wonder where we go next.
In simple ways I suffer a bit because, legally, I am a French peasant farmer. I have a vineyard in Provence, where I produce rosé, although the grapes are generally eaten by foreign wild boar—I have a permit to shoot the wild boar but no gun with which to do so—so, with all the local ingredients, I suffer from that. However, I also produce olives. Wild boar will eat the olives when they drop off the trees but have not yet worked out that if they shake the trees hard enough, they will fall down. There is always an element of history in these relationships. In the second century BC the first wines from Provence were shipped to the United Kingdom. They went to Hengistbury Head—I am not quite sure how to spell it—which leads to Stonehenge. You therefore realise that in trade matters there are historic relationships between countries. At the moment we have a good relationship with France—we heard an excellent contribution from my noble friend. We have to decide what we do next, and with whom.
In the whole concept of Europe we obviously have to look at economies, which are in general more privatised than they were before, and at defence. We look here, too, to France, with its ownership of Airbus and the relationships it has. I have a love of the sea, having served in the Navy in the Mediterranean; afterwards I followed in a private boat the travels of St Paul. I nearly drowned everybody, but it must have been the same for him in those early days. That taught me about the business of immigration. I had not realised how many migrants there were—I am going back 10 years or more—moving from one country to the other. I made a point about taking people into slavery. One day a pirate decided that for the slave market in the Mediterranean islands they could do with some white slaves instead of black ones, and then raided one of the churches in Penzance or around there and took away the entire population of the church, which was then pushed into slavery in the Mediterranean. All these are little stories you get told and do not necessarily believe.
We have a close relationship with France, and they are becoming less French and more willing to co-operate internationally. Here, I look at this debate and think: it has come at the right time, but what do we do next? Trade is the key issue, but what do we trade in? When I was secretary of the Conservative Group for Europe we had that phrase, “Britain in Europe: it’s our business to be there”—it was meant to be about business. But we trade successfully with most of the countries of the EU and with France in particular. When you look at the co-operation with Airbus, we have some friends and partners. I cannot work out what we do next, but we need to enter into new treaties or alliances with as many people as we possibly can, and we should not try to plough a lonely furrow. When you have the wild boar about, lonely furrows do not work.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Liddle on this debate, because it provides opportunities for yet another time when we can discuss the future, or not, of Brexit. I spend a lot of time on the continent talking about railways and transport, particularly in Brussels, and I share the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Monks and the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts—whom I certainly welcome to this House—that they are sad that we are leaving. However, it is not a question of how we leave; it is either hard Brexit or no Brexit. The approach that some of our Ministers and other commentators seem to be taking, which I term arrogant, will not make the negotiations any easier at all. We will not be able to pick and choose what we can have. We have had many discussions today and in previous debates about picking and choosing, and we will probably go on doing that for a long time. We really need to focus on what we want to get out of it.
We read reports daily in the press of UK business and industry sectors expressing concerns and alarm about job losses or economic problems if we have a hard Brexit. To name but a few, they include research, agriculture, the building industry, finance and transport. I suppose one could add to the list regional aid. It is not an industry but it dramatically helps jobs and so on.
I have looked at transport in a certain amount of detail. There could be problems in the air sector over agreements with the EU on designated routes. Will we continue to be part of the EU open skies policies? There could also be problems regarding ownership of some of the airlines. Would UK carriers be excluded from certain routes? Then there are the possible problems concerning extra customs formalities. Some noble Lords may remember the pictures of queues of trucks trying to cross the Iron Curtain. That could happen again.
There is also the issue of Calais. The camp of the potential immigrants has been removed, so the situation at the moment is much better, but if the French Government got a bit angry with us—although not as the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, suggested—there is no reason why they should not say, “If you’re leaving the EU, you can sort out your own immigration problem. And not only will we not allow the British immigration people to work in Calais any more but we’ll send anybody with a problem across to the UK, where they can claim asylum and it’ll be your problem”. I know that the treaty is not part of the European Union agreements but that could still happen. So my worry is that there will be a risk of a lack of compliance without any ability to make representations and participate if we want to stay in the single market.
I am sure that there is a solution to sorting out the immigration problem—if it is a problem—and it worries me that the Government have already decided what they are going to do. Yesterday, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, said in answer to the first Oral Question:
“The Government have been clear that as we conduct our negotiations it must be a priority to regain more control of the numbers of people who come here from Europe”.—[Official Report, 30/11/16; col. 195.]
We are still in Europe—we have been in Europe for 40 years—and if she is assuming that we have already left, that is probably why we are getting into the trouble we are in.
I suspect that over the next few months, when all the job losses have been added up, people will appreciate the threats much more. If there were another referendum, we would probably have at least 52% in favour of staying in rather than 52%—a very small majority—in favour of trying to get out. As other noble Lords have said, the referendum was advisory. I hope that the Government accept that the will of Parliament has to be tested and that Members of Parliament, having taken the views of their constituents, will be able to vote, as will we in this House, on whether they like the terms of the negotiations and, if necessary, reject them.
Lord Dykes (CB)
My Lords, I warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for initiating this debate and for his words. As a previous speaker said, the passion as well as the contents of his remarks make his speech worth reading again in Hansard. It set out all the awful implications: not just “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, or on all the Elm Streets in the United Kingdom, but “Nightmare in Downing Street”, “Nightmare in the whole of Whitehall”, “Nightmare around Parliament Square” and all over London, in particular, when this escapade and nonsense gradually unfold. Without being complacent, I like to think that the number of speakers in this debate alone who have argued for and endorsed our continuing membership of the EU reflects—I am optimistic about this—what British public opinion will be in about 18 months’ time when all these nightmare implications are considered.
I also thank my noble friend Lord Ricketts and congratulate him on his outstanding maiden speech. With his distinguished Foreign Office background, we thank him for all he has done for this country. When I was an MP, I became rather unpopular among some colleagues because I defended the Foreign Office in the House of Commons, which is always a tricky thing to do. One reason was that, as the Foreign Office became more successful, it was disliked more and more by Mrs Thatcher. I remember that vividly and, to my mind, it was an important test of what view one ought to take about our most excellent foreign service.
Timothy Garton Ash, a very distinguished historical journalist and historian who worked in Oxford and other places and travelled extensively, said on Friday, 25 November in the press:
“These days, I never travel without my Brexitometer. It measures two things: the time elapsing from the opening of any conversation”,
with anybody,
“to the first mention of Brexit”—
the average so far has been three minutes—
“and the proportion of all those I encounter who think Brexit is a good idea. Over the past two months, I’ve been in America”,
and about half a dozen other important countries,
“and the second metric is currently running at about 1%”—
that is, 1% in favour of Brexit. He continues:
“The other 99% think that we Brits have gone stark staring bonkers”.
He goes on to say that maybe he was just mixing with the wrong kind of people—the international elite, who naturally like the European Union—but, no, he was talking about a wide cross-section of people.
I commend my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard as a sober witness to this continuing and unfolding ghastly nightmare, and reiterate his words in the debate on 22 November. He referred to the way in which the Government are busily and clumsily alienating our friends in Europe before the negotiations even begin. My noble friend is not known for his histrionic utterances—far from it—and that is why we respect him so much. He said that,
“the sense that the Government are talking only to themselves, making policy in an echo chamber, the gratuitous insults from the Foreign Secretary, the random pronouncements of various Ministers, usually immediately followed by a slap down from No. 10, leave our friends … in Brussels close to despairing. They fear that there is no plan, and that when one emerges it may be rather unrealistic. They see a growing risk that the Article 50 negotiation will fail, and we will go over the cliff edge into legal chaos”.—[Official Report, 22/11/16; col. 1864.]
This immense damage to this country has been unleashed by former Prime Minister David Cameron. It is far more reckless than anything done in Suez by Anthony Eden and far more dangerous than other hysterical acts of previous Prime Ministers over the long history of unfolding British democracy. When we see David Cameron, we have to ask him again why he tore this country apart so recklessly in favour of keeping his party in order. However, it can be resisted. If, with or without the support of the Supreme Court, this matter eventually goes back to Parliament—mainly to the House of Commons—as it should, then MPs must really face up to resisting the right-wing firestorm that has been unleashed by this nonsensical decision. I quote from an article in the Guardian on 29 November. It says that,
“we can’t go on like this. If the courts give MPs the right to vote to stay in the EEA and the single market, they will need nerves of iron, reserves of courage and every possible verbal weapon to confront the right’s angry entitlement, its brutish selfishness, its mean-spirited nativism. It won’t be easy; some won’t have the stomach for it. But they surely have a duty to stand up for the only kind of Brexit that might save us from ruin”.
Lord Desai (Lab)
My Lords, this is about the fourth time I have spoken on the result of the referendum and I shall say the same as I did in the first debate: I voted to remain but out means out. I do not think that we do any good by demeaning those who voted for Brexit or describing them as—to use Hillary Clinton’s word—“deplorables”. In England, 28 million people voted out of 34 million, and the margin for Brexit was seven percentage points—53 to 46. The difference in England of two million votes was also the national difference. In all the devolved regions, three million voted for and three million voted against. So this is very much an angry English decision—and we should listen to it carefully.
My noble friend Lord Monks described it as a divorce, and so did I. The point of a divorce is to get it over with quickly. Then, you want to cohabit, but you cannot begin the discussion on cohabitation until after the divorce. We have walked out of the house; now we have to proceed with the divorce. If we are going to go through with this divorce, it is neither a hard nor soft Brexit but a quick Brexit that is of the essence. Once you get a quick Brexit, then you can have a smart framework agreement for cohabitation. Much more time should be spent on discussing cohabitation than on either delaying the invocation of Article 50 or making it very complicated.
I know that I am in a minority on this side of the House in that respect, but I sincerely think that, to end the uncertainty, we have to have a quick Brexit. It is no good hoping that, somehow, the world is going to change, the British people are going to change, France is going to break down and Germany is going to go up in flames—none of that is going to happen. The 27 other member states are not going to treat us nicely, whether we insult then or not. They have their own interests to protect. We have walked out and so we have to take the consequences.
The important question now is: what role does Parliament play in this, whatever decision the Supreme Court makes? It would be good to have a discussion in Parliament like the ones we have been having more or less continuously since June before Article 50 is invoked—a much more extensive discussion, along the lines of the one we are having today, with different views. However, as I have proposed before, once Article 50 is invoked we should have only a Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament to get detailed information from the Government on a Privy Council basis so there can be interaction between Parliament and the Executive. Finally, when the decision has been made, Parliament can come back into the decision-making process and vote either to approve or not approve the package that has been agreed. If Parliament does not approve it, I do not know where we go from there—but that is the way we should conduct our business.
As I have said, there should be much more interest in what happens after the Brexit negotiations. Everybody else deals with WTO. We can do that as well—it is not a miracle and we should not be frightened of it. That is what others do, so we will do it as well. We have to be prepared for that and not wait for some miracle reversal of our decision.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am the product of a particular European union, as the daughter of a Scottish father and a Danish mother who met in Hamburg and married in 1948. My mother recalled vividly how she lived in Copenhagen under German occupation, so I have long taken a close personal interest in the European Union—but this is the first occasion on which I have spoken in this place on the subject.
I have always considered Europe to be a continent of opportunities: to study, to trade, to work, to set up business or a profession, and to export. However, as a democrat and a patriot, I accept the result of the referendum. As one chapter ends and another begins, what might the next chapter look like? As recently as yesterday, during Prime Minister’s Questions, Theresa May in the other place said,
“specifically about the single market and trading with the European Union … we are ambitious in getting the best possible deal for trading with and operating within the single European market”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/11/16; col. 1511.]
So I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on calling this debate at this time. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for making the first of what I am sure will be many excellent contributions to this House.
I would like to rehearse some of the pitfalls that lie before us on this rocky path ahead. The options appear to be remaining in the single market, remaining part of the customs union, being part of a free trade area and possibly a member of the European Economic Area, or reverting to World Trade Organization rules. I do not think that we begin to understand the complexity of what even the basics of World Trade Organization rules or free trade would be. We forget that we have been part of a single market, which was very much a Conservative concept pressed home by the late former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her commissioner at the time, Lord Cockfield. However, we have been part of that only since 1992. As an MEP at the time for parts of Essex and what is now South Suffolk, I remember receiving panicked phone calls from local businesses whose goods were impounded by Customs at the borders asking what on earth I was going to do to release them. It is not just the tariffs but, as I said, the non-tariff barriers, and even trying to agree the nomenclature for every product, whether it is agricultural or non-agricultural.
We also have to have regard to the incoming US President, who, as has been said previously today, has tendencies that are even more protectionist than what we have seen in the past. That may lead to fewer opportunities for free trade for this country and aggravate already slowing free trade in the world economy, hitting the UK economy hardest because we are a more open trading nation than many others.
I would like to say a word of caution about the great repeal Bill. Most EU law has already been transposed into UK law. Environmental directives have been transposed through statutory instruments. It is regulations that are directly applicable that we have yet to identify and decide which we wish to keep. As regards the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, there may be some cases on which we would wish to follow its rulings. The early rulings of Costa v ENEL or Cassis de Dijon related to the free movement of goods and services, meaning that exports from this country would still be freely available in the European Union. No one has yet explained what this concept of equivalence would be. I remind the House that for architects, it took up to 21 years to achieve mutual recognition.
It is also worth remembering that when the former Soviet satellite states threw off the shackles of the iron curtain, they looked to the European Union, and still do, to give a blanket of security. We need an assurance that the European Union initiatives on co-operation in the security field will continue. Hearing that Russia is placing missiles on the borders of Poland and the Baltic states brings with it more than a hint of the pre-war years of the 1930s. Although it is clear that the UK may be leaving the European Union, we need to send a clear message that we remain within the broader bosom of the European family.
Lord Soley (Lab)
My noble friend Lord Liddle, in his very powerful speech, made the all-important point that our aim now must be to have a very good and close relationship with the European Union, albeit a different one. I start from that point. There is no point, in my view, in trying to negotiate the situation here or decide whether we go back in or stay out. We have simply got to create a relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union that works for both of us.
The first thing I would like to happen is for Ministers to stop talking slightly negatively about Europe. We should be saying that we want the European Union to succeed and we want the United Kingdom to succeed, and that we want to have a close relationship with it because it is in both our interests to do that—partly because, as the noble Baroness has just said, the relationship with Russia matters here and the future of defence and foreign policy matters. A splintered European Union would be bad news for the United Kingdom. Similarly, if the United Kingdom goes into some sort of economic crisis, that is not in the interests of the European Union—they know that and we know that.
I have a word of caution for some of my honourable friends and other people who think that we can get back into the European Union easily or quickly. That is cloud-cuckoo-land. Those who voted for Brexit did so for many reasons. Migration was a big one, but it was not the only one, as my noble friend Lord Judd said. The feeling of being excluded as a result not just of the global economy but a distancing from political institutions and politicians was also a critical part of that. My fear would be that, if we were to try to go back in any time soon, either by a parliamentary vote or another referendum, we would get a big thumbs down from the British people. It is far better to have a successful economic and political link growing with the European Union because that leaves open the door, as we should do, to going back in if we so wish at some future date. It also enables us to make a success of the present position.
I say again to some people who think that we can easily come out that, by and large, if things go wrong, as many people have been saying, people tend to vote negatively. That would not induce people to say, “We’ve made a mistake; we’ll go back in”. It would induce them to say, “Typical—the foreigners and politicians are all a problem and we do not want it”. By and large, people will vote for a positive change like going back into the European Union if they have a positive relationship and are getting wealthier and stronger. People vote positively when things are going well for them and negatively when they are not. We have had enough lessons of that. We in the Labour Party need to remember that a very large number, possibly a majority of the people who used to vote Labour, voted Brexit. If we do not understand and talk to those people, we will not solve any of the problems that confront us.
I have one final point in this very short debate. I was in Brussels on Monday as a member of the EU sub-committee dealing with Europol, policing and security. The work that we are doing there is immensely important. The majority of people running that outfit are British. If you look at aviation, the majority are British. The fascinating thing is that the British have been incredibly successful at managing aspects of the European Union, but the British public have felt totally disconnected from that experience. We need to get the security issue right, which the Minister knows. But we can do that. It is possible to negotiate agreements that are in the European Union’s interest and ours. No one has an interest in making life easier for terrorists, criminals or others. The same applies with the rules and regulations in aviation, where Britain also dominates, and in other areas too.
The big difficulty is trade. I have not commented on that because we do not have time, but it is important that we work positively with Europe. It is in Britain’s interests and in the European Union’s interest for us to have a close and positive relationship. We must start from there and continue. Please can Ministers stop saying negative things about Europe because we should be positive about it? We want them to succeed because we also want to succeed.
Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Soley. It was also a great pleasure to hear the maiden speech of my noble friend—in both senses of the word—Lord Ricketts. We look forward to many other contributions to your Lordships’ debates in the future.
I voted to remain on 23 June, as I believed that continued British membership of and influence on the European Union was very much in Britain’s economic and political interests, and the surest way to exert our influence in the world. But I do not believe that the right course now is to try to go back on the result of the referendum. Nor would I argue for another referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, may regard that as a tactical retreat, but the crucial thing now is to start the negotiations as planned in March and get on with them as quickly as we can.
I will focus on three aspects of our longer-term relationship with the European Union—and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on initiating this debate—regarding trade, security and foreign policy. On trade, I do not for a moment disagree with the substantive arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, but I am inclined to agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester that the chances of ending these negotiations inside the single market are slight. But that does not mean that we need to leave the customs union. Indeed, staying in the customs union would continue to give us tariff-free access to the single market, which is crucial for investment and for jobs, and enable us to continue to benefit from the free trade agreements between the EU and other countries. I know that there are arguments and interests involved that point in a different direction, but to leave the customs union and seek to negotiate bilateral trade arrangements with our major trading partners at a time when the principle of free trade is under attack as never before, would be, I must say to the Minister, very courageous.
On security, I very much follow the line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and agree with what he said. I only stress that the evidence given over the last few weeks to our EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee by, for example, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the police and other experts, has been overwhelmingly in favour of staying in Europol, Eurojust and the European arrest warrant, because they are crucial for our security. I have to conclude that to sever our links with those organisations would be a massive exercise in self-harm. I ask the Minister to assure the House that, in considering our relationship with the EU’s police and security institutions, the Government’s prime consideration will be the safety and security of the British people.
On foreign policy, outside the European Union NATO will be crucial to our interests, but close and effective co-operation between NATO as it evolves and the EU’s common foreign and security policy as it evolves—alas without us—will be crucial, too. I would be grateful if the Minister could assure us that outside the European Union we will work not only to maintain and strengthen NATO, but to work with our erstwhile EU partners to ensure a constant and close co-operation between NATO and the European Union.
I am very glad that my noble friend Lady O’Neill is in the House. Very little has been said in the debate so far about Ireland. But the prospects of Brexit for the north of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and indeed the peace process, are potentially hugely serious. I would be grateful, finally, if the Minister can make clear to us that during the negotiations the interests of Ireland, north and south, and our relations with Ireland will be at the top of the Government’s concerns.
Viscount Chandos (Lab)
My Lords:
“The UK will intensify its relationship with its friends across the channel at an inter-governmental level”.
