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Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
I met the Minister for Transport and the Islands in the Scottish Government, Humza Yousaf, in October last year. I welcome working together to improve services for rail passengers within the current devolution settlement.
Peter Grant
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer, but can he explain why the Government are happy to devolve responsibility for maintenance and track operations on the Oxford to Cambridge line, yet they are so reluctant to devolve the same responsibility to the Scottish Government for Scotland?
Paul Maynard
The point we have consistently made is that there was no recommendation by the Smith commission to devolve the whole of Network Rail to Scotland. The Scottish Government can specify, fund and procure for ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper. They can also specify and fund all major projects, and we are devolving the British Transport police. That strikes me as a hefty menu for the Scottish Government to be engaged with.
Chris Law
I thank the Minister for his reply. The Reform Scotland think-tank published a report in November calling for Network Rail to be devolved—perhaps the Secretary of State has read it. The Minister will also be aware that an ever-growing list of people advocate further rail devolution, so will he do the right thing and commit to a date for opening discussions with the Scottish Government on this matter?
Paul Maynard
Devolution does not just occur within Governments and within Whitehall, and between Whitehall and Scotland. A significant amount of operational devolution is occurring within Network Rail as we speak. A Scottish route within Network Rail that will have much more independence and freedom of action is being set up. I urge the Scottish Government and Scottish Members to engage in that devolution process, not least because the Scottish Government are co-operating with the Office of Rail and Road on the periodic review that will determine the output for control period 6 within Scotland.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
A report commissioned by Transport Scotland showed that Network Rail’s original cost estimates for Scottish projects were unreliable. Does the Minister agree that, especially when projects overrun by hundreds of millions of pounds, those who commission the work should have the power to hold Network Rail to account?
Paul Maynard
I reiterate the point that with the new devolution settlement within Network Rail and the growing independence of the Scottish route within Network Rail, there are ample levers available to Members here and indeed the Scottish Government to influence how the Scottish route director delivers those infrastructure projects.
Drew Hendry
Why does the Minister feel that Scotland does not need a rail project capability based in Scotland that is accountable to the people of Scotland?
Paul Maynard
I return to how I started my answer and remind the hon. Gentleman that we had a lengthy discussion about what was contained in the Smith commission. This did not emerge from that commission, so we are not taking it forward.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
We will launch the formal consultation on proposals for the new Southeastern franchise in February. I hope that people across the franchise area will participate in it, enabling my Department and the team working within the franchise to make informed decisions about the specification for the next franchise, particularly regarding how we expand capacity for passengers.
Matthew Pennycook
Not only are my constituents of all political persuasions disgusted by the manner in which the Secretary of State has politicised this issue, but they have absolutely no confidence in his proposed solution for the Southeastern franchise. A previous attempt to merely involve Transport for London in the design of Southern’s 2009 to 2015 franchise failed because that did not involve its proven concession model for suburban rail services, so can the Secretary of State tell us why on earth he thinks that repeating this failed approach will deliver much-needed improvements for Southeastern passengers?
Chris Grayling
There has been no politicisation of this discussion. This decision was taken after the Mayor’s business plan was analysed across government, and after discussions with neighbouring authorities and people who know the route. The truth is that the Mayor’s proposals offered no extra capacity for passengers but a whole lot of uncosted, unfunded promises. They also involved a very substantial top-down reorganisation. The approach we have chosen is the same one that we have taken for Northern and in the midlands, which is to create a partnership to develop a franchise that will work for all passengers in Kent and south-east London to deliver the capacity that we need.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I support the Transport Secretary on that. My constituents in Kent are deeply concerned that, for too long, London has acted as a selfish city seeking to benefit itself at the expense of the people of Kent and the other home counties. It is not right for London to act like a “Hunger Games”-style capital seeking to subjugate the districts. We need fair rail services for Kent, Essex and the other home counties, and I urge the Secretary of State to carry on and to uphold his decision.
Chris Grayling
I assure my hon. Friend that I have every intention of doing so. This is a partnership arrangement that brings together London, Kent County Council and my Department to do the right thing for passengers. It is interesting that the Mayor could offer no proposals to expand capacity on these routes. I intend to bring forward proposals that do offer expanded capacity for passengers on those routes.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s leaked letter reveals that he reneged on the suburban rail agreement because of his obsession with keeping services “out of the clutches” of a potential Labour Mayor—those are his words. He has put party politics ahead of passengers and clearly prefers to see trains running late than running on time under Labour. Will he now agree to an independent assessment of the proposal by a respected figure outwith his Department, given yesterday’s revelations of conflicting commercial interests, to restore credibility to the process and ensure proper consideration of the needs of long-suffering passengers?
Chris Grayling
I cannot believe what I have just heard from the hon. Gentleman. He talks about putting party politics before passengers in the week when the Leader of the Opposition said that he would join a picket line to perpetuate the unnecessary strikes on Southern rail that are causing so much damage to passengers. I will not take the hon. Gentleman seriously until I hear him condemning those strikes and telling the workers to go back to work.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently met the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, Mr Ken Skates. Their positive and useful discussion recognised the importance of cross-border transport and our commitment to deliver improvements, such as the investment we are making in the Halton curve.
Ian C. Lucas
The investment by the Welsh Government of £43 million in the Wrexham to Chester line, mainly in England, will lead to a partial dualling of that line by April this year. What more will it take to persuade the UK Conservative Government to match the Welsh Government’s investment by investing in more transport infrastructure in that region, for which an unanswerable case has been made?
Andrew Jones
The Government are already investing significantly in our rail network—more than at any point since the Victorian era. The Mersey Dee rail taskforce has produced its growth prospectus—Growth Track 360—and it is working with the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). I understand that it is now prioritising its objectives, and we will continue to work closely with it.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
The case for reopening the station at Bristol Road, Stonehouse, has been well argued and firmly established. Does the Minister agree that that is exactly the kind of initiative we need to enhance links between Wales, Gloucestershire and the south-west of England?
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned the Halton curve; he will know that it is an important part of the cross-border links between my constituency and Wales. Will he confirm that the project is on time, and tell us the date on which it will be completed?
Andrew Jones
I will check the latest information and write to the hon. Gentleman, but my understanding is that it is exactly on time.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
As the