Those are not the words of a diehard supporter of remain but of the newly appointed Foreign Secretary on 14 July this year, fresh from his leadership of the campaign that secured the referendum vote to leave. What, then, should that relationship be? Five months after the referendum, as other noble Lords have said, the Government have offered no clue as to the nature of the relationship that they would like to achieve. There has been much talk of not compromising our negotiating position by showing our hand but, in reality, the truth is that the Conservative Government were totally unprepared for the outcome of the referendum.
In January 2013, the Conservative Government committed to a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU by the end of 2017 in the event that they won the next general election, and to its inclusion as a condition for any new coalition. They committed to honouring the outcome of the referendum and the then Prime Minister committed to staying on to implement whichever decision the referendum mandated. The Government may ultimately have campaigned for a remain vote, but it was still their responsibility to prepare for either eventuality. Three and a half years after committing to the referendum—nearly twice the length of the negotiating period provided for under Article 50—the Conservative Government had made no preparations of any sort. This casual and negligent arrogance made the Royal Bank of Scotland look by comparison well prepared for the great financial crisis. This is the vacuum that needs to be filled and in the circumstances the Government should welcome and constructively engage with the ideas of others both within Parliament and elsewhere.
I should like to use my remaining time to draw your Lordships’ attention to one such idea—a proposal for a continental partnership put forward by Sir Paul Tucker, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and his co-authors, under the sponsorship of the economics think tank Bruegel, and described by the economics commentator Hamish McRae as,
“the most convincing sketch yet of how this relationship might look”.
I believe that the importance of this proposal is not so much its specific suggestions—although they are pretty compelling, in my view—as the signal given by the identity of Sir Paul’s co-authors. They include, writing in a personal capacity, Jean Pisani-Ferry, the Commissioner-General for Policy Planning for the French Prime Minister, and Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Bundestag. The proposal envisages membership of the single market for,
“an outer circle of countries involved in a structured intergovernmental partnership”—
words that echo those of the Foreign Secretary, and an—
“intergovernmental form of collaboration, with no legal right to free movement for workers but a regime of some controlled labour mobility and a contribution to the EU budget”.
Time does not allow for a more detailed summary, and as Hamish McRae suggested, we should perhaps regard it as a good sketch rather than a finished picture. I do not pretend either that the personal views of the authors can be interpreted as a fast track to a done deal, given that we are facing, as the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU has said in his characteristically understated way, the “most complex negotiations” of all time. However, I am more optimistic than my noble friend Lord Livermore that behind the hard-line initial positions taken by EU leaders, mirroring and indeed responding to our own leaders’ rhetoric, there is among the key thinkers at the heart of the EU an understanding of the concerns lying behind the referendum vote and a desire to find a constructive solution of potentially wider relevance. I have no doubt that the Government have this proposal in their in-tray, not least as a founding member and funder of Bruegel.
My honourable friend Keir Starmer has asked the Government 170 excellent Questions but I will ask only two. Do the Government regard the model set out in the proposal as a good sketch from which a final picture could be derived, and will they engage, perhaps through Sir Paul Tucker, in discussions about it?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I have to point out that we have a fairly serious overrun. Perhaps I may respectfully remind noble Lords that when the Clock shows “four” they are over time. It does not matter how anxiously noble Lords continue to glance at the Clock, that will not minimise the time by which they run over, it will simply defer and exceed the run-over. I ask for your Lordships’ co-operation so that the moment the Clock shows “four”, they conclude their remarks.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I have taken note of that stricture.
I believe that it was an absolute disaster that electors voted to leave the EU, but I accept that the vote cannot be ignored. People voted out for a variety of reasons. Some did so to redirect £350 million a week to the NHS. Many farmers protested against CAP bureaucracy, while some small business owners wanted a reduction in EU regulations, and others of course wanted to see a reduction in immigration levels. What they did not have an opportunity to state was what they wanted in place of our membership of the EU. Different Brexit campaigners advocated different options. Some wanted a Norwegian or Swiss model which would retain our access to the single market. Some saw Albania, Turkey or even Ukraine as possible models. Some based their case on securing a Canada-type deal while others were happy to advocate trading under the World Trade Organization rules—accepting that that may mean tariffs for customers within the EU market.
The referendum may have given a mandate to quit the EU but it did not provide a mandate for which alternative option the Government should seek, nor do the present Government have a mandate from a general election. That brings us to the central role that Parliament, along with the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales, must play in deciding on the preferred option that the UK Government and their devolved partners should aim to negotiate for.
For both the agricultural sector and manufacturing industries the overwhelming case is for the UK to retain its place within the single market of 500 million people free from any tariff barriers. There are some 200 companies in Wales from the United States and 50 from Japan, many of which have located in Wales to sell their products to the European market. For us to lose our tariff-free access to this market would be industrial suicide. Likewise for agriculture, where more than 90% of Welsh lamb and beef exports go to the EU. If they were to face a 14% tariff barrier, as has been suggested would be the case if we traded under WTO rules, it would mean the kiss of death to the industry that is the backbone of the rural Welsh economy. Continuing our trading relationships within the single market is an essential for both manufacturing and agriculture. That must be the fundamental objective of the Government’s negotiating position, and they should say so quite explicitly.
To secure our free involvement in the single market for manufactured goods and agricultural products, we need to accept the free movement of people. I would argue that we will largely have to do that in any case because of the open border the UK has with the Irish Republic. I believe that before an Article 50 application is made, the Government must tell Parliament what their broad objectives are in their negotiations with the EU, and they should be subject to a parliamentary vote to ratify them. If the Government refuse to allow Parliament to have such a vote, Parliament must retain the right to refuse to endorse the outcome of the negotiations if they are deemed to be inadequate, and in those circumstances to direct the Government to withdraw their Article 50 application, which we can see is now legally possible. If the Government refuse, the objectives should be put to the people in a further referendum. In that way the people who took the decision to quit the EU will have the final say on whether they are content to do so under the terms that the Government have negotiated. What could be fairer than that?
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, at last the final Back Bencher. I would like to emphasise the importance of trade. My noble friend Lord Livermore reminded us that forecasters and the OBR told us to expect lower growth, higher inflation and little increase in productivity. This is considered to be sheer ill-judged pessimism by some members of the Government and by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but I would advise everyone else to listen to the words of trusted institutions and not to the voice of dogma.
Yes, we are in for a time of uncertainty not only because the outcome is very much dependent on the process—how it will be managed—but also on events: elections in France, Holland, Germany and Italy and the incoming US Administration, who lean towards protectionism. All of this means that people will have less time for our concerns and many politicians will want to ensure that Britain is not rewarded for Brexit. Added to that is the fact that the nature of trade is changing. Companies are less concerned about tariffs than they are with supply chains, marketing, distribution, services and protecting the specialist knowledge on which all of that depends. That is why many trade agreements now focus on protecting rights and setting standards. They are unpopular because people are afraid they reduce their protection as consumers, cut their wages or destroy their jobs. Such arrangements are seen as giving power to corporations that have lost our trust in recent years. This only adds to the uncertainty.
Where do we stand? In money terms, we have always been a net contributor to the EU. We have walked out, as my noble friend Lord Desai put it, but we are still paying the bills. This could continue until 2021, unless we make some transition arrangement. In view of these contributions, we must seek to continue the same high-standard, rules-based, zero-tariff trade arrangement with the EU and, most importantly, all the other markets where the EU has preferential access instead of negotiating these ourselves. The EU would benefit by continuing its trade surplus with us and avoid the need to unwind the many cross-border supply and service arrangements that have been in force for years.
Yes, the City of London remains the financial centre of Europe. It is in nobody’s interest for London to become yet another offshore financial centre. As my noble friend Lord Liddle explained, the non-financial services are a larger and more important part of our economy. It is a sector where generally we excel and show a trade surplus, but it is heavily dependent on workers from overseas. Our determination to suppress EU immigration must damage that sector. I am not sure whether the plan mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Green, would allow for sufficient movement so we can continue to attract the world’s best scientists, skilled workers, and, in particular, to retain our own and international centres of excellence, such as Euratom. Let us exclude students from the figures. Let us be generous and say foreign workers can stay here because we need them.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, I want to speak briefly in the gap to say that this debate has been, in time, allocated to the Labour Benches. We have sponsored the debate. When we were deciding which debate should take place we wondered whether we should take the full five hours, but we thought we would not have sufficient speakers. We have had 31 speakers altogether, at four minutes apiece. It is utterly inadequate. People such as myself decided not to intervene because we felt we simply did not have time to make our case. I appeal to the Government to allocate some of their time so we can have a proper, longer debate where people will at least have time to make their fuller cases.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and indeed to the Labour Party for bringing the debate. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out that this is 15th debate we have had on various aspects of the relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom since 23 June.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I have form on the European question. I am known as somebody who is deeply passionate about the European Union. I declare my interests as listed in the register, not least that I teach European politics at Cambridge University. However, one of the things that is not listed in the register is just how far back some of these links go. When I wrote my doctoral dissertation, one of the people I used regularly to interview was the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, when she was secretary-general of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, at various points discussed with me the nature of the UK’s bilateral relations and came up with the concept of something called “promiscuous bilateralism”. I will come back to that concept towards the end.
The Liberal Democrats have a very clear position on what the best relationship for the United Kingdom would be with the European Union following the vote. It is exactly the same view we had before and during the referendum: the UK’s best position is being a member of the European Union. The fact we lost the referendum—that we did not persuade enough people—does not make us think the UK is not better off in the European Union. Like so many Members on the Labour Benches, one or two on the Conservative Benches and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, we believe that the United Kingdom should be as close as possible to the European Union in the event of us leaving. We would agree, right across your Lordships’ House, with the noble Lord, Lord Green, that leaving the European Union does not mean leaving Europe. That is self-evident. The question is: what is the best relationship?
I will touch briefly on the economic and trade aspects, which have formed the majority of the debate, but clearly there are wider issues which have been touched on, about what the United Kingdom’s relations with the rest of the European Union will be when we leave. That will form part of the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, next week on foreign and security policy.
There is clearly a question of what “leave” really means. It has been suggested by some of those who advocated voting to leave the European Union that it was always crystal clear what leave meant. It meant leaving the single market, the customs union and every aspect of the European Union, and that we should not even be querying that. For those of us who lived and breathed the then European Union Referendum Bill this time last year, it was not clear what leave meant. Several of us put forward amendments to the Bill, requesting Her Majesty’s Government to produce a document on what leave might look like. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was required on many occasions to say, “It is for the leavers to say what leave looks like”.
Eventually, we were presented with a document on what the alternatives to membership might look like. It seemed to be a little lacking in rigour, but it came up with half a dozen scenarios of what the alternatives might look like. A year on, the alternatives have not fundamentally changed. We could be part of the single market, which, like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, the Liberal Democrats would say is second best, but if we are outside the European Union it is the best alternative we have. It means that we would still have access to and membership of the single market—not just the right to trade, but trade on the same terms as the European Union member states. This is vital.
Many of those who advocated Brexit advocated hard Brexit, getting outside the European Union and even outside the customs union, and that worrying just about tariffs would be sufficient. That is not good enough. As a member of the single market we avoid non-tariff barriers to trade. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, pointed out, the late Baroness Thatcher pushed for the single market because barriers to trade beyond tariffs were crucial to this country.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed out that the single market might now be being perforated by new patterns of trade. That is true, but it does not prevent membership of the single market being better for British business. It gives greater certainty to the City of London, to higher education and research institutions, and to business more generally.
The single market would, for the Liberal Democrats, be seen as the next best alternative. It gives free movement of people. That deals with one of the key issues that has come up, not just today, although it was powerfully discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. The rights of EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom and of UK nationals resident in the European Union has been raised I believe almost every week since the Monday after the referendum. Time after time to Minister after Minister, right across this Chamber, Members of your Lordships’ House have implored the Government to think again about the rights of EU nationals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I ask the Minister again: will the Government think about giving a unilateral undertaking on the rights of EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom? It would give them certainty. They should not be negotiating chips, whatever the Prime Minister seems to think.
One of the key issues we seem to have been missing in the discussion in the last five months is: what are the Government’s objectives? Nobody is asking the Government for a running commentary on what they want, but what about a sense of the sort of relationship that they are looking for? Members on this side, and many in other parts of the House, have indicated the sort of relationships that we believe would be beneficial. It might have been the single market; it might have been the customs union, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Jay; but we have all indicated what the objectives might be. From Her Majesty’s Government so far, we have no sense other than that the Foreign Secretary has a policy on cake. He may not still have it as Foreign Secretary; he had it when he was just a jobbing journalist with the Daily Telegraph, but what might be appropriate for a journalist who is seeking to bring a bit of light relief to his readers is not something that we expect from Her Majesty’s Government.
The least that this House and Parliament can expect is that, when the Government say that they wish to engage us, we are actually told what their objectives are—first, in trade and, secondly, on security and defence policy, which I will touch on only briefly. The noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, in his excellent and welcome maiden speech, talked about defence policy and foreign policy, and suggested that we did not need to worry about a European army. One is tempted to think that that might still be a little of the language of the Foreign Office: “Don’t worry, Minister, it will never happen”. The security of the United Kingdom remains closely bound with that of the European Union, whether we are members of it or not. Can the Minister give us some indication of the Government’s thinking about how far the United Kingdom will still remain part of the European arm of NATO? What ideas do they have for our membership of the European arrest warrant and Europol and on issues that relate very much to dealing with terrorism and our security, as my noble friend Lord Maclennan pointed out?
How we deal with leaving the European Union is a matter of profound national interest. So far, we are getting very vague answers from Her Majesty’s Government. I hope that today the Minister can give us somewhat clearer answers. Finally, I agree with colleagues across the Chamber who have pointed out that these are negotiations with 27 other member states. They all have their own national interests. They are not trying to punish us if they appear to be difficult at times, but they need to get the right deal for the European Union as well.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I will start with two thank yous. The first is to my noble friend Lord Liddle, whose knowledge of all things European is unsurpassed in any place but this—and even here is of the highest. My other thank you is to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for making his maiden speech during a Labour debate. I assure him that in no way does it compromise his independence on the Cross Benches. As a former Permanent Secretary, our man in France and at NATO, he is one of that select group who is able to challenge my noble friend as our resident top shot on Europe.
The City of London, the CBI, economists, industrialists, investors, consumer groups and trade unions all fear that the Government, whether by default or by intention, are heading for a hard Brexit, with the UK removed from the single market and even the customs union, and detached from common regulations and minimum standards. Labour’s preference would be for a Brexit that prioritises the economy, jobs and living standards, with no watering down of environmental or consumer protections. This means maintaining our business links, including transport—the CAA supports retaining the benefits of the common safety regime in Europe—market access, competition and consumer protection.
But will our relationships with the EU allow continued membership of the European common aviation area, without which British airlines will no longer be able to sell flights between European cities but only directly to them? Asked last month, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, could say only:
“The Government is considering carefully all the potential implications arising from the UK’s exit from the EU for our aviation industry. This includes the implications for UK-based airlines relating to Air Traffic Management and the Single European Sky”.
That is not good enough. By now we need clearer indications than that. The travel industry is calling for access to liberalised aviation markets in Europe and globally, the continuation of visa-free travel, and continued participation in the European health insurance card. What can the Minister offer on those?
Will the Government respond to the pleadings from the higher education sector that its interests should form part of the negotiation framework, with the aim of continuing our close relationship with the remaining 27, such that we have full access to the EU’s research frameworks and educational programmes? Likewise, our vital pharmaceutical industry needs us to promote life sciences, ensuring the flow of researchers and participation in networks, as well as retaining the medical agency and full participation in its work.
There are other agencies where we need continued participation: Erasmus, the European Investment Bank, the chemicals agency, the air safety agency, and Euratom, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Crawley. Its funding runs out in 2018, possibly jeopardising Oxfordshire’s £300 million joint nuclear fusion reactor. We also understand that Horizon 2020’s successor is being prepared on the basis of the UK being excluded, with immense consequences for our research funding. What are the Government doing on all those?
As my noble friend Lord Liddle stressed, the service sector is crucial to our economy, with employment growth driven by services, particularly professional, business and computing. Financial services are vital for their earnings, which are perhaps 3% of GDP, but also for other businesses—for the financial flows, insurance and reinsurance needs of umpteen sectors. However, no one in Brussels seems to think that the City of London will get a good deal. Indeed, the Government’s unpopular approach is risking the continuation of passporting, which as we know allows UK-regulated bodies to do business across the EU without being regulated again in other member states. Passporting requires single market membership and that, as we all saw from the handwritten note that followed the meeting in 9 Downing Street, is “unlikely”—presumably because No. 10 is prioritising migration over everything else, including jobs and prosperity.
England and Wales form a global hub for legal services as businesses choose to use our laws in their contracts, with London the seat for arbitration. Various EU directives enable our lawyers to represent UK clients in other member states. Because our judgments are enforced abroad through so-called Brussels I, and because under Rome I contracting parties can choose English law, we have become the preferred seat for arbitration. Will the Government prioritise continued access for our lawyers to practise and plead across the 27? We hear that many are heading off to Dublin to requalify, as they fear the loss of access. Will the Government also prioritise remaining in Brussels I and Rome I? Will they work with insolvency practitioners such that, after Brexit, they can continue to chase down assets squirrelled abroad but due to UK creditors?
Then there is competition policy, which is vital to protect consumers’ interests. EU membership underpins the Competition Act 1998, allowing for a seamless regime across the EU. But what will happen in 2019? Any divergence could lead to major uncertainty for businesses and international undertakings. How is the CMA preparing for relations with the other 27 competition authorities and with the Commission, post-Brexit? Will judgments in the 27 be adopted here in the 28th and vice versa? Who will safeguard consumers’ interests against monopolistic or unfair practices? More widely, can we replicate EU mutual recognition agreements with third countries, such as China and America, whereby goods can be certified as being in conformity with the destination’s rules by authorities within the exporting country, thus saving time, expertise and border checks?
As a member of the EU, we are party to more than 50 free trade agreements granting reciprocal access and waiving most duties. How do the Government plan to replicate these? Such questions, like others posed today, indicate the complexity of unwinding 40 years’ worth of trade, co-operation and interdependence. We have to involve every sector, consumers as well as industry, in these talks, for what the Dutch finance minister has described as “a tough ride” for the UK. Jobs, the economy and living standards should be the priority for negotiations. The Government need to hold that package as their lodestar and seek to build a national consensus around a Brexit plan that will work across the whole UK and for every part of it.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has today given the House the opportunity to set out its advice on a wide range of issues which should be addressed not only during the negotiations to leave the EU but also beyond them. I very much value the way in which he phrased his Motion for that purpose.
As the Prime Minister has made clear, following the vote on 23 June we will be leaving the European Union, but we will not be turning our backs on Europe. I agree with noble Lords that our relationship with our European friends and neighbours remains vital to the United Kingdom. It matters to our prosperity because it is where, as noble Lords have said, we do much of our trade, and because 1.2 million British nationals live and work there. It also matters to our security because cybercriminals, people traffickers, drugs smugglers and terrorists simply do not respect international borders, and because threats to the territorial integrity of European neighbours such as Ukraine also present threats to this country.
In addition to prosperity and security, once we leave the EU we will also continue to share wider interests with our European neighbours on issues such as tackling illegal migration and climate change, all mentioned by noble Lords today. Continued close co-operation and consensus on issues such as these will be in all our interests. As the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said when he visited Brussels just last week, we want to ensure that we have a,
“positive, strong, and productive relationship with our closest neighbours”,
and one that,
“works in our mutual interests”.
Looking forward, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, on his maiden speech, in which he referred to the importance of bilateral relationships. I advise the noble Lord that we agree with him and that we intend to build up our strength, in diplomatic terms, in Europe. Seven UK ambassadorial posts in Europe have already been upgraded and up to 34 additional diplomats focused on political work and lobbying are to be posted across the FCO’s Europe network. The precise nature of our future relationship with the European Union clearly and simply depends on the outcome of our negotiations, which will not be simple, as noble Lords have said. Those negotiations will be with all 27 members of the European Union and until they are complete we simply will not be able to give the full picture.
Before I go on to our approach to those negotiations, I shall address the issue raised by noble Lords of the Article 50 judgment and the role of Parliament and the devolved Administrations before and during the negotiations. The window for negotiations on our exit arrangements will open once the Prime Minister triggers Article 50 of the EU treaty, which the Government intend to do, as announced, before the end of March next year. We believe that it is proper and lawful to use prerogative powers to trigger Article 50. As such, we disagree with the judgment of the High Court in England and Wales, and are appealing the decision. The Supreme Court hearing on the matter will begin on 5 December and is expected to last four days. A judgment will be reached in due course. I am being particularly careful because I cannot say more on this while the appeal on this decision is pending in the Supreme Court. I should make it clear that in the initial hearing in the court of first instance, the High Court, words used by me in this House were used in support of the Government’s case.
Turning to the role of Parliament, the Government recognise that Parliament has an important role to play in helping to shape the UK’s future relationship with the EU. It is important to stress that triggering Article 50 is the beginning of the process, not the end. As the Prime Minister has made clear, there will be many opportunities for Parliament to continue to engage with the Government once Article 50 has been invoked; for example, through debates—in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, the usual channels will no doubt consider that matter—through ministerial Statements, and through scrutiny by the new Select Committee on Exiting the European Union.
The Government will bring forward legislation in the next Session that, when enacted, will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 on the day that we leave the EU. The great repeal Bill will end the authority of EU law and return power to the UK. My noble friend Lady McIntosh made a very interesting and informed speech in which she referred to specific issues about the great repeal that will have to take place and about secondary legislation. I can tell my noble friend that those issues are indeed being considered by officials at DExEU at this stage. The Government will set out more details on the timing of this domestic legislation to Parliament in due course. When negotiations with our European neighbours have concluded, all relevant legal and constitutional obligations that apply will be observed.
Turning to the role of the devolved Administrations, we will ensure that we build the best future relationship with the EU. In doing so, we will work to ensure that the interests of all parts of our United Kingdom are protected and advanced. We will work closely with the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales throughout the negotiating process. The Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive will be given every opportunity to have their say as we form our negotiating strategy, and we will take into account all suggestions they put forward. Furthermore, the new Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations, chaired by the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, is up and running already, discussing each Government’s requirements for the future relationship with the EU, and seeking to agree a UK approach to the negotiations.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, among others, referred in particular to Ireland. With regard to Northern Ireland I would say that the open border for people and business has served us well. It is a high priority for the Government that we do not see a return to the borders of the past. There is a very strong commitment for the Irish Government, as well as ourselves, to ensure that that does not happen.
As Minister for the Overseas Territories, it would be remiss of me if I did not refer specifically to them. Last month I was able to reassure the overseas territories at our annual joint ministerial council that we are fully committed to involving territory leaders as we prepare for negotiations to leave the EU, in accordance with their various constitutional relationships with the UK, to ensure that their priorities are taken into account. At that JMC, Ministers from DExEU and the leaders of the overseas territories agreed a structure for future engagement through the creation of a joint ministerial council on European negotiations. That council will meet in the first quarter of 2017.
Much has been said about the negotiations. Clearly, a balance needs to be struck. We want to be as open and transparent as we can with Parliament, to bring parliamentarians with us as we build a national consensus around our negotiating position. The Government want to achieve the best outcome for the British people. As some noble Lords have recognised, to achieve the best outcome in any negotiation it is wise not to reveal your hand too soon—but that has to be balanced with not doing it too late. I do appreciate noble Lords’ views. Noble Lords will be aware that we have committed that Parliament will have access to at least as much information as Members of the European Parliament during the process, and that we are considering the mechanisms for transmitting that in such a way as to ensure that there can indeed be timely debate and scrutiny on the negotiations, while ensuring that complete confidentiality can be maintained. Where we can offer clarity, we certainly will.
The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, asked about the quality of negotiators. Both DExEU and the DIT are equipping themselves with the resources they need to get the best deal for the UK. A trade faculty is being established within the FCO’s Diplomatic Academy—I have seen it at work already—to ensure that FCO and other Whitehall staff have the trade skills they need. As announced in the Autumn Statement, the DIT will receive an additional £79.4 million over this parliamentary cycle. The funding will come from existing spending aggregates to build our capability and help support a smooth exit from the EU and negotiations for the best possible global trading arrangements for the UK.
Much mention was also made on all sides of the House of the very difficult issues of migration. Our ambition is to create an immigration system that allows us to control numbers and encourage the brightest and best to come to this country, as part of a stable and prosperous future with the EU and our European partners. The UK—I am pleased to say, living in a town with a very diverse society and culture—remains one of the most tolerant and welcoming places in the world. We will continue to welcome those with the skills, drive and expertise to make a positive contribution. After all, if we are to win in the global marketplace, we must win the global battle for talent.
Noble Lords returned to the position of UK citizens currently in Europe and that of EU citizens currently in the UK. As noble Lords have recognised, for the moment the UK remains a member of the EU, with all the rights and obligations that that entails. There have been no changes to the status or entitlements of EU nationals in the UK or UK nationals in the EU. There was an exchange on these matters yesterday in another place at Prime Minister’s Question Time, which I think is the most up-to-date indication of the firmness of the Prime Minister in making it clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living here and that the only circumstances in which that would not be possible is if UK citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return. She made it clear that she hopes that,
“this is an issue we can look at at an early stage in the negotiations, and of course there will be two years of negotiations. I think it is right that we want to give reassurance to British citizens living in the EU and to EU citizens living here in the UK”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/11/16; col. 1518.]
That will underpin our objectives. I cannot go further than that.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I know that my noble friend is pushed for time, but on that issue, would it not make more sense, rather than trying to finesse the residence of EU citizens here and vice versa, to move unilaterally and so create momentum for a happier result with less of a delay?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I am afraid that it would not. What my right honourable friend the Prime Minister was trying to make clear in answer to my right honourable friend Mr Peter Lilley in another place yesterday was that the position taken by Mr Tusk and others in response to a letter from 80 Members of both Houses on this issue made extremely clear the intransigence that we face. Therefore, it is not a matter that is going to be resolved easily, certainly not by making a unilateral statement. Although I absolutely understand the real principles that underpin the statements made by those who would like to see that unilateral movement made, it would not serve either British or EU citizens well.
There was much focus on trade. I am trying to finish just before my allocated time runs out; otherwise, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, will have no opportunity to say his final words. The Prime Minister has made it clear that she will seek a deal that will give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the European market—and allow European businesses to do the same here. Leaving the EU, we will also have the opportunity to shape our own ambitious international trade and investment opportunities and drive even greater openness with international partners in Europe and beyond. As the Chancellor made clear in his Autumn Statement, the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but there are certainly challenges. We are going to tackle them head on to ensure that the economy is match-fit to overcome the uncertainties ahead.
One of the uncertainties was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, at the beginning of the debate, when he referred to the domestic upskilling of workers. We are investing in the skills of the workforce by increasing the quality and quantity of apprenticeships, particularly in England, to reach a commitment of 3 million new apprenticeships starting by 2020. An apprenticeships levy will be introduced from April 2017 to encourage employers to invest in the skills they need. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, was absolutely right to raise that matter, on which we will keep a very firm eye.
As I mentioned earlier, we do not intend to turn our back on our friends in Europe; nor will we turn our back on the world. Our commitment to our extensive security co-operation with European and other international partners remains steadfast. We will continue to play a leading role in promoting international peace, security and prosperity. We will continue to promote and defend the international rules-based system as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the second-largest contributor to NATO, and a leading member of the G7, the G20 and the Commonwealth. We are the only major country which will simultaneously meet the NATO target of spending 2% of our GDP on defence and the UN target of spending 0.7% of our GNI on development. We have made it clear that we aim to maintain that.
In conclusion, we want the UK to continue to be tolerant at home, respected abroad, engaged in the world and working with all our international partners to advance our prosperity and security—and theirs. Noble Lords have made that clear. It is about the security and prosperity of all of us. If some fails, it damages us all. The negotiations which will begin after Article 50 is triggered will lay the foundations for our new relationship with the rest of Europe—a relationship that is in all our interests, which works for this country and for the European Union. I have stressed that to colleagues across Europe whom I have been meeting over the past few months, and I will continue to do so. That is what the Government aim to deliver.
Lord Liddle
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply and for her characteristic graciousness in giving me the time to respond to the debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, on his maiden speech. We are looking forward to many more of them as he educates us about our future security and foreign policy relationships with the European Union. As always in these debates, as the opening speaker one puts a lot of effort into one’s speech, thinks that one has a clear position that one is advocating and then hears all kinds of wonderful contributions that mean that one has to think again. There is a lot to ponder in what people have said here.
Perhaps I could say a couple of things briefly. On my side of the House, several of my noble friends have talked about the possibility of a second referendum. Personally, I do not rule that out, but it is far too early in the process to see whether it is a runner; if the Government achieve the success that they promise, it may well not be. I tabled this debate in an honest wish that the Brexit negotiations go well for Britain. I put a lot of emphasis on economic questions because whether or not we have a successful economy—the single market is vitally tied up with that—will be crucial to whether we are an outward-looking nation. My fear is that if we have the quick, hard Brexit which my noble friend Lord Desai appears to favour, we would suffer a major economic shock that would make the problems of populism and being inward-looking even more problematic in our country than they are now. If we want to be confident, we therefore have to get the economics right. That is a key facilitator in us playing the strong security, foreign policy and defence role in the world that I believe Britain should play.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Chandos that the continental partnership report is a very interesting proposition, which I would like to see taken seriously by government, here and on the continent. The problem—this is certainly not a reference to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—is the way in which the Government are presently charging around Europe, making statements about how we are going to have our cake and eat it, treating the whole process with disrespect and demonstrating a lack of sensitivity to the fact that we are the people walking away from our partners of 40 years and causing very big problems for them. Unless the Government show more sensitivity in their approach to these negotiations, we will end up in a very difficult situation and with a hard Brexit—and we will not end up with a happy Britain. On that note, I commend the Motion that I tabled.
Social Care
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Pitkeathley
That this House takes note of the challenges in the current system of social care and of proposals for reviewing it and for longer-term reform of the system.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, here we are again. This is not the first time I have led a debate on social care in your Lordships’ House and I have been wont to call those who join me the usual suspects, because we are the relatively small band who bang on about this subject whenever we get the opportunity. There are new faces as well as old ones here today. It is particularly welcome that the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, has chosen this debate for her maiden speech, to which we all look forward.
I have to tell your Lordships that it makes pretty depressing reading to go back to the other debates on social care in which many of us have participated, because the problems remain the same and so little progress seems to have been made. If I felt that before all the other debates—in nearly 20 years in your Lordships’ House, I have rather lost count of the number of times I have focused on this—how much more I feel it this time, when endless reports and newspaper articles are telling us all how bad it is. Your Lordships will be all too familiar with some of the headlines of recent weeks. One said that,
“social care is at a tipping point”,
another that it was “Slow, patchy, cruel” and that social care funding is “not fit for purpose”. Others said that the bed-blocking crisis hit a new high and that local authorities,
“join NHS chiefs in call for extra … funds”.
It may surprise your Lordships to know that I have managed to find some comfort in these terrible analyses, because perhaps they show that at long last there is agreement across all areas about what the problems are. That will be evident in the briefings which your Lordships have received for this debate. It is not as though we have not agreed before, but perhaps not so strongly and not across all areas. When even the chief executive of the NHS, not to mention the chair of the Health Select Committee, and two former Secretaries of State say that if there is any extra money it should be put into social care, maybe we are at last ready to address the issues.
Am I being too hopeful? Perhaps. Certainly, the announcements we were hoping for in the Autumn Statement provided no comfort by their total lack of appearance or even mention. I bow to no one in my desire to have better broadband in rural Herefordshire but, really, can we get our priorities straight? How the Chancellor could ignore the pleas from all sides is beyond me. His decision has been met with incredulity and dismay and called shameful. Nevertheless, I am determined to spend less time today on the problems of social care, which are well known to your Lordships anyway, and more on what the possible options are.
Let me summarise the problems and leave others to elaborate. There is a shortfall in social care funding of about £2.5 billion between what is available and what is required. Four out of five councils do not have enough provision, especially for care at home, and at least 1 million people are going without the care that they desperately need. Much more stress is falling on family carers, who increasingly find it difficult to cope. The results of these shortfalls are all too apparent: too many people end up in acute and very expensive hospital care in hospitals which are already bursting at the seams, even before winter pressures begin to bite.
The situation is bad for everyone. It is bad for councils, which will face legal challenges if they are unable to meet the obligations placed on them by the very welcome Care Act; it is bad for the NHS, as hospitals fill with people who could and should be treated at home; it is bad for care homes that increasingly find it difficult to balance the books, with the resulting threats to the quality of care which recent TV programmes have illustrated; it is bad for family carers. In short, it is bad for anyone who cannot afford to pay for their own care. Even if you are a self-funder, it is bad for you because you have to contribute to underfunded local authority places if you are in a care home. So much for the so-called society “which works for everyone”.
I could go on with endless examples of the bad but I will not. I turn instead to offer options, in the hope that the culture in which we operate is finally changing enough to encourage bold and courageous action. They say that humans and cultures never change unless we are forced to do so. If that is the case, we are forced to do this now before the whole system is not just at tipping point and in crisis, but in danger of breaking down completely. I should say here that I always worry about the danger of too much criticism sapping the morale of the dedicated staff who work in social care and do their best. They are usually paid at the very lowest levels. We owe it to them as much as to the frail, old and disabled to think boldly.
We must first tackle the different methods of funding health and social care, which have been so difficult to overcome and such a barrier to the co-ordination and integration of health and care services. In 1948 when the system was established, men died on average at the age of 66, one year after retirement, and women at about 68. There was no need for the type and range of care we now need. It did not matter so much that while health was free at the point of delivery social care was always means-tested, because you were not going to need very much social care. Social care has been paying the penalty ever since for those decisions, which at the time they were made were perfectly logical. What we need now is a decision of the level and quality that our forebears made then in relation to the NHS. But this time it must be about reshaping health and social care around today’s needs, not those of the population of post-war Britain.
Various attempts have been made and we all remember them: the royal commission, the Wanless review, the Dilnot review, the King’s Fund commission on the future of health and social care and the Barker commission—but no government response has been sufficient. It is evident that what is really needed is a long-term, cross-party approach which takes an open and honest look at the system and, above all, is open and honest with current and potential care recipients about what they can expect.
I think we are now at a crossroads and can make one of two decisions. We can go on as we are, muddling along, trying to do more with less, managing demand by just not meeting it. That is how we are managing demand: we are just not meeting it. I remind your Lordships that, of the more than 1 million people who it is estimated are not receiving care, most have already been assessed as having high-level needs, because helping those with moderate needs is already a thing of the past in most areas. We can keep promoting independence—that is always a good thing—we can keep trying to get individuals to manage their own care better and, above all, we can keep trying to integrate the budgets for health and social care. There are some excellent examples of integrated care at local level which, no doubt, noble Lords will illustrate, but the overall picture is patchy and still too cautious and too hedged about with suspicion and lack of willingness to give up power over budgets, still less to transfer it to other professionals. A single pooled budget for the health and social care needs of a whole population would enable NHS and social care providers to agree the very best use of the public pound and to focus on services which reduce the need for long-term care.
I am sorry to go down memory lane, but I have been talking about this, as have many other people, for almost 40 years—it is probably over 40 years, in fact. My first book was published in 1978. It was about hospital discharge for older people. Funnily enough, it showed that proper co-ordinated care can happen only if there is a single budget in the control of those who provide the services, free from political control and including the contribution of the private and voluntary sectors too.
If we are going to go on with the current system, if we are going to go on trying to muddle along, then I must make a plea for honesty. No Government—and I include my Government in that—have ever made it clear to the public that responsibility for paying for care and for arranging it rests with individuals and their families and that public funding is available only for those with the least money and the highest needs. Most people are aware that NHS care is generally free at the point of use, but their understanding about social care is far less clear, and people therefore have inappropriate expectations. If I had a pound for every carer who has said to me, “My mum has paid taxes all her life, and I can’t understand why her house has to be sold or all her savings used to pay for her care”, I would be a millionaire. That carer is a perfect example of a person who is just about managing, caring for her mother and probably teenage children too, trying to balance paid work with caring responsibilities and so on.
As we are not transparent, no one ever prepares or plans for care, and they have to scrabble to arrange and pay for it at a time when they are anyway distressed by the very need for it. If they are not prepared to reform the system, the Government must surely be prepared to promote clearer public understanding of how the system works and what people can expect and, more importantly, what they cannot. People plan ahead for pensions, and it is possible they could similarly plan ahead for care, but only if they know they have to.
However, it will not surprise noble Lords to know that this sticking-plaster solution is not my preferred option. I believe we must embark on long-term reform of the system because this problem is not going to go away; it is only going to get worse. All international evidence shows that spending on health and social care rises inexorably as the population grows and ages. The question is not whether these costs will arise, but how they will be met. Will they be met by the public purse or by private individuals? We can talk for ever about achieving more with less and delivering better value, but that will never release resources of the scale required to meet the widening funding gap.
Every independent review of the past 20 years has recommended that in future funding of social care, as well as healthcare, should come from public, not private, finance. The needs of individuals cannot be divided up neatly into health or social care needs, as all those of us who over many years have tried to fathom the difference between a health bath and a social care bath have long acknowledged, and now is the time for us as a society to acknowledge that the funding cannot be neatly divided either.
We must embark on a frank and open debate about how to fund health and social care on a sustainable basis into the future and remind everyone that such a debate cannot be settled in a single Parliament, so we need to secure cross-party consensus on shared principles to guide that reform. We have enough research and excellent material to enable us to do so; we just need the will to do it. We know all the questions about social care, so let us not embark on any more questions about what social care needs. What we need now is answers.
To those who say that this is not the time to do this with public finances in such disarray and with so many other problems, which we have just been hearing about in the previous debate, I remind your Lordships that our forebears tackled reform in the middle of a world war when the country was pretty well bankrupt and not the fifth-richest nation on earth, which we keep being reminded that we are. The Wanless review called for this debate 10 years ago. It has never been more necessary, and it is now even more urgent. I beg to move.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on bringing this subject to the Floor of the House. I expect I am one of the old faces she mentioned who will be termed one of the usual suspects on this subject. I refer to my interests relating to this debate as set out in the register. Like the noble Baroness, I feel there is a touch of déjà vu about this. We know about demographic trends, the demands of an increasingly elderly population and the whole range of things which cover the gamut of the need for social care, and we have talked about them in this House for decades. Yet somehow, every time we have a debate about this, it is almost as though this is something new that has suddenly come from behind and we are rather astonished to find it is such a problem.
It is now a real problem. There are concerns about care services moving out of the sector. The Local Government Association has raised its concern about people closing down businesses and withdrawing their services altogether at the very time that demand is increasing and we know that it is going to go on increasing. I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said about the way in which we look at the funding of this. Funding is at the core of a lot of the challenges we face. Local authorities purchase in bulk. They have the advantage of that negotiation. Self-funders are usually individual people, families who, when mum has a stroke, suddenly find almost overnight that they have to provide nursing or residential care. These are the challenges individual families face almost on a daily basis across the country.
I say to the Minister that I still find it bizarre that we have this subsidy in residential care in the care sector whereby self-funders subsidise those for whom the local authority purchases care. There is never any discussion around this. We do not talk about how fair it is. There is no discussion about the fact that individuals who find they have to self-fund are not paying just their weekly fees, but are also subsidising the person in the next room, or possibly even more than one person. I really think it is time that we exposed how the funding system for care works. It is like having a secret tax that nobody knows about. I find that quite abhorrent.
I agree with the noble Baroness about the need to examine what is expected when people have assets. As a Member of Parliament, I will never forget a couple who were quite elderly themselves—in their sixties—sitting in my surgery virtually in tears at the fact that they were going to have to sell mum’s home because she now needed nursing care unexpectedly, when they had understood that that was likely to come to them. In the context of understanding the responsibility of providing for care, I say to my noble friend that there needs to be joined-up thinking across government. I was quite shocked that when the pension rules were changed so that people with private pension pots could draw down huge amounts of capital from what they had saved over the years, although provisos and bars were set in place to make sure that they had enough to live on, there did not seem to be much discussion about how much of their capital assets they would dispose of, and the whole subject of the amount of capital they would need in order to pay for their long-term care did not really seem to be part of any discussion.
I have one other thing I would just ask my noble friend. Joined-up government is so important, and the weakness has always been between health and social services in terms of agreeing who pays for what. Can my noble friend give the House an update on the sustainability and transformation plans, which should be well under way? It seems to me, if I have understood them correctly, that there is potential here, not just in terms of planning but in terms of finding the resources to implement the plans. We hear a lot about these plans, but I am not sure that everybody really understands what contribution they will make to joining up health and social services, and I hope my noble friend will refer to them when he replies.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests, as entered in the register, as a district councillor and a vice-president of the LGA.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for securing this important debate and agree with much of what she said. This subject is at the top of everyone’s agenda up and down the country. Many were expecting some sort of recognition of the crisis in social care in the Autumn Statement, particularly as the sector was calling for £1 billion to be invested to stabilise the situation, but there was not even a passing reference. It is astounding that the Chancellor does not regard it as important enough to tackle. Having said that, I look forward to all the contributions this afternoon and especially to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish of Little Venice.
Government data show that 32 care home businesses failed in 2010. That figure went up to 74 in 2015, while 34 have failed in the first six months of this year. These range from family-owned businesses to nationwide operators. A total of 380 homes have closed in six years, and the care industry is in turmoil. Care homes are enduring an unprecedented squeeze on their finances. Local authority fees have reduced by 5% in real terms over the last three years, while care costs have risen at a faster rate than inflation, particularly staffing overheads. Last year’s 2% rise in council tax for social care was insufficient. The living wage, although to be welcomed for hard-pressed vital staff, has not helped care home budgets.
Four Seasons, the biggest care home operator in the UK, with more than 400 properties, recorded a pre-tax loss of £264 million last year, which includes write-down on the value of its care homes. There are many other similar examples. In Somerset, the county council has a panel which looks at all new packages of care and is currently proposing to reduce 75% of packages for budgetary reasons. Despite this, Somerset’s overspend will be £9 million. Adult social services are having to compete with children’s services, which are also predicting an overspend but are in line for some of the £5 million contingency fund which has been earmarked for them.
The facts are stark. Local authority grants have suffered cuts of approximately 40% since 2010. Despite this, the vast majority of councils have protected services for vulnerable people. Local authorities have substantially reduced the point on the safe hierarchy at which residents will be eligible for care, as we have already heard. Many now provide support only to those assessed as in critical need. There are some councils on the cusp of major service failure due to the funding crisis. What plans do the Government have for picking up the pieces?
Apart from last year, council tax has been frozen for several years, with government incentives, thus curtailing local authorities’ ability to predict and solve their own problems. Should there be another 2% precept for social care in 2017, this will help only marginally, as the problem is now, not next year. As we all know, there are increasing numbers of older people, and this results in more demands. We are now seeing care homes refusing council contracts as local authorities cannot afford to pay enough. Many older people, funding their own care, are subsidising local authority contracts, as the noble Baroness pointed out.
One consequence is more elderly people being admitted to A&E as preventive care is not available. This then puts more pressure on the NHS. Integration of social care with the NHS could be part of the answer, and I look forward to the work my colleague in the other place, Norman Lamb, is doing towards a commission on this subject. But extra funding will be needed to make this happen. The better care fund is a move towards this, but the funds needed are large, and the better care fund is small. Inadequate funding of care means elderly people are ending up in hospitals, adding to the strain on the NHS, as elderly people admitted after falls and infection then become stuck in those hospitals.
My noble friend Lady Pinnock, who is unable to be with us today, tells me that when she was leader in Kirklees, they built two care units to act as post-hospital or return-home places, some residential and some day care. Both of these units can no longer be resourced by the council because of cuts in funding. Council leaders believe the Chancellor’s claim of investing £3.5 billion by end of year is inaccurate. Better-off areas where people can pay will manage, but deprived areas are doubly hit as they cannot meet their own costs.
I leave your Lordships with the personal story of a lady who did have someone to help her have a bath, who has had her hours cut and been told a strip wash will do. Is this really what we, as a nation, mean by dignity in old age?
Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I am proud to stand here today as a Member of this House and make my maiden speech. I would like to thank noble Lords on all sides of the House for so warmly welcoming me and the staff for being so magnificently kind and helpful.
Being here is an honour far beyond anything I expected, not least because many of my illustrious predecessors as head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit served there far longer than I did—I only count myself lucky that I got out before most of my failings could be exposed. I am especially grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, for their unfailingly generous and always-discreet advice when I was in No. 10. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, for being my supporting Peer, along with my noble friend Lord Bridges of Headley, who is surely this House’s best hope for delivering a Goldilocks Brexit.
I would like to mention one very special aspect of this House, which I came to appreciate when I was a journalist. In some of my darkest moments, when I have been campaigning on an issue and felt that no one was listening, I have sometimes received unexpected encouragement from Members of this House who I have never met—either notes or, sometimes, very useful pieces of information. I cannot tell your Lordships what a difference that has made.
The most astounding example of this landed on my desk one day from the late Lord Rees-Mogg. I was campaigning to open the family courts to the media, and we were being prevented from publishing some of the cases that I believed were miscarriages of justice. Lord Rees-Mogg wrote a letter urging the Times to publish and offering to go to jail instead of me should we be found in contempt of court. The noble Lord said in the letter that he was so old that he thought he probably would not be jailed for the offence, but that if he was jailed, it would help our cause. Luckily, we never had to call on him, because in fact the Brown Government agreed to change the law, but I have never forgotten the spirit that that letter represented.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today’s important debate, and I know that I need to be brief. Too few people in this country are aware of how fragile the social care system is, of what they can expect if they become old and unable to look after themselves and, as others have said, therefore of what provision they need to make for themselves. I think this is partly because we humans do not like to contemplate our own mortality; we do not think it will ever actually happen to us. But the lack of public understanding of this issue is one reason why social care lags down the political agenda behind the NHS, which is experienced by a much wider group of people.
The social care workforce itself is also misunderstood. When I conducted a review of support workers in health and social care for the Department of Health in 2012 I met far too many care workers who said, “Well, I’m only a carer”. Actually, to go into an elderly stranger’s home and cope with whatever you find there, to feed someone who cannot swallow properly and to lift someone with dignity is a hugely skilled task that requires considerable maturity. Too often we still refer to those tasks as “basic” when actually they are anything but.
I am proud to have been part of a Government who introduced the national living wage, which may help to reduce some of the cripplingly high turnover that we see in the sector. But I also think we have to recognise the cost pressures that this is now putting on providers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, said earlier, the fact that self-funders are subsidising local authority payers in some cases is not only beginning to become apparent to people and making them quite angry, it is also of course an enormous financial problem for deprived areas that do not have self-funders and are increasingly trying to make ends meet.
“Integration” is a great word. We probably all know that some version of integration is vital to address these challenges, and heroic efforts are being made in parts of the country, especially Manchester, to do exactly that and to make the health and social care system work as one. But I am afraid that in too many places integration is still just a word; delayed transfers of care are blamed by the hospital on the local authority, and by the local authority on the hospital. The truth is that until we have greater integration of the money we are not going to break through this problem—and we all know how complicated it is to integrate the money.
One aspect that I will raise is the need to create a much more integrated workforce. Even if we integrate the money, we have to have an integrated workforce in health and social care. As the population we are dealing with becomes frailer, with longer-term health conditions, we are seeing a blurring of the old lines between residential care, nursing care and hospitals. I am pleased that the Government are rolling out the training that I recommended in the care certificate; I hope it will start to break down some of the silos. But I also ask the Government to consider extending that care certificate to volunteers, who already play a vital role in this area and could do so much more to help join up some of the health and social care pieces.
The CQC’s latest State of Care report makes some very good arguments for integration that I do not have time to go into here, but all noble Lords know what they are. It was a great privilege for me to sit on the board of the CQC under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Prior, and I salute it for its work in raising standards. The challenge of regulating the sector is enormous because of the sheer number of providers. However, I am not sure that the CQC, the CCGs, the local authorities and other public agencies fully appreciate the cumulative burden that they collectively place on providers, especially small providers, which are often the most caring, with the multiple demands that they make on them. I have watched weary staff filling in form after form—each one almost the same as the last but, maddeningly, slightly different—when they ought to be looking after mothers and grandmothers. I make a plea today to the Department of Health and those public agencies that they get together and agree a single set of data to require from providers. At a time when services are under such pressure, that is the least we could do to ease some of the pressure on them.
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, that we need a more honest debate. Those who are in this Chamber have a much better understanding than the vast majority of those outside. We owe it to those mothers and grandmothers to have that debate because, if they are not our mothers and grandmothers today, they will be tomorrow.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure and an absolute privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish of Little Venice. On behalf of the whole House, I congratulate her on a brilliant, thought-provoking and only marginally controversial maiden speech. We would have been surprised if it had not been thought-provoking, from someone who had been a director of the No. 10 Policy Unit, and if it had not been challenging or a little controversial, from someone who has written so many articles; I have scanned through upwards of 450 of them.
Some noble Lords may remember the noble Baroness as a campaigning journalist with the Times, and latterly with the Sunday Times, when she campaigned about the practices of the family courts regarding children. At the time, those who opposed her branded her as confused, biased, salacious and even malicious, but she was proved right and legislation was brought in to change the situation. In policy terms, she obviously convinced the Prime Minister and Chancellor that sugar and fat are bad for us, hence the legislation that has come forward relating to the sugar tax. We hope she will deal with some other matters in future, such as alcohol.
I found her writings interesting. If she goes back to journalism, particularly to the Times, it will be interesting to see how her articles on climate change contrast with those of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. In my view, the noble Baroness is the country’s best social analyst and thinker. No doubt we will be privileged to listen to her in future.
Noble Lords might wonder if there are any chinks in her armour. I found one, and I think it is from a reliable source. I do not think she campaigned to ban homework but she certainly thought about doing so when she forgot to take her son’s homework when they went to a literary festival in Cheltenham—I see that she suddenly remembers. The thought about banning homework may have come from François Hollande, who tried to ban it in France.
I hope the noble Baroness will speak often in this House. I encourage her to do so; I suspect she will be challenging, thought-provoking and entertaining to listen to. For today, I have the privilege of welcoming her to the House, and I look forward to hearing more from her.
I turn to my small contribution relating to social care. I currently chair your Lordships’ Committee on the Long-Term Sustainability of the NHS. Witness after witness has told us to concentrate on social care and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, alluded to, have a wider public debate about social care and its implications. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and others have referred to how a lack of social care and the problems associated with it are currently killing the NHS. Hospital beds are blocked by people who should be in social care.
With regard to the workforce, we have heard evidence suggesting that by 2037, the gap in the workforce will be around 1.1 million if we have zero immigration or, if we have full immigration, 370,000. That is a huge gap in the social care workforce. On funding, the evidence we have heard from several witnesses is that the gap will be between £2.8 billion and £3.2 billion per year. That may not seem a large sum in terms of our national debt of trillions of pounds, but none the less it is a considerable gap in the funding, particularly of the local councils that have to deal with this.
So with that in the background, we need a solution that must involve the public. We must have a debate about the role of the state, of individuals, of the family and of the community in the provision of social care, and how individuals are going to take responsibility for their social care in future.
A Guardian article in October suggested that the Government have no intention of implementing Dilnot, but the Minister may correct me on that. If that is the case, a different solution needs to be found. In my view, the solution must be some commitment from the individual. It can only be through insurance. Insurance companies have hitherto not been encouraged to provide that and have never shown any enthusiasm to do so.
National insurance, as operates in Germany or Japan, is another way. In Germany, individuals pay 2.35% of their salary, which next year will increase by another 0.25%, which provides social care—although not all of it is provided; the public understand, and are encouraged to take out top-up insurance to cover for what state insurance does not cover. The Japanese system is interesting, because, over the age of 40, it is related to your income. You pay about 2%, related to your income, but it covers the totality of social care, including building modifications, appliances that are needed, respite care and all that. That is on top of the tax-funded health insurance, which covers most of the rest. Although I have not witnessed it, I am told that it works very effectively. However, part of its effectiveness is because of the responsibility that their family and communities take.
Will the Minister tell us, first, whether there is an intention to implement Dilnot? If not, given the crisis developing in social care, which some say is a bigger crisis than the pensions crisis, is any thinking going on as to how we will deal with and fix this crisis? Perhaps I may suggest that here is an opportunity for some bold thinking for a Prior solution that could be synonymous with the Beveridge solution and that fixes the social care problem for the long-term.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, on securing this topical debate and am very aware of the many years that she has devoted to this field. To say, as everyone has, what challenges there are is a complete understatement. It is in such a state at the moment that it is very difficult to know where to go and how to deal with it.
I attended a meeting which the noble Baroness held recently for carers. It was interesting because I tend to think of carers as people who work in the care industry, and her people were alarmed that someone such as me was there, who was interested in people who are working as employees in the care industry. There has to be closer liaison between these two groups. Voluntary carers are fantastic in all they do, but I remember knocking on doors and speaking to people who said they were completely worn out and did not know how much longer they could continue because they had been looking after their elderly mother and were already pretty elderly themselves. That is when the care worker comes in to give respite care or to help out on some occasions. The two need to work together: the huge number of individuals related to people or caring for them voluntarily and the other side.
One problem that stunned me in the meeting was that when people in ordinary employment went to their employer and said that they now had to take on a caring responsibility for a relation, their employer did not want to know them much longer, because they thought it would interrupt their work. I could understand it because, from running a dental practice, I know that if someone goes on maternity leave and you have only two people, you are in a difficult position while one is away. You wondering whether she will come back; you have to hold the vacancy for a long time; and then she decides not to come back after all that. It is not easy. Nevertheless, there must be a change of attitude of firms so that they can make provision for their staff to be able to help a family member who really needs it.
Care workers usually work in what is run as a business and acts as an agency for a local authority, but whoever is doing the work shares the same aim, and respite care is important. The loss of cottage hospitals means that there is now no interim stage: people have to go from a hospital where they are pushed out, often in the middle of the night, when care workers are often the only people who can be there to receive them at home and see that they are safe.
We must be quite sure that the care industry is working correctly. I spoke to one person who was with her friend and someone was due to arrive to give her lunch at 12 o’clock. There was no sign of them, but the one due at 2.30 or 3 arrived and gave her lunch. Then the other one turned up and said that she had just come to sign to say that she had given lunch. Then they said, “What do you mean: you have given lunch? The next person has given the lunch”. That must be checked on.
When I was chairman of social services on a local council, we checked on those things. Someone dropped in at random to check whether you were actually on the job. It is important to ensure that one carer does not come in to find that the other has left someone in an appalling state and done nothing that they were meant to do. That is very unfair and random checks would deal with it.
People want to live independently and they want to die in their own beds. This was said to me by Essex County Council, which sent us a very good paper. I followed up and spoke to Councillor Madden, who was very interesting. He said that they had developed what is called a “good life” conversation. First, they ask: “What can you still do for yourself and what help do you really need?”. Then they look at what they can do to help them get back to where they were, if there is a prospect of that. Otherwise, they just have to go on with it.
I have no time to say more, but much more could be said. I hope that we will hear many other points brought out by other speakers this afternoon.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her introduction to the debate and the noble Baroness for her maiden speech, which leads me to the point I wish to raise. I want to speak to the Minister about the huge looming health costs to be faced by carers. I remember a child carer, a school friend of mine, who never had lunch because she had to go home to an incontinent mother. She had to go home to wash her, clean the sheets and come back to school. Schoolchildren are suffering. There is a picture that all of us, as we get older, become pleasant, reasonable old people. We do not. Some of us—I count myself among them—become irascible, demanding and difficult.
I wish to draw attention to the problem of carers so that the Minister can take an argument about not building up another problem for the future if we do not look after the health of carers. This debate could have taken place tomorrow in the most reverend Primate the Archbishop’s debate on the role of people in the community. Many carers are informal carers. They are members of the family, neighbours or people who fit it in. These people are being put under intolerable pressure.
I have sat with a carer when the patient was asked if they would like to go to home. They said yes. The patient knew that they could not cope on their own. The carer was in tears when she was asked by the hospital, “Will you be able to look after her?”. She had to say no. Two years later, that carer had a stroke herself, in her early 60s. The pressure of being a carer is horrendous, whether they are children or older people.
The Minister and the Government are looking at what they propose to do about benefits for younger pensioners—in your Lordships’ House, “younger” is a flexible term—and what benefits they get, including increases to their pension. I sadly do not have living parents or parents-in-law, so I make no plea for myself. My worry is that, among the so-called “younger pensioners”, there is a group of people who are holding our society together. They are the people who are carers, who support voluntary groups in our communities and who are members of voluntary associations, churches or informal groups of people. I think that the Government should look at who the real carers are. I agree with the noble Baroness that we often undervalue the work and professionalism needed by those who are employed as carers, but we also undervalue the commitment of those who are working hard.
All of us in this Chamber have a responsibility to speak up for those in greatest need. I know that many Members of your Lordships’ House have faced the problem of being the first pit-stop for caring in their own families and I know that many Members are committed to helping friends and former colleagues here. I hope the Minister will believe me that, if we do not do something, we will have bed-blocking by former carers who have been taken ill because we have put too much pressure on them. These are the people who make us the civilised society that we are and we ought to ensure that they do not become bed-blockers because we are trading on their good will and generosity too much by not tackling this problem.
I will read what the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said about insurance. It is interesting that, as I have got older, every birthday I get a letter from insurance companies asking me if I want to take out a policy to pay for my funeral. I have never yet had a letter from anybody offering to sell me a policy for when I become old, difficult, irascible and immobile. Perhaps the insurance companies are missing something there. I have not known them miss anything before—perhaps, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, it would not be financially viable for them.
Lord Bichard (CB)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for giving us this opportunity to discuss a desperately important issue and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, on a maiden speech that was well-informed, challenging and constructive. I would have expected nothing else; I know that she will be a real asset to the House. She is a very welcome new member of the usual suspects club.
There is no one who can deny that social care is in crisis: significant increases in those needing support, both young and old; too many providers failing; too many commissioners feeling disempowered by a lack of resource; too few people seeing social care as an attractive career option; and clients who are not “just about managing” but struggling to survive. We cannot leave it like this; we need to change. I want to throw a few ideas into this debate about how we might change.
I am not someone who believes that resources are ever the complete answer, but I could not start without saying that the social care sector has suffered disproportionately from recent cuts. Some urgent investment is needed now, as well as a long-term resource plan. That is what we argued in the Barker commission report a year or so ago and the situation has deteriorated further since then. It is possible to do it and, as we said in that report, to look again at the priorities for investment and to change them. That is what we need to do.
But, as I say, this is not just about money. I have been struck increasingly by the number of users who tell me that they do not get what they need in the form that they want and can access, because they were never involved in how the services were designed, shaped and prioritised. That needs to change. Frankly, to provide services in a time of austerity which people do not feel are a priority is an affront to our society. We could perhaps start by involving them in the way that we deliver care support. The current arrangements involving attendance allowance—lower and higher levels—domiciliary and residential care and continuing healthcare are confused, wasteful and distressing for many clients. We have reorganised much else in the benefits system but not this confused and stress-laden mess. We could, and we should, if we wanted to.
People will only receive whole-person care if we, the bureaucrats—in my case, a former bureaucrat—and politicians learn to work better across organisational boundaries. The rhetoric of integration has taken root. Yes, we do need one budget and integration, but the user’s experience is often that nothing much has changed as a result of these words. That is because we have not started looking from the point of view of the client. We have convinced ourselves that bringing two large bureaucracies together will inevitably lead to better services and less waste, but it will not. Two large bureaucracies brought together can be even more inaccessible and wasteful.
No one has mentioned today the possibility of the digital dividend. There are some fantastic examples already out there. They are not rocket science, but the problem is that although there are great examples, they are not uniform—they could be, and should be by now.
Do we not need to do something more to help providers, many of whom have either failed or are on the brink of failure? The CQC has shown that providers who need to improve find it extremely difficult to do so. They do not know where to go or where to get the money. Is this not one of those occasions where the Government could just offer some assistance? We used to have something called Business Link, which helped small and medium-sized enterprises. Are we not now in a crisis where we should have something similar for providers in this sector?
We have a crisis in the workforce. This should be the noblest of professions and yet most people would rather stack shelves in the supermarket than work in this profession. It is possible to change this. I chair the Social Care Institute for Excellence and we are doing some really interesting work with JP Morgan in east London, trying to involve people who have been in the system to come and work in the system. We need government to be giving more support to those sorts of schemes.
As someone said a moment ago, we need to look at how we can better involve the community. We have got into a state of mind of thinking that we have to live in a centralised, state-based, dependent culture. That is not the case; social care requires communities to be involved, but somehow we have lost the knack of realising that potential and helping some of the charitable groups in our communities to be involved.
I do not see at the moment that there is a strategy for social care. There needs to be one—the sustainability and transformation plans are not providing it. I ask the Minister: why can we not have a five-year plan for social care to sit alongside the five-year NHS review?
Baroness Redfern (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Cavendish on her maiden speech, which was very welcome.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for tabling it because I feel passionately about the sustainability of our NHS, which is of vital national importance to all of us. I acknowledge people’s expectations of ever-higher standards in the NHS. I too welcome the Government’s commitment and investment of new money, but at the same time we cannot simply call for more when current health arrangements can in some circumstances be a little institutionalised in terms of assessing funding and staffing requirements.
If we are to have a first-class NHS and a fully integrated social care system for the future, much work needs to be done to explore the opportunities offered by new technology and data sharing to improve the way public services work and address the needs of our increasing population. The technology revolution is very real and should enhance more productive use of our scarce healthcare resources now and in the future. We should also invest in transdisciplinary research capacity and use the evidence gained from that to the full, thereby avoiding duplication.
New ways of working and new technologies are out there and our workforce needs not only to catch up with them but also to speed up their use. I understand that that takes time, and time is a very precious commodity. However, if we focus on innovative high-tech solutions, involving redesigning workflows, we will see rewards in terms of improved patient care. Investing in this area will, importantly, improve patient outcomes and save time and money. It is a case of saying, “We understand and we get it and we should go for it”. Initiatives are available that encourage innovation and take-up of digital technologies, with pump priming of financial incentives to enable bodies to undertake a shift in culture and forge ahead and be bold in developing services.
As regards saving to spend, many estates and buildings in this sector have become outdated and, unfortunately, are inadequately maintained. In some cases there are huge maintenance backlogs. They present opportunities to raise capital for reinvestment in the NHS through selling off prime estates where buildings are no longer fit for purpose. The land can be exceptionally valuable in many cases. It makes sense financially to acquire these capital receipts. Collocating brings improved closer clinical interaction. That again benefits NHS patients and the workforce.
The importance of working collaboratively in back-office services cannot be stressed enough. It again offers scope for more efficiency. Again it is important to make sure that the workforce understand it, are up for it and can relinquish the desire sometimes to be too protective of their own back-office functions. Everyone needs to be on message. We want a first-class NHS service and a fully integrated social care system for our population.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, many of the providers of residential care are on the verge of bankruptcy. They are unable to meet their mounting expenses, while the budgets of local authorities, which are responsible for paying for care in many cases, have been savagely cut.
The failure of the Government to address this problem is in spite of numerous warnings. One such warning was the collapse of the Southern Cross Healthcare Group in 2011. The group was the largest provider of care homes and long-term care beds in the United Kingdom, operating 750 care homes, with over 37,000 beds and with a staff of around 41,000 employees. The company was founded in 1996. It grew rapidly through acquisitions that were financed predominantly by a sale-and-leaseback strategy, which placed its residential properties in the hands of investors in return for large capital sums and at the cost of payments of rent on those properties. Already by 2004, its acquisitions were subject to an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading. In 2011, the company was in crisis on account of its inability to meet its annual rent bill, and it was begging the Government for support. In the event, the Government did not have to intervene, for the reason that the ownership of many of the care homes was transferred to the landlords, some of whom had links to social care provision and many of whom did not. Before its collapse, the value of the shares of Southern Cross fell drastically, and its market value was reduced from £1.1 billion to £12 million.
Another Government of a different political persuasion might have seized the opportunity to acquire the assets of the conglomerate at fire-sale prices, thereby returning the provision of social care to the public domain, where it had resided preponderantly before the era of privatisation. The ownership of care homes is now in the hands of venture capitalists, whose interests are confined to the financial returns of their holdings. The current crisis points to a further round of divestment with an even greater consequence than the failure of Southern Cross. The failed conglomerate was founded on the supposition that a steady and a reliable income would be forthcoming from local authorities. The sure-fire returns would have allowed a high degree of financial leverage on the basis of which there could have been further acquisitions. The fallacy of this supposition has now been demonstrated conclusively with the consequence that very little private capital will be forthcoming in future to sustain the sector. However, there are signs of a pushback from the private owners of care homes, and some are even investing to improve their services significantly. By so doing, they should be able to attract rich patients whose wealth would preclude them from receiving support from local authorities. What is now in prospect is a two-tier care system for the elderly. For the rich, there will be comfortable residences. For the rest, there will be what should best be described as poor homes.
The crisis in social care will be solved only when adequate financial support is forthcoming, and it is important to attempt to envisage how this could be achieved. First, we should observe that the manner in which we end our days is the subject of a lottery, but it is a lottery that has no winners. Some people will take their leave suddenly and without much forewarning. Others will experience a lengthy senescence, which is often a miserable one. If the present inadequacies of the care system continue to worsen, then such people will be amongst the greatest losers.
The appropriate way in which to finance this lottery is by an insurance scheme. In common with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I propose that every income earner should contribute to a fund in the proportion to which they pay income tax. The fund in question should be used for the sole purpose of social care. The tax to sustain it should be set to a level that is appropriate to the nation’s need for social care, and the determination of that level should be the responsibility of an independent commission.
There have been proposals in the past that Governments have chosen to ignore. Those of the Dilnot commission are still hanging over us. The commission proposed a limit to the amount that any individual should contribute to their care over their lifetime. It also suggested increasing the wealth that an individual might own before being asked to contribute to the cost of their care. Both of these suggestions have found favour with those who wish to preserve their wealth to pass it on to their inheritors. I declare that I am not greatly sympathetic to this motivation.
Be that as it may. I suggest that matters of inheritance should be rigorously separated from the question of how to achieve adequate financing of social care. Much of the difficulty that we face in connection with social care is a consequence of the pernicious confusion of two issues that should be dealt with quite separately.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, with the possible exception of the Minister, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for providing us with yet another chance to tell the Government what a dire state publicly funded adult social care is in. It is also good to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, to this gathering of the usual suspects, with her excellent maiden speech and her great expertise.
We have now a Chancellor who, we are told, is impressed by data, so I will give just a few figures, even though these stats have not done much to convince his predecessors. In the 2011 Dilnot commission report—I declare my membership—we told the Government that adult social care was underfunded by at least £1 billion a year. Since 2010, another £5 billion at least has been taken out of the system. According to the experts—I am still rather inclined to listen to them—the deficit next year will be around £2.5 billion. Whatever the precise figures, there has been a funding shortfall for over a decade; it is getting worse; great damage is being done to vulnerable people, service providers and the NHS; and the Government have no credible solution.
Although the problems are not of the Government’s making, they are the people now in charge, and I point out to the Minister that the system could well fall over on their watch. The Autumn Statement is a missed opportunity, and the Prime Minister needs to tell her advisers to come up with something more convincing than telling us that social care faces challenges. Her spads should read the briefing we received for this debate, particularly the evidence from the LGA—now Conservative-controlled—and from the regulator, the CQC, which is hardly a vested interest. The LGA makes it absolutely clear that it will not be its fault if, as is highly likely, there is a serious collapse of publicly funded social care in the next couple of years. The CQC points out that for the first time new nursing home providers are not coming into the market and big players in that market are handing back contracts to local authorities. Make no mistake—the rush for the exit has started from publicly funded adult social care providers of all kinds, and their lack of trust in a credible rescue plan means that they will take a lot of convincing to return. A failure to resolve this long-running social care funding crisis quickly has massive implications for the sustainability of the NHS.
Even if they are tempted to avert their gaze, the Prime Minister’s advisers should, even now, think about what is likely to happen in the shorter term. First: a good old-fashioned NHS winter crisis this winter, continuing almost indefinitely up to the next election, with rising avoidable death rates. With hospital bed occupancy already well over 90%, that is now almost inevitable. Secondly: a regular TV diet of ambulances queuing outside hospitals, unable to deliver patients; 24-hour A&E trolley waits for elderly patients; cancelled operations and a whole host of interviews with doctors, nurses and others about the impossibility of their jobs. Thirdly, the Government can say goodbye to delivery of the five-year forward view, which the NHS England chief executive made clear depended on properly funded social care. They can also expect a flow of social care scandals and the CQC reporting next year a further reduction in the providers of publicly-funded social care.
However, this gloomy forecast need not happen. We do not have to watch the NHS collapse under the weight of work it should not be doing. It is much cheaper and better value to put social care on a more sound and sustainable footing than simply propping up the NHS to cope—and it is better for patients as well. Therefore, here is the Warner five-point plan for doing something now. First, commit to the annual funding for social care being increased at least in line with that for the NHS. Secondly, guarantee the funding for social care for at least five years, starting in April 2017. Thirdly, scrap the bureaucratic and small better care fund and use the money as part of a five-year social care renewal fund of at least £6 billion, with £1.5 billion of this going direct to local government in each of the first two years—but on condition that it is used for speeding up hospital discharges and preventing admissions.
Fourthly, we should commit to implementing the Dilnot proposals already enshrined in the Care Act 2014, and we should do so in 2018-19 with properly funded local government administrative costs. Fifthly, to oversee all this, we should speedily convert the Department of Health into a department of health and social care, with all social care responsibilities transferred to it from the DCLG, and we should make it responsible for an integrated health and care budget. At least that would give us a bit of time for longer-term planning. The Prime Minister could then say that she was helping not only the JAMs but the NAMS—the “not actually managing”.
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for initiating this debate, and I congratulate my noble friend on her maiden speech.
I declare an interest as a social care provider. I started the business 16 and a half years ago and have seen many changes in the sector, none of them for the better. It is right and proper that we value care workers, but we cannot do that if we do not have the funding, the time or the ability to recognise their work, which is so important that it would put much more pressure on the NHS if it was not done.
During the years that I spent on the Front Bench, I was unable to speak. Now that I am able to do so, I say to my noble friend the Minister that the NHS is a precious commodity which we all value but, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said, it needs to be combined with social care. We need to place social care and the health service on an equal footing. It is not just the elderly who have need of social care; many disabled people and young people are dependent on care workers to support them to live independently.
It has been said that we are the fifth largest economy in the world. If we are to muster a service that is reflective of our society, we must recognise that we need to pay the right price for the right care. I agree completely that we need the living wage, and I would pay care workers even more, but we have to recognise that, while we put the NHS on a very high pedestal, we do not do the same with social care. We need to reduce that gap and equalise the two.
In recent years, the social care businesses delivering domiciliary care have seen added administration costs—there are extra things that care staff and office managers have to deliver—yet there has been no indication of how that is going to be paid for by local authorities. Local authorities claim, rightly, that they do not have the funding. If there is to be funding for social care, it needs to be ring-fenced so that it cannot be diverted to other areas where local authorities face pressures.
In recent years we have had to implement electronic monitoring. To the noble Lord who thinks we are not monitored properly, I say that the social care sector is very well regulated and monitored. Of course, there will be the occasional bad apple, as there will be across all sectors, but I can tell the House that, having worked with and listened to my care staff and managers, I understand the frustrations of having to deliver good-quality care to people. Those care workers, who often will be the only contact that people have throughout a whole day, have to rush through delivering a package of care because the time they can spend on each visit has been so greatly reduced. This is an unacceptable way of treating the most vulnerable people in our community.
I urge the Minister to bear in mind that the social care sector looks after a lot of people, and not just the elderly, although the elderly make up a large proportion of those who end up using the NHS because often they do not get sufficient assistance in their homes. I urge the Minister not to look at integration for the sake of integration but to understand that there is a balance to be struck. Good-quality home care and rest home care prevents people ending up in the very expensive National Health Service.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate with many thought-provoking speeches, including, in particular, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, in introducing the debate and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish.
Yesterday morning, there was a story on Radio 4’s “Today” programme that neatly illustrated how problems with social care affect the whole health and care system. The story was about ambulances and the fact that in the past year 500,000 extra hours were spent by ambulance crews waiting outside A&E departments, unable to discharge their patients, while other serious and urgent cases stacked up awaiting their arrival. The head of emergency medicine for the NHS gave an account of new ways of working that may help put a sticking plaster on the problem. However, the story illustrates very clearly the interaction between the various parts of the health and care system.
Of course, the reason ambulance crews have to wait so long is that A&E departments are full, unable to move their patients to beds in the wards because they are full too. One of the reasons that the wards are full is the delays in discharging patients to appropriate care in care homes or their own homes with a suitable package of help—and we know that people go to A&E, where the lights are on, because they cannot get an appointment with their GP. Nearly 570,000 bed days were lost in acute hospitals during the second quarter of 2016-17 as a result of delays in discharging patients, with problems in arranging social care now the main reason given by hospitals for these delays. This comes at a cost to the NHS of £820 million a year. The story illustrates why we need to sort out social care, apart from the need to ensure that elderly and disabled people get the care they need in a timely and dignified way.
The Care and Support Alliance of 90 charities points out that, as well as relying on help with everyday tasks such as washing, dressing and eating, social care plays a vital role in supporting recipients and their carers to move into, or stay in, employment, and in preventing avoidable expenditure, particularly in other parts of the health service. The charity Sense, which works for deafblind people, points out that in the past year alone 11.4% fewer people with sensory impairment were able to access services. This has greatly curtailed their community involvement and life chances.
The whole system is like a pack of dominoes that will fall with a great clatter unless something is done. That is why I, along with others who have spoken today, was shocked and horrified that, despite all the evidence that has come forward about the dreadful state of care funding, the Chancellor said not one word about it in the Autumn Statement and provided not one extra pound. The interoperability of all parts of the system of health and social care indicates strongly the need for a cross-party consensus on how we fund it in this country—I welcome the support on that from the noble Lord, Viscount Hanworth. While I look forward to the report of your Lordships’ ad hoc Select Committee on sustainability in the NHS, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, we need to go much further, as my right honourable friend Norman Lamb has so often proposed. We need to look at all the options: insurance schemes, the German scheme, the Japanese scheme, general taxation and national insurance.
The nearest thing we have to an independent commission is the King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust, which work together and with others to inform the debate. Since the disaster of the Autumn Statement they have said that they now expect a funding gap of at least £2.4 billion in social care next year. That means that the intense pressure on services will continue to grow, increasing the burden on older and vulnerable people, their families and their carers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, has told us.
In its recent report on the sector, the CQC said that social care is at a tipping point. The CQC does not often use such language, but it should know, since it inspects all the services. However, it did report that 72% of settings were good or outstanding, and that is a credit to all those working in the sector who do their very best for the service users despite all the problems. The facts, however, are dismaying. Following multiple cuts to local authority funding over the past six years, 26% fewer older and vulnerable people are receiving services, while demographics mean that demand is rising. Because the potential for most local authorities to do any more within existing resources is limited, my colleagues in local government tell me that they will soon struggle to meet even basic statutory duties.
As we have heard, companies providing places in care homes are handing back contracts to local authorities because they cannot provide adequate care—the sort of care they want to give—with the funding that they get. Some are concentrating on self-funders. Indeed, self-funded service users are subsidising state-funded users in some places, and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, that that is not fair. The national minimum wage—I still refuse to call it a national living wage because one cannot live on it—is putting enormous pressure on already small margins. Aside from the quantity of care available, good-quality care matters for many reasons, not least of which is that good care homes, working with their local GPs and community pharmacies, keep people out of A&E and other hospital departments.
Domiciliary care fares no better. Fifty-nine councils have had home care contracts terminated, affecting nearly 4,000 people. Three large national domiciliary care providers with multiple contracts have withdrawn from the market or are planning to do so. The critical condition of home care services threatens to undermine policies to support people at home, which, as we have heard, is where most people prefer to be, near their families and friends who can often help with care and are happy to do so within their capabilities. An estimated 1 million people now have unmet needs for care and support in England and research on disabled adults suggests that at least two in five are not having their basic needs catered for.
The new 2% precept increase that local authorities are allowed to raise does not help deprived areas where the majority of care users are state-funded and low council tax receipts from low-value properties will not raise anything like the amount of money needed. In those places, the potential for cross-subsidy from self-funders is minimal too. Besides, the precept, if fully applied overall, will raise only two-thirds of the cost of the increase in the national minimum wage in a sector where most employees are on that level of pay. At the same time, the Government have delayed until 2020 the implementation of Part 2 of the Care Act 2014, which introduces a cap on care costs and changes to means testing. These are reforms proposed by the Dilnot commission in 2011 and this breaches a Conservative Party manifesto commitment. So can the Minister say when it will happen, since many people are now doubtful as to whether these reforms will ever see the light of day?
The King’s Fund believes that our starting point for reform should be the Barker commission recommendation of a new settlement for health and social care, based on ending the historical divide between the two and moving to a single budget and single local commissioning of services. I agree with that, but there is also a very large elephant in the room, and that is the looming Brexit. We spoke about this at length in last Thursday’s debate. A damaged economy, resulting in a lower tax take, and uncertainty about the future of the many thousands of care staff who come from other EU countries cast an enormous shadow across an already staggering system. When will the Government do the right thing and offer them certainty?
It cannot be right that the care and support received by older and disabled people increasingly depends on where they live and how much money they have—a postcode lottery—rather than on their real needs. Although additional funding is badly needed in the short term, in the long term reform is what is required. The only game in town on that front at the moment is the sustainability and transformation plans, funded by the Better Care Fund, but there is evidence that, first, the emphasis is on sustainability rather than transformation and, secondly, that local authorities, patients and care providers are the last ones to be consulted on the plans. How can services be integrated when crucial parts of the system are not being properly consulted and funds that should be used to develop and pilot new ways of working are just being used to prop up budgets in deficit?
As the King’s Fund said:
“England remains one of the few major developed countries that has not reformed the way it funds long-term care in response to the needs of an ageing population … A number of commissions and reviews have been set up over the years and made recommendations about how to place social care on a sustainable footing. However, successive governments have failed to grasp the nettle”.
I am a gardener and I know the value of nettles: they support wildlife and you can even make nourishing soup out of the small leaves at the top of the plant. So will the Government grasp the nettle, because they may find it good for them?
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend on her usual robust and forthright introduction to this debate, providing a clear strategic overview of the options we face that is firmly rooted in the day-to-day reality for older and disabled people and their carers, and on telling it like it is. Indeed, the Minister knows well how it is because he has acknowledged several times the scale and seriousness of the funding issues faced by social care, and he surely knows that the Government’s remedy for this, of the 2% local authority precept and money in the Better Care Fund starting next year, are nowhere near enough and do not provide the urgent resources and investment that social care needs now.
Before last week’s Autumn Statement, a chorus of health and social care leaders, councils, private and voluntary sector providers, think tanks, staff unions and patient organisations pleaded for urgent action by the Chancellor. The Guardian summarised the cost of what is needed for a “basic” rescue of social care at £1.3 billion, the same sum as the Chancellor actually allocated for roads. A major Statement about the Government’s financial programme, policies and priorities making not one mention of social care was a devastating blow for staff and providers, for the now 1.2 million people needing but not getting basic care and support to help them to stay living independently in their homes or in the community, and for those desperately struggling to pay ever-escalating care home fees.
Today’s debate has provided a clear overview of the current state of social care and the impact of what have now been nearly seven years of substantial cuts to local council budgets. The Minister has himself estimated that the decline in real-terms spending on social care from 2010 to 2015 is 12.8%. We have ranged across concerns about the provision of community support services, domiciliary and residential care and the interface of social care with hospital and primary care—the subject of my recent debate on the now record 1.15 million delayed hospital transfers, at least a third of which are caused by the unavailability of social care support. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, set out the figures for this, underlining the cost of £120 million a year to the NHS compared with the estimate by the National Audit Office of what community care costs would be—namely, £180 million.
We all join with my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley in taking some comfort and solace from the consensus on the urgent need to address the social care funding crisis. The medical profession, together with Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders in local government, have warned that the safety of millions of elderly people is at risk and that,
“the vulnerable will increasingly struggle … to meet basic needs such as washing, dressing or getting out of bed”.
We on these Benches strongly support the need for the fundamental long-term reform called for by my noble friend and to join up care services, from home to hospital, with properly integrated health and social care budgets.
In this regard, perhaps I may commend as a contribution to these issues a recent report by the Commission on Care entitled, Towards a New Deal for Care and Carers, which crucially looks at how the social care system is working in England from the point of view of care recipients, particularly older people, patients, carers and women, who we know because of their role as the main providers of paid and unpaid care, have been disproportionately affected. It is increasingly self-funders and unpaid carers who are having to fill the gap between diminishing publicly funded care and the growing care need.
The need for an urgent review cannot be more clearly evidenced than in residential care, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. The sector is home to 425,000 residents in around 18,000 homes across the UK. One in six residents is over 85 years old, an age group set to double by 2035. Care home residents have a prevalence of long-term conditions, in particular dementia, stroke and diabetes-related conditions. Many residents can have up to six co-morbidities. Some 75% of the residents in the top three care home providers are publicly funded. Noble Lords have observed, and Age UK has pointed out, that throughout the sector self-funders of care are getting a raw deal and are helping to keep homes viable and in operation. They are stuck in the middle and unfairly being asked to pay the price for a failing care system. How long can this system of providing residential care survive without going under?
The public focus and concern has been on the precarious financial state of the large-scale providers, but we know that 75% of them are in fact local provider organisations in small group homes being run by just the owners themselves. Care England has estimated that local council fees paid to care home providers average out at about £2.30 an hour and warns that small homes will be the first to go to the wall if extra funding, particularly for the implementation of the national living wage, is not provided.
Does the Minister agree that the current system of funding for residential care needs urgent and thorough review and reform? What plans do the Government have in place in the event of the financial collapse of a large-scale provider? Is he confident that the CQC risk mitigation monitoring of care home balance sheets is a sufficient level of scrutiny and safeguard to avoid a repeat of the disastrous Southern Cross home closures?
On domiciliary care there is clear and compelling evidence that the current system of providing this vital care just is not working. The latest figures in this Sunday’s Observer showed alarmingly that in 48 councils at least one company that provides care for the elderly in their own homes has ceased trading over the last six months. Also in that period, 59 councils have had to find new care arrangements after providers have handed back contracts because they cannot make ends meet on the money that councils are able to pay.
Last month, we saw the home care provider Mitie announcing withdrawal from its home care business, with its CEO, the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, a Member of the House of Lords from the Benches opposite, underlining that the prices requested by local authorities for care,
“made it impossible for Mitie to carry on”.
Mitie’s press release quotes the noble Baroness as emphasising that councils and the health service were not to blame for the care crisis because employment costs, including introducing the national living wage, had gone up by a third in the past three years as funding had dropped sharply. She said:
“Care workers should be paid significantly more but someone has got to pay for it. If we are serious about social care in the UK it needs significantly more than the funding that has been suggested”.
On the Dilnot report, I can take the unusual step of answering noble Lords who have questioned the Government’s promises about implementing Dilnot. In last week’s debate on the implications of Brexit, the Minister confirmed that the Government are committed to implementing Dilnot by 2020 and that next year and the year after would see the work on implementation begin and on refreshing the strategy. I look forward to hearing more about this from the Minister.
In last week’s debate, we also had the reminder of the shocking figure of the annual turnover of care staff of 37%, which was one of the most depressing moments, underlining how far we still have to go to attract and retain staff in this vital job, and to make them feel valued as an essential part of the care team. In this regard, I join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, on her excellent maiden speech, in particular on her description of the work of care staff who visit day to day in people’s homes. I can particularly attest to that as a carer of someone with a severe disability who has carers in their homes every day. I thought it was a very apt description.
Finally, I come back to the 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK who are increasingly having to prop up a care system in crisis and provide more and more carer hours than ever before, much of which should be provided by trained care staff. My noble friend Lady Farrington spoke movingly about this. We are told that supporting carers is a key government priority. The national carer strategy is being revised and updated. The Minister has promised to write to me about this, but unless the strategy addresses the everyday support that carers need to help them care for their loved ones—such as assessments and care plans that result in actual service support, funding for local carer support organisations that build local community advice and help for carers and are there when carers need them, and the regular respite care that is so vital when you are a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week carer—then it will just be fine words. My local council, Surrey, which has previously led the way on carer support services, is having to cut carer support services by 33% over the next three years. A recent FoI request from Revitalise showed 42% of English councils had made cuts to respite care for carers.
This has been a key debate and has underlined the consensus we all still desperately need and which we hope will lead to the Government providing the extra funding that is needed now and into the future. The social care system is complex, difficult to understand and access, especially for the people it needs to be supporting, and is failing across community, residential and domiciliary care, despite the commitment and efforts of providers, staff, volunteers and carers. It needs fundamental and urgent reform, and long-term funding that truly meets the cost of providing good-quality care.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, I join everyone else in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for introducing the debate, which is very important. It is not easy to respond to, to be honest. I acknowledge that there are great pressures on care providers. We saw queues in A&E on the news last night. There are delays in people getting discharged from hospital. In its recent report on adult social care, the CQC found that the market was approaching “a tipping point”. In addition, as has been mentioned, the Autumn Statement did not make any specific announcements on health and social care. So there is no question but that adult social care is under huge pressure. However, that does not mean that we should become so utterly depressed that we do not see that some good things are being done as well. Many councils have risen to the challenge of achieving significant savings while setting balanced budgets, keeping council tax low and maintaining satisfaction in services. The CQC notes that,
“despite increasingly challenging circumstances, much good care is being delivered”,
and there was encouraging evidence that improvements were taking place. Nearly two-thirds of users of social care services have said that they are satisfied or very satisfied.
It is not all bad—there are some bright lights out there. We all know that there are some wonderful care homes, domiciliary care agencies and social care workers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, did, I empathised very much with the words of my noble friend Lady Cavendish, who talked about people being “only a carer”. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, that in many ways it is the noblest profession, very much unsung. Over time, the care certificate and the living wage will be able to transform some of those roles and give them greater status, as well as providing them with greater pay. In response to my noble friend Lady Cavendish, I say that we are looking at a single data source for data provided by care homes and others who provide social care. Extending the care certificate to volunteers is an interesting idea.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, raised the issue of Dilnot. It is still our intention to implement Dilnot at the end of this Parliament, as I said in a debate a week ago. It will be interesting to see the results from the noble Lord’s Select Committee. Its views on insurance will be interesting to read.
I want to spend most of my speech talking about the strategic issues that underline the word “integration”, which has dominated our discussions on the subject for many years; I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said that she wrote a book on this in 1978. We had case management in the 1980s, inter-agency working in the 1990s, and integrated care pathways in the 2000s. Successive Governments have tried to bridge the gap. With great blowing of trumpets in 2000, the NHS Plan talked about integrating health and social care. The better care fund, which came out of the coalition Government, was the first national, mandatory integration policy. This year, it has a mandated minimum spend of £3.9 billion. Interestingly, it looks as though it will be up to £6 billion through local authorities voluntarily pooling resources into it. There are some examples around the country—I could give details on Northumberland, North East Lincolnshire and Plymouth—of the better care fund resulting in a change. It is not the bureaucratic change referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, although that is always a risk if you pool resources. If you pool two enormous bureaucracies, you can end up with an even bigger mess than you started with, but there is evidence on the ground that the better care fund is achieving some results. Of course, the Care Act 2014 placed a statutory duty on local authorities to promote integration. So there is no lack of rhetoric on this matter.
These efforts have not been enough, however, and all Governments—the coalition Government, our Government, the previous Labour Government—have to accept that we have brought in other policy changes that have worked in completely the opposite direction. The creation of foundation trusts, brought in by the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, the proliferation of CCGs, brought in by the coalition Government, and, of course, payment by results have all had the effect of making the system less joined up and more fragmented and have diverted resources away from community and primary care—exactly where we want them—into secondary care. Integration is still possible in our fragmented system, but it is incredibly difficult. In practice, it requires exceptional leadership, preferably based on long-standing, trusting relationships, which are rare in many parts of the country.
The Five Year Forward View explicitly recognises this. I shall quote from it because it is worth reminding ourselves of the strategy we are embarked upon:
“The NHS will take decisive steps to break the barriers in how care is provided between family doctors and hospitals, between physical and mental health, between health and social care. The future will see far more care delivered locally … The traditional divide between primary care, community services, and hospitals – largely unaltered since the birth of the NHS – is increasingly a barrier to the personalised and coordinated health services patients need. And just as GPs and hospitals tend to be rigidly demarcated, so too are social care and mental health services even though people increasingly need all three … Increasingly we need to manage systems – networks of care – not just organisations. Out-of-hospital care needs to become a much larger part of what the NHS does”.
I think most of us who have taken part in this debate would say amen to that.
Underpinning all this work on integration is the difficult question of relationships between organisations. As the King’s Fund said last November:
“NHS organisations need to move away from a ‘fortress mentality’”,
with individual organisations protecting their own interests at the expense of the system as a whole. This is the classic “tragedy of the commons” in which individual interest destroys collective and community interest. This separation is not just a legal separation, it is budgetary, it is financial, it is institutional and, most importantly and most difficult, it is cultural. These barriers will not melt away overnight, nor will they be transformed by us passing new legislation: politicians should take note of this.
How do we put this into practice? NHS England’s planning guidance for 2016 states that sustainability and transformation plans,
“will be place-based, multi-year plans built around the needs of local populations. STPs will help drive a genuine and sustainable transformation in health and care outcomes between 2016 and 2021. They will also help build and strengthen local relationships”.
Planning by individual institutions for a year in advance will increasingly be supplemented and replaced by planning by place for local populations for a number of years in advance. For too long, the NHS has emphasised an organisational separation and autonomy that does not make sense to staff, to patients or to the communities they serve. The Government recognise, as NHS England recognises, that the process of developing STPs has been easier in places where there are strong existing relationships. As Sir Bruce Keogh says, different areas are starting in different places and they will finish in different places at different times.
Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS Improvement, has said that the STPs are a process, not an event, and we expect local organisations to continue to work closely together to address local health and care needs, but the STPs are bringing together health and social care on the ground. They are not perfect and they will not solve this problem overnight, but they are starting to have an impact. Different organisations are sitting down together for the first time ever and thrashing out some very difficult long-standing problems.
The next theme I want to explore is devolution because that probably has the best chance of driving towards better and more integration across boundaries and more widely across the public sector. We recognise that this process will not be easy but the direction of travel is right. To paraphrase Nye Bevan, when a bedpan is dropped on a hospital floor in Salford, its noise should resonate in Manchester Town Hall, not Westminster. Devolution should be seen as more than a shift from central to local government. It should enable communities to be directly involved in designing responsive and personalised services. Devolution will make care more accountable to local people.
The first and probably the biggest of these devolution arrangements is Greater Manchester, which has already been referred to in the debate, with the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership now taking responsibility for implementing its five-year strategic plan. The chair, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said only a month ago that,
“the progress we have made has been revolutionary for the region”.
That progress has been made possible by the unprecedented partnership shown by working with all 37 organisations involved. It works because Manchester has long-established and well-respected leadership.
NHS England has agreed that Greater Manchester’s partners should make their own decisions on how to spend their £450 million transformation fund, which covers more than 2 million people. The new governance structure has both strategic oversight for all matters relating to health and social care services and the accountability to make big, bold decisions that can truly deliver the levels of transformation we are seeking to achieve. We are looking for transformation as well as sustainability. The same is beginning to be true for Birmingham and Solihull STP, for example, which is another STP that is led by a director of social services. The foreword to the STP plan states:
“The STP is an iterative process, and this is the start of a longer transformation journey. It’s not a short term plan—this is for long-term, sustainable change over 5 years and beyond”.
So the STPs, for all the shortcomings that some of them have, are a step in the right direction towards bringing together health and social care at local level. Picking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, I believe that over the next few months we will see a much greater involvement of local users and local people in structuring those STP plans.
There are two important preconditions for the success of this programme. First, too often social care is seen as the poor relation or simply as a means by which we can reduce demand on the NHS. This is to hugely undervalue and undermine the contribution that those working in the service make to the well-being of users, and the importance of social care services in their own right. Any approach to integration that fails to recognise this and instead seeks to draw in social care services just as a means to reduce NHS demand cannot be right. So when we consider how best to bring health and care services together, it is important that local areas fully appreciate the role of social care and the spectrum of services it provides. It would be wholly wrong to see social care solely as a means to reduce A&E admissions or delayed transfers of care from hospital.
Secondly, we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that better health can be secured just through integrating health and social care services, when in reality the factors that contribute to a person’s health are much more complex and wide-ranging than those within the scope of health and social care alone. The Marmot review and many other commentators since have been clear that health inequalities arise from a complex interaction of many factors—housing, income, education, deprivation, social isolation and disability—all of which are strongly affected by a person’s economic and social status and well-being. Plans to integrate services around people’s needs should consider the wider determinants of poor population health and factor them in.
The five-year forward view sets out a non-partisan strategy for what needs to be done to ensure NHS sustainability and drive improvements in the health and social care system. The STPs are putting that plan into practice. I accept, as I did at the beginning of my speech, that this is taking place against a very tough financial background. Some will argue that it makes it more difficult; I would argue that change will happen only if organisations are forced to change in order to survive. Change is necessary to meet the needs of today’s population in a way that delivers care that is both better and affordable.
I have not given up hope at all on this. The short term does look bleak and I acknowledge the huge pressures on social care—but, for the first time, we have a strategy that is actually being put into practice. It will not deliver all that we need to do in the space of two or three years, or even within the length of the five-year forward view, but if we can show that it works in some parts of the country, we have a much stronger hand to go back to the Treasury and say, “We need some more money to finance these STPs”. But we have to show that it can work at some pace and to some scale.
Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, we have had an excellent debate and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish, for her thoughtful speech which makes us eager to hear more from her. The topics covered today have been as wide-ranging as the issue itself but there has been agreement about the crisis which exists, if not yet on how to address it.
I did not of course expect the Minister to announce from the Dispatch Box the great public debate that I have called for today. Many others have called today for such a debate and it is of course way above his pay grade—but that does not mean that I resile one iota from the calls for that debate. We must have it; it is inevitable and it would be better to have it sooner than later—before the system really does collapse, as many people have warned us it will.
The Minister has had many suggestions and, with his usual courtesy and honesty, has certainly addressed some of them. I welcome his focus on the strategy and I certainly acknowledge the progress made, as he reminded us, with some STPs. However, a couple of examples that I have had remind us that the STPs should not be about just health and social care but should include carers and the voluntary sector. It is important to bear that point in mind as we go forward with the STPs.
The emphasis has been on the interdependence of the health and social care services, as well as on the needs of users, carers and care staff. I get the impression that the time is right, and I think that the Minister has confirmed this. The people at the top—even, dare I say it, at No. 10—have realised that something must be done. If you have a philosophy which says that the Government must work for all and that you must help people who are “just about managing”, or even the “not managing at all” as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, reminded us, I hardly think that you can avoid addressing this issue. If that is the case and there is agreement that something must be done, I hope that this debate can be required reading. Readers will find calls for more resources but I do not want that to frighten them off, because they will also find in this debate a wealth of practical and deliverable suggestions on how to address these issues. So although I am a bit depressed, I am not totally depressed. Like the Minister, I am not without hope and I certainly hope that by the next time the usual suspects meet here to discuss this, we will have made some more progress. I beg to move.
Online Safety
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in order to achieve compliance with the new European Union net-neutrality Connected Continent requirements in such a way that United Kingdom adult content filtering regimes can be maintained in order to help keep children safe online.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have stayed to this pretty late hour and will be speaking after me. I shall start my comments with some background. The Government held a consultation on parental internet controls between 28 June and 6 September 2012. In December, writing in the Daily Mail, the then Prime Minister announced a policy he described as “default-on” adult content filters. Essentially, customers would be faced with a series of choices about filtering, and any attempt to bypass them would result in the filters being turned on by default.
On 22 July the next year, in his seminal NSPCC speech, the Prime Minister announced:
“By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account, the settings to install family friendly filters will be automatically selected; if you just click next or enter, then the filters are automatically on”.
That was achieved by January 2014 by three of the four ISPs and by Virgin in February. The basis for this arrangement was, crucially, a voluntary agreement. Provision of default-on and—less effective—unavoidable -choice adult content filters was very welcome, not because filtering is a magic bullet that will help make the internet safe but because it will help make the internet safer. In my book, that is a very important objective.
Of course filters are not the only tool. There are others, such as age-verification checks, and I strongly support the Government’s excellent proposals in this regard in the Digital Economy Bill which this House will debate on 13 December, but there can be no question of saying, “Well, now that we have age-verification checks, we can forget about filters”. One of the most important reasons for this is that, unlike the age-verification proposals which pertain only to pornography, adult content filters catch adult content in the round, including violence, gambling and drug use. The ISPs also offer customised filtering.
Mindful of these considerations, I was very concerned by the response that the then Prime Minister gave in another place to a question on adult content filters during Prime Minister’s Question Time on 28 October 2015. The Member for Derby North, Amanda Solloway, asked about a suggestion made by the Daily Mail that the adult content filtering agreement that the Prime Minister had negotiated with the big four ISPs was in jeopardy as a result of the European Union net neutrality regulations. The Prime Minister’s response confirmed that the Daily Mail was indeed correct that the net neutrality regulations interfered with the agreement, but he made it clear that he had secured an opt-out that was based upon the voluntary agreement being placed on a statutory foundation. He stated:
“we secured an opt-out yesterday so that we can keep our family-friendly filters to protect children. I can tell the House that we will legislate to put our agreement with internet companies on this issue into the law of the land so that our children will be protected”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/15; col. 344.]
On 11 December last year, in Committee on my Online Safety Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Shields—the Minister—reiterated what the Prime Minister had said, and went further in setting out the deadline. Many of us thought that the deadline was April 2016, but the Minister made it clear that it was actually December 2016. Specifically, she said that,
“we must legislate to make our filters regime legal according to the new net neutrality regulations. The date for that is by December 2016. To be clear: we need to do something to keep our existing regime viable and functional under the law”.—[Official Report, 11/12/15; col. 1803.]
In her answer, the Minister did not set out exactly when in December 2016 the deadline was, but clearly, it must be at some point between 1 December and 31 December. Today is 1 December 2016, so if we have not reached the deadline, it is clearly almost upon us.
Many expected that the promised legislation would be in the Digital Economy Bill, but it is not. This issue was raised in another place by Mrs Caroline Ansell, the Member for Eastbourne, during the Commons Second Reading debate on the Digital Economy Bill. It was then brought up again in Committee through a specific amendment tabled by Mrs Claire Perry, the Member for Devizes. In his response, the Minister did not seem aware of the previous government statements on the need for legislation. Over the course of last weekend, however, I was informed that the Minister would be announcing in another place that the legislation would be coming in the form of an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill in your Lordships’ House. This announcement was indeed made on Monday this week.
Having tabled this Question for Short Debate on 19 May, I am delighted that we at last have some clarity on this issue, but questions remain. First, the Government said on Monday that,
“our interpretation of the EU regulations is that filters are allowed”.
That constitutes a dramatic reversal of the assessments made by the then Prime Minister on 28 October 2015 and by the Minister in your Lordships’ House on 11 December 2015—the last public statements on the matter recorded in Hansard—and yet no explanation for the change has been provided. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out in some detail the reasons why the interpretation of the impact of net neutrality has been reversed so significantly from the statements made just a year ago.
Secondly, given that today is 1 December 2016 and the Digital Economy Bill has not even had its Second Reading in this place, it seems unlikely that it will become law before March 2017, and yet the clear deadline set out by the Minister a year ago was December 2016. Is the point that the date no longer matters, given the Government’s new view that EU regulations allow the filters to continue?
Finally, in the statement on Monday, the Minister in the other place also said:
“I know that there is still uncertainty about this matter, as well as concerns that filters could be challenged … to put this issue beyond doubt, we will table an amendment … to the effect that providers may offer such filters”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/11/16; col. 1278.]
Could the Minister set out her assessment of a challenge to our current arrangements with the delay in implementing the statutory framework to March 2017? I very much look forward to the contribution of noble Lords to this debate and, of course, especially to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to speak in today’s debate, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on securing it. The question before us is testimony to the noble Baroness’s astuteness in recalling that last year the Minister said there was a December 2016 deadline for introducing the legislation to make our filtering arrangements compliant with the EU net neutrality regulations. The first day of December is an appropriate date for the Minister to update the House, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has already pointed out. If the Government are now saying that they do not think the legislation is essential but they will introduce it just to put the matter beyond doubt, we need an explanation of that new position as it constitutes a significant change from what we were previously advised. I quote the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, who said,
“we must legislate to make our filters regime legal according to the new net neutrality regulations”.—[Official Report, 11/12/15; col. 1803.]
But only a few days ago, the Minister in the other place, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, mentioned, said:
“I am clear that our interpretation of the EU regulations is that filters are allowed when they can be turned off, as they are therefore a matter of user choice”.—[Official Report, Commons, Digital Economy Bill Committee, 28/11/16; col. 1278.]
I hope that if the Government choose to amend their Digital Economy Bill to address this important matter, it will say something about the standards employed in determining what is filtered. We have standards of classification for video works and a classification framework for mobile phones, but none for the filters used by ISPs.
This matter is of course part of a much wider current debate about how best to protect our children. It cannot be right that we live in a society where nearly one in 10 children aged between 12 and 13 worries that they have become addicted to online porn, with 18% having seen shocking or upsetting images, according to a Childline poll. We know the UK is facing a worrying increase in mental health conditions among the young, and the failure to regulate their access and exposure to extreme pornography can only increase this crisis. I welcome the Health Secretary’s call this week to social media giants to block children from sharing explicit images in order to help to curb the pernicious sexting crisis that is damaging too many in this growing online culture of intimidation and sexual imagery.
Of course I fully appreciate that some of these challenges will be addressed by the provisions of the Digital Economy Bill that focus particularly on pornography but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has pointed out, there can be no question of age verification checks on pornographic websites replacing adult content filters, which have the much wider remit of filtering adult content more fully, including, in addition to pornography, violence, drug use and gambling.
I welcome the decision that the British Board of Film Classification has been appointed as the age verification regulator under the Digital Economy Bill, which will shortly receive its Second Reading in this House, and will be judging what is considered pornography using its classification framework. It will be able to issue notices to ISPs to prevent access to material but is not intended to take on the role of issuing financial penalties and enforcement notices to non-compliant websites. The BBFC also runs a classification framework for mobile phones that determines what is considered suitable for adults only and ensures restricted access for children and young people. That framework goes beyond pornography and covers drugs and violence. I raise this because as yet there is no similar framework for internet content filters, and there needs to be further examination of this issue.
I have fully supported the online safety Bills tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. Clause 1 of the current Bill would put ISP and mobile phone filtering on a statutory footing. Clause 2 would require Ofcom to set standards for the filtering of adult-only content and for content filtering by age or subject category. To have a universal set of standards that would apply across devices and all media could be the way forward, and I ask the Government to consider this when bringing amendments to this House. Ofcom has recently reported that tablets and mobile phones are now the most popular devices for going online. Family-friendly should mean the same, however a young person accesses the internet.
Each of the ISPs offers slightly different options on filtering. This can lead to confusion. Information about the differences should be transparent to parents and there should be consistency about what is covered in the different subject categories. If a parent changes ISP, there should be no surprises about what is filtered and what is not. There should be guidelines determined not just by industry but by a publicly appointed and accountable body. The excellent Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, suggests that Ofcom could do this, but as the BBFC will have a role in relation to internet sites, it could also be an option for producing guidance, in the same way that it does for its classification scheme.
I hope that the Minister can give clarity to the UK’s position with regard to EU net-neutrality, and that any amendment will ensure that there is a transparent, consistent approach between all ISPs in the level of filtering provided. I know that there are concerns among industry providers that any amendments on parental filters could adversely affect their ability to provide out-of-home parental filters with content filters applied without consent, but this could be further clarified during Committee on the Bill. If the legislation were to follow the model of the noble Baroness’s Bill and make the provision of default-on adult content filters mandatory, that might help to solve the problem.
I trust that the Government’s intention to bring about better controls on online pornography through the Digital Economy Bill will succeed.
Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on securing this important and very timely debate.
Like others, I am very interested to hear the Minister’s full explanation for the quite dramatic change in the Government’s understanding of what is required to comply with the net-neutrality regulations which have taken place between 11 December last year and Monday this week. The Statement on Monday in another place causes me some concerns. If the Minister is saying that the law that the Government propose will clarify that it is legal to provide adult content filtering when it can be turned off as a matter of user choice, the legislation that he proposes does not protect our adult content filtering regime. Rather, to my mind, it places it in jeopardy.
I very much hope that the Minister can explain to the House that the words employed by the Minister in another place on Monday should not be taken literally and that she can confirm to us today that the proposed amendment will preserve our adult content filtering regime, including in relation to public wi-fi and internet access from mobile phones owned by under-18s.
The other matter I wanted to address is the rather strange disparity between the willingness of the Government to legislate fully for age-verification checks on pornographic websites through the Digital Economy Bill and their reluctance to legislate fully for adult content filters. Having conceded the point that child protection online is sufficiently important to justify legislation on age verification, even for sites based in other jurisdictions, it seems odd to resist placing adult content filters on an equally robust footing for ISPs based within our jurisdiction.
Mindful of this, I very much hope that, in bringing forward legislation, the Government will make it clear not just that adult content filters are legal but that all ISPs serving homes must provide default-on adult content filters. I am very troubled by the fact that the big four ISPs that sign up to the adult content filtering arrangement amount to only 88% of the market. That leaves a full 12% of the market, therein many children, beyond the reach of the filtering agreement.
In some ways it is easier to live with that kind of arrangement if one is operating on an entirely voluntary basis, but it becomes more difficult once attempts are made to regulate this in law because doing so inevitably has the effect of formalising, and thereby indirectly condoning, discrimination through the creation of two classes of children: on the one hand, those who are lucky enough to have parents who use one of the big four ISPs and are consequently more likely to benefit from adult content filters and, on the other hand, those whose parents do not use the big four and who are invariably left at greater risk of exposure to inappropriate adult content.
Mindful of this I strongly encourage the Government to apply themselves with the same kind of urgency and commitment to protecting children from adult content in the round—violence, drug use, gambling and pornography—through filtering, as they are in relation to pornography through age verification checks. In making this point I am aware of a potential overlap with what I said earlier. I think that I am right in saying that the purpose of the net neutrality regulations is to outlaw informal arrangements, by which I mean ones not expressly sanctioned by law. The idea, as I understand it, is to limit the extent to which states can lean on ISPs and others to block or restrict access to material, which the powers that be simply do not like for political, religious, or even unstated reasons. Mindful of this, the net neutrality ethic contends that any use of filters to manage internet traffic must be not only congruent with wider human rights legislation but mandatory under national law, not discretionary or permissive.
If I am correct this means that moving to a mandatory regime would not only address the concern about covering all ISPs but also take care of any problem relating to maintaining public wi-fi filters and filters on the phones of those under 18. The requirements in this regard would be protected because they would be mandatory. On that basis, we would have a win-win situation. First, we would maintain public wi-fi filters and filters on the phones of those below 18 years of age. Secondly, we would ensure that all households with children benefit from access to default-on filtering.
In conclusion, I hope that the Minister can confirm, first, that the forthcoming legislation really will protect our adult content filtering regimes, including in relation to public wi-fi and children’s phones and, secondly, that it will apply—as does the Online Safety Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe—to all ISPs that service homes with children. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, because we have a generation of children who are being stripped of their childhood by viewing graphic sexual images on both mobile phones and tablets.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, the House should be deeply grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her persistence in bringing before us the difficult issue of online safety, particularly as it affects our children. I must say, the thickness of the plot as she set it out in her opening speech would be a credit to Agatha Christie herself in this particular aspect of it. We will be returning to the broader aspects when the Digital Economy Bill comes before us shortly. I believe that there is also a forthcoming report by the Communications Select Committee on children and the internet.
Today’s question concerns how, in the UK, we can comply with the EU net neutrality requirements while maintaining our commitment to keeping adult content-filtering arrangements in the internet provision in this country. I am pleased that the Government will indeed be bringing forward an amendment to ensure that any legal uncertainty is set aside.
I associate myself completely with the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, and the noble Lord, Lord Hay, in their speeches. I am also pleased that in the other place the Government accepted amendments promoted by Claire Perry MP and Fiona Bruce MP—one of the Cheshire MPs—to strengthen the child protection aspects of the Digital Economy Bill, which we will be considering very shortly.
The sheer growth of the internet is a source of continued amazement. I understand that 99% of UK households with children now have an internet connection, and that most children now spend more time online than watching television. Given the influence and impact of the internet, we must remain vigilant so that we can access its benefits but avoid its temptations and downside.
The term “net neutrality” sounds easy on the tongue but it is quite clear that the internet is not neutral in its effects. It can bring many blessings but also many corresponding dangers. The two inevitably go together. Advances in meaning, technology and potential of all sorts seem to generate a corresponding downside or shadow side. If you think about it, that is the way the universe seems to be constructed. There was no death in the universe until life itself had evolved. You have to get to the complexity of animals to have “nature red in tooth and claw”. You have to get to the sophistication of human beings able to think about truth, beauty and justice to produce Adolf Hitler, or moral evil in all its forms. It seems to me that the more developed a society becomes, the more we have to be alert to the fact that there are corresponding dangers.
We are all easily seduced by the old myth that there can be pure progress without a downside. I go back 30—perhaps 40—years to a journalist I remember on the radio, Patrick Hutber, who used to talk regularly about business matters. His maxim was always: progress means deterioration—that is, whatever progress is announced, we should look for the accompanying downside. That is so true as regards the growth of the internet. I gladly and warmly acknowledge all its potential blessings but there is always a downside—in this case in relation to privacy, as we discussed during the passage of the Investigatory Powers Bill, and in exposing our children to things over which we have no control without the sort of filtering arrangements that are the subject of this Question.
The noble Lord, Lord Hay, said that the present voluntary arrangements cover nearly 90% of the market. However, there is a further 10% or 12% of smaller internet service providers that are not subject to those arrangements. I understand that many of them adhere to those arrangements in one form or another, but then you have the problem of a lack of consistency, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, referred. It would be good if the Minister could bring us up to date with where the smaller ISPs are as regards endorsing the voluntary arrangements which the big four have taken on board.
All this underlines the need for a proper statutory approach that covers all service providers, large and small, because of the important need to provide the underlying child protection aspect of what we are doing. I hope that the promised government amendment can be framed in these terms. I look forward to hearing more on that from the Minister when she responds to the debate.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for initiating the debate and for her dogged persistence—if I might add to the right reverend Prelate’s description—in never taking no for an answer or taking her eye off the ball for a moment. When the history of online child protection comes to be written, there will be a glorious and well-deserved chapter devoted to the noble Baroness’s determination and efforts over many years to get the UK Government and the internet industry to move on this issue. Indeed, I am convinced that the excellent progress made in the Commons, which we all read about on Tuesday morning, is due in no small measure to the noble Baroness’s terrier-like grip on this subject.
That brings me to my second point—namely, that even with terriers snapping at their heels, Governments have not always been known to move on this issue. In fact, quite often they have been very unmoved by our eloquence on this subject. However, on this occasion, I am very pleased to be able to congratulate the Minister and the Government on the amendments that have already been made to the Digital Economy Bill, which we shall consider shortly, which will introduce age verification for pornography sites.
That, once again, puts the UK in a global leadership position in this space. Many other democratic countries will closely follow how this measure helps to keep children safe, and, when we have shown how well it works, I am confident that they will follow suit. Of course, as other noble Lords said, legitimate issues remain around privacy dimensions, and doubtless we will discuss them more fully in due course.
To return to the question the noble Baroness asked in this debate, I am curious to know three things. First, when will the Government ask Ofcom to carry out another audit of the take-up and use of filters provided by the big four ISPs? This time, will the Government ask Ofcom to verify what the ISP tells them and explain the differences? Secondly, are we truly satisfied that children whose parents are not with one of the big four are adequately protected? That echoes what many noble Lords have said. Should we not find a way to compel or require all ISPs to do what the big four are doing? Finally, can the Minister confirm to the House that, following Brexit, the UK Government will continue to comply with net neutrality and the other collective agreements that there have been across Europe in this space?
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for being so resilient in bringing matters of online safety for children to your Lordships’ House. I am also pleased that the noble Baroness mentioned the Government’s statement on Monday, which suggested that content filtering by internet service providers may not encounter any difficulties as the result of the EU net neutrality rules. This is welcome news. However, I am a little nervous that there still seems to be enough uncertainty that the Government feel that they need to legislate to ensure that the filtering is on a solid legal footing. But I shall wait to see what the Minister has to say.
I have consistently supported the previous Online Safety Bills of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, when they were debated here in the House, with the objective of putting ISP filtering on a statutory footing. As the noble Baroness has set out, throughout the history of the current arrangements with the big four ISPs, we seem to have gone back and forth between discussions of “active choice” and “default-on”. I know that “active choice” was favoured because it was felt that parents would be more engaged if they had actively to decide what to do about the filtering levels, which is a fair point. Given how much time children and young people spend online, it is hard to see how parents can avoid being engaged. It is most encouraging to read the latest statistics, which say that parents are engaging in different ways to keep their children safe. Thank goodness for that.
As we are talking today about content filters, I hope your Lordships will allow me to share with you what Ofcom’s 2016 report on children and the media says about parental awareness and the use of ISP content filters. It tells us that slightly more parents of five to 15 year-olds are using ISP content filters in 2016 than in 2015—31% compared to 26%—95% of whom said they were useful. However, there is no room for complacency, as only 58% of parents of five to 15 year-olds say they are aware of the filters. If that many parents who use the filters say they are useful, surely we should be encouraging more than 31% of parents to use them.
Ofcom published research at the end of 2015 which showed that among the big four there are radically different results on uptake of internet filters. While Sky has used the “default-on” model proposed by the former Prime Minister, BT has elected to use “active choice”. The differences are striking. Ofcom stated that in June 2015 BT reported that 8% of its new customers and 5% of its existing customers had taken up parental controls. Sky, by contrast, reported that 61% of its existing customers had chosen parental controls in the age 13 group. Another 1% had set the protections at PG, and a further 8% chose the 18 category.
Interestingly, on 25 October Sky was asked about its “default-on” policy when it gave oral evidence to the Lords Communications Select Committee, of which I am a member, during its inquiry into children and the internet. Sky told the committee that the evidence on active choice was a take-up of around 8% to 10%. It went on to explain that it had changed its approach. Rather than asking its customers,
“‘Do you want it on, yes/no?’, we said, ‘We have put it on. You can turn it off if you want’ and, lo and behold, the take-up rate has gone up to 60%, so we are pretty convinced it is the right thing to do. We are the only fixed-line broadband company to do that, and we introduced a new broadband service, Now TV broadband, and we launched it completely default-on earlier this year. We have considered both options and we are pretty confident we have got the right outcome, if the objective is high parental engagement and high take-up of controls”.
Looking at the figures showing how many young people go online, I would argue that for many good reasons we want high parental engagement and a high take-up of controls. That is why we should review the options in front of us today.
In oral evidence to the Lords Communications Select Committee on 1 November, Ofcom gave a similar story. It said:
“ISPs that have had the most success with takeup—if success is measured by take-up—are those that have adopted a default-on process. I think it is fairly clear, based on behavioural economics, that people are much less likely to opt out than they are to opt in. Of course, it is a small set of data, but I think the default-on in these circumstances has indicated that it drives take-up”.
Ofcom went on to say:
“Default-on does drive take-up. It is as simple as that. … There is a question for the ISPs themselves whether or not other ISPs want to follow suit with Sky, whether or not they think that the benefits outweigh the risks to their customer base. It is also for policymakers and for Parliament to decide”.
There we have it.
As I have said many times in this House, childhood lasts a lifetime. What children see and experience stays with them for ever, as was graphically revealed recently in the football sex abuse scandal. I hope that the Minister, who I know is also committed to this issue, will consider these points and legislate for so-called default-on to keep our children and young people safe online.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her perseverance and success in highlighting concerns about children’s access to online pornography. Through her Private Member’s Bill and her debates, she has done great service for the children of this country. As treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, I am most grateful to her.
I want to underline to your Lordships why my noble friend’s work is so important. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People—a mental health service for adolescents based in north London that grew out of the Anna Freud centre. In her last paper on adolescence entitled Adolescence as a Developmental Disturbance, Anna Freud laid out the many challenges facing adolescents and regretted that so many responsibilities were placed upon them. Yet we have been very slow to recognise and act upon the threat to young people’s development posed by online pornography. I am therefore grateful for the actions that the Government are now taking.
I feel particularly concerned for looked-after children—children in the care of local authorities. Often they have been let down by the people they loved and trusted the most, and it is only natural that they may be fearful of intimacy. Pornography can provide a spurious intimacy and the illusion of closeness, which, for some of them, may be an attractive alternative to the real thing.
I recall visiting a 15 year-old boy in a children’s home about 12 years ago. I am afraid that it was not a good home. The reason I went to visit was that it was good educationally and the young people did well in that regard. I should emphasise that there are many excellent children’s homes that I have visited, but this one did not cater for the mental health needs of this young man, who came from a very dysfunctional background. It did not address his emotional needs and it did not help him learn to trust others and be able to make and keep relationships. That young man was going on to further education to study computing. My concern was that this intelligent young man, who I fear was unable to make close relationships with people, would have a close relationship with his computer and the internet, and perhaps with pornography and gambling. That would be the way that he compensated for the fact that he had not received the help he needed to recover from his earlier trauma.
On the positive side, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester highlighted some of the very many benefits of the internet. One of the concerns of care leavers is that so often they may feel isolated. Having spoken with care leavers, I know that a very important support for them is their peers—being able to join together with other young people who share their experience of being in care is a great support to them. Those who thrive often have those support networks. Recently, a young person told me about the value of a Facebook group where she could join other care leavers to talk about their experiences and feel supported by one another. There are certainly many benefits to the internet revolution.
Another group about which I feel concerned is the one in five girls in this country who are growing up without a father in the home. They may well still be in touch with their father and they may, in many ways, be far better off not having their father in the home. However, as I think your Lordships may understand, children are narcissistic. Young children believe that the world revolves around them, and so when their father departs, they do not understand the reason why and see it only as a rejection of themselves. For girls to experience their father leaving home, and then to perhaps lose contact with him, means that the first and most important relationship they have with a man is one in which they have experienced rejection. I fear that that group may be particularly vulnerable to the early exposure of pornography.
In a seminar on this issue last year, we heard from a teacher who highlighted the benefits of and need for discussions in schools about pornography and violence—to go hand in hand with the very important work of my noble friend Lady Howe. He felt that this was a very important protective factor for our young people in this difficult area. I agree with so many of your Lordships that we need to have high-quality sex and relationship education in our schools. I encourage the Government to move towards a statutory basis for personal, social and health education. There are many reasons for this, but among them is that it will ensure we get high-quality training for such teachers—if it is in statute, the training will be delivered.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, the former chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, has been a doughty champion for this issue, and the Education Select Committee and other Select Committees in the other place have also called for the Government to introduce this measure. Given what the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, said about her concerns about adolescent and child mental health, it is important that the Government move forward as fast as possible. Will the Minister be good enough to take these concerns to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and inform him?
I am concerned that the exposure of young children to pornography may tend to make girls, particularly, feel that they can be seen as objects and encourage boys to see them as such. It may encourage a view of sex as just a sensation and young people to avoid real intimacy and commitment. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Howe for bringing this issue to us and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for tabling this debate today and I echo the comments of everyone in this debate in thanking her for her tireless work in championing the need for improved online safety for children. As various noble Lords have said, when the history is written, her name will be written there in lights, I am sure. I am also grateful that she has raised this important concern about whether our proposed UK age verification regime will fall foul of the EU net neutrality rules. I am hoping that the Minister will be able to add some certainty to what seems at the moment a rather murky area of law.
We would not be here today if there were not a sense of growing crisis about the damage caused by children viewing online pornography. I will not repeat everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and others, but the full impact of online pornography on children’s attitudes to sex and relationships is becoming more and more apparent. We know that young people are accessing it at a younger age, many by accident, or because it is sent to them by social media. The NSPCC found that over half of young people between the ages of 11 and 18 had been exposed to online pornography, and nearly all of that group had seen it by the age of 14. The NSPCC also reported that the boys who had seen it felt that it was realistic and the girls who saw it felt pressured by the images they had seen.
There is now also evidence that children in primary schools are being exposed to this material. We have to accept that this is storing up trouble for the future and completely skewing young people’s healthy sexual development. Indeed, it was recently reported that 5,500 sexual offences in schools had been reported to the police and we can imagine that that is the tip of the iceberg and represents only the more serious offences.
Of course, this is why our party has argued consistently for compulsory, age-appropriate sex education in schools—a policy supported by over 70% of teachers, parents and governors and supported very widely in this Chamber. It is why we continue to be dismayed by the Government’s resistance to what seems to us to be an overwhelmingly sensible proposal. Nevertheless, we welcomed the moves by the Government in the Digital Economy Bill to strengthen the age verification process for accessing adult content online. We have supported the steps taken so far to introduce age verification for online content. We have supported the agreement with the British Board of Film Classification that it will become the regulator for online viewing. We accept that it has the knowledge and expertise to carry out this function effectively. However, we remain concerned that the scope of the Bill is limited and will not embrace all online pornography. We are even more concerned that the lack of clear enforcement powers will limit the Bill’s effectiveness. In essence we believe that having two regulators, the BBFC and Ofcom, risks further delays in requiring non-compliant providers to take down material in breach of the law.
This brings us back to the issue before us today, which is the enforceability of the measures in the Bill. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said quite rightly that it is becoming a rather thick plot. This is because in parallel with the UK’s moves to strengthen child online protection, the EU has been moving in a rather different direction. Through its net neutrality regulations it has developed a set of EU-wide regulations to safeguard open internet access. On the face of it, the UK’s proposals for age-specific filters and controls on the internet are at odds with those EU regulations. This was flagged up by the then Minister, Ed Vaizey, when it first came before the Commons European Scrutiny Committee. At the time he said that further negotiations would need to take place, but that it might be necessary to vote against the EU proposals. However, as noble Lords know, the proposals were also wrapped up in a package to end mobile phone roaming charges, which of course was a very welcome development. As I understand the final outcome of the EU negotiations, the specific exemption of the UK’s child online protection regime was dropped, although the UK was given an extended deadline until this month, December 2016, to comply with the new EU regulations. Subsequent to that decision the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, was quoted as saying that an EU opt-out on the child protection issues had been secured, but that is not my reading of the proceedings at the EU level. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could clarify the status of that decision once and for all.
Since that time, the Digital Economy Bill has been published and debated in the Commons. The Bill included proposals for the regulator to direct internet service providers to block any site that does not have age verification in place. In the Committee debate in the Commons the Minister, Matt Hancock, claimed that Clause 8 reinforced the protection of parental filters where they can be turned off by the end user, which was allowed under the net neutrality rules. However, as we have heard, at the Report stage of the Bill on Monday this week, the Government tabled a significant number of amendments to the age verification process. We are still working through all the implications of those amendments. But the Minister, Matt Hancock, specifically announced that further amendments will be tabled here in the Lords to put the net neutrality issue beyond doubt and to confirm that providers can offer parental control filters.
In the light of the continuing uncertainty, can the Minister clarify what legal advice has been received on whether the new proposals comply with the net neutrality regulations? Can she assure us that any proposals will address the unintended or potentially unintended consequences related to out-of-home use, such as in wi-fi hotspots where it would not be possible for age verification filters to be turned off? Can she also clarify how this obligation on ISPs will apply to websites originating in the rest of the EU which are covered by a different interpretation of the net neutrality rules? Finally, given the new powers that have been passed to the BBFC, can she clarify whether Ofcom or the BBFC will now have the responsibility for checking compliance with the new EU regulations?
I realise that the Minister has been working on this issue for some time, and I also realise that it has been moving apace since the Digital Economy Bill was published. However, I am sure that she realises the sensitivity of this subject and the concern of many campaigners about the need for improved child protection on this important issue. I hope that she will be able to use this opportunity to clarify the legal situation and put parental minds at rest in advance of the more detailed deliberation on the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Home Office (Baroness Shields) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for securing this debate and for her unwavering commitment to the safety of children, especially the vulnerable, online. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken today. We are indeed fellow travellers on the journey to ensure a safe and secure internet for everyone, including children. That is why I am most happy to come to your Lordships’ House and use this opportunity to set out the Government’s position and our broader approach to ensuring children’s safety online in our connected society.
As noble Lords will know by now, I can confirm the developments on Report of the Digital Economy Bill earlier this week, specifically around family-friendly filters with respect to net neutrality, and on our proposals requiring age verification for sites delivering pornographic content. I believe that the noble Baroness will welcome these and I am grateful for the opportunity to explain them.
Before I do so, it is worth reminding ourselves, as many noble Lords have mentioned, of the increasing role and importance to children and young people of their lives online. The most recent Ofcom figures reveal that 87% of children aged five to 15 are now spending more time online than in front of the television. There are no signs of this trend abating. Some 80% of young people have their own personal devices and they are almost always using them unsupervised. A lot of time is spent discovering new information, new people and new points of view. This is a good thing. When this is done in a safe way, the internet is, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, a bicycle for our minds. But riding a bicycle on a country road with a parent nearby is a very different experience from riding it in rush-hour traffic in central London, even if you think you are pretty good at it.
The internet is a vast, open space where children can learn, create and dream, but it also represents a mirror on society, reflecting its ills and dangers. Young people today are the first generation to grow up more technologically literate than their parents and teachers. While they are quite technically astute, as they explore this uncontested space they can be, and are, vulnerable to harms. The noble Baroness eloquently outlined some of those risks and harms. I am here to reassure noble Lords that, for this Government, safety online is a number one imperative.
One of our actions, and the point of the noble Baroness’s concern, is to ensure that parents are provided with internet filters that enable them to decide what material their children can access online. Since the announcement in 2013 that outlined our agreement with the four major ISPs to offer internet filters to parents, good progress has been made. BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media—the big four, which cover 90% of the market, as has been said—have delivered on their commitment to offer an unavoidable choice to their customers. Smaller ISPs have had varying degrees of take-up on this issue. We recommend consistently to those seeking the provision of internet services to choose services that offer filters if they have a concern that their children will be accessing content that is inappropriate online.
Filters are an effective tool for parents, giving them the flexibility to tailor their children’s online experience to protect them across a range of categories, including inappropriate sexual and violent content, self-harm content, access to information about drugs and many things beyond. Latest research from Ofcom on the take-up of filters published in November this year highlights that two-thirds of parents are aware of them and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, approximately a third of parents use them. But we must be aware that filters alone are not a panacea for protecting children from harmful content online. They are but one protection mechanism, supported by a wider programme of education and internet safety awareness raising.
It is not surprising that concerns were raised when it was suggested that such filters could be made illegal under EU open internet access regulations, which cover net neutrality and came into effect on 30 April this year. I apologise for any confusion caused. Since then, we have had detailed legal advice. We have consulted Ofcom and legal advisers. We can now be very clear that the net neutrality regulations do not fall foul of our family-friendly filter scheme. I will explain more in detail.
It may be helpful if I set out some of the background to this EU regulation to explain the legal position we have now come to. The regulation stems from the European Commission’s proposals for legislative measures to achieve a single telecoms market, or a connected continent. It aims to ensure that the rights of consumers to access services of their choice over the internet are protected. It prohibits anti-competitive behaviour by internet service providers in blocking or slowing down rival services.
We have examined the regulation in detail, and the potential for the network-level parental filters currently offered by providers to conflict with it. We have now received clear legal advice that such network filters that can be turned off are compliant with the regulation. Article 3.1 of the regulation states:
“End-users shall have the right to access and distribute information and content ... of their choice”.
Filters that can be turned off are a matter of consumer choice. Therefore, they are allowed under the regulation. We understand the principle of the regulation to be based on the protection of consumers’ rights to access the content and services they wish to. On that basis, and following our legal interpretation of the regulation, we now believe that parental filters are in fact compliant. To be clear, I say that the filter regime is in no way in jeopardy. Indeed, Ofcom, the regulator with responsibility for enforcement of the regulation in the UK, agrees with this interpretation. Tony Close, director of content standards at Ofcom, confirmed this during evidence to the Lords Communications Committee inquiry, Children and the Internet, on 1 November.
Nevertheless, we are very aware that there has been uncertainty on this issue, and indeed there has been some concern that that view could be challenged. As noble Lords know, the previous Prime Minister also said that he would legislate to underpin our family-friendly filter regime. Many noble Lords have noted that my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Digital and Culture announced on 28 November, on Report on the Digital Economy Bill in the other place, that we will legislate on filters. We will bring forward an amendment to the Bill in the Lords, to the effect that providers “may offer” filters. This will remove any doubt on the matter and will ensure our continued support. I hope that this is a welcome confirmation and will reassure both the internet service providers providing the tools and all stakeholders with an interest in child online safety.
As noble Lords know, another key measure to protect children from harmful material online that we are bringing forward in the Digital Economy Bill is age verification for pornographic sites and ancillary services that provide access to pornographic material. Just this past Monday, we also introduced an amendment to the Bill that gives the age verification regulator, the BBFC, the power to direct an ISP to prevent access to pornographic sites that are not in compliance with age verification rules. It is absolutely right that, if a business providing pornographic content to adults refuses to comply with its legal obligations to prevent children from accessing the material, the regulator is afforded powers to ensure that children are not exposed to age-inappropriate material. This is a targeted approach that protects the freedom of adults to watch pornography online but provides adequate protections to ensure that the same safeguards exist online as in published media.
The House might find it useful if I explained the process by which the measures put forward in the Digital Economy Bill would operate. The BBFC, as the age verification regulator, will identify sites accessed in the UK, determining whether they contain pornography and operate on a commercial basis. The BBFC will assess whether AV controls are in place and are sufficient. If a site is determined non-compliant, the BBFC will identify that site and notify its provider. If after notification the site remains non-compliant and uses payment systems, the BBFC will notify the payment provider of non-compliance so that it can withdraw its service from the site. Should the site continue to fail to comply with adequate age verification, the new clause agreed on Monday on Report in the Commons gives the regulator power to require internet service providers to block the non-compliant site.
We have had extensive discussions with industry about this impending legislation and conducted a public consultation. The industry has assured us that it will take responsible action to comply and avoid that final sanction. These provisions are a significant step towards ensuring that children are not exposed to age-inappropriate content online; however, we must be realistic and recognise that no solution, however well defined and implemented, will be 100% effective. These measures are just part of our range of activities to protect children online. Our partnership approach with the internet and technology industries and the charity sector is key to our success.
I want to give two examples of partnership initiatives because they show that when government, industry, law enforcement and NGOs come together, the results are not just incrementally better, they are dramatically improved. The most important area of my work is combating the heinous crime of sexual exploitation of children online. Never before has it been easier for perpetrators to make contact with children, share images of abuse and inspire each other to commit further crimes. As the internet respects no state boundaries, we must combine our national response with a robust global response. This issue cannot be dealt with by any one country, company or organisation working in isolation. It demands a co-ordinated global response by Governments, technology companies and civil society.
The WePROTECT Global Alliance to End the Sexual Exploitation of Children Online is that response. It is a global coalition of more than 70 countries and organisations committed to national and global action to end the online sexual abuse of children. I am proud to be part of this alliance and its founding team, brought together by our Government in 2014 and since then merged with the Global Alliance to End the Sexual Exploitation of Children Online. This has created, for the first time, a single global initiative with the expertise, influence and resources to transform how this crime is dealt with worldwide, resulting in more victims being safeguarded and more perpetrators being apprehended.
Many noble Lords are also familiar with the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which represents more than 200 organisations committed to protecting children from harm online. I am one of its co-chairs, along with ministerial colleagues from the DfE and the Home Office. Through the voluntary efforts of its members, UKCCIS has made a substantial contribution to online safety. The group convenes four times a year and acts as a central point to address all matters relating to keeping children safe online. So I can assure the House that government is joined up at every level to protect young people’s mental health and well-being in this connected society. UKCCIS has supported developers and providers of social media and interactive services, with a guide to encourage the development of products that are safe by design. We are clear that we expect social media and interactive service providers to develop technology solutions that protect users, especially children, from online harm and abuse.
Through its excellent work, UKCCIS has also recently produced advice for schools and colleges to help them respond to incidents of sexting. As the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, said, this is a serious and dangerous activity that requires guidance and support for school governors and teachers everywhere. I am especially excited about the work that UKCCIS has started on digital resilience, which is bringing together individuals from the education sector, parents, industry, expert civil society organisations and children themselves to develop the tools needed to respond to a constantly evolving internet and the threats and harms associated with it. By digital resilience, we mean developing the skills that help young people become digitally independent, so that no matter what they encounter while connected, children and young people can recognise the dangers and deal with those challenges with confidence. This is very ambitious work, but it is through such efforts that UKCCIS is able to respond to new and emerging threats.
Protecting the vulnerable online is a vision shared at the highest levels of this Government, and we are working on many fronts to keep children safe online. I thank the noble Baroness once more for the opportunity to set out the important work that is under way and the measures that this Government are committed to delivering. I hope I have been able to reassure her of our firm commitment. Lastly, irrespective of negotiation outcomes resulting from exiting the European Union, we will ensure that our world-leading child protection measures are preserved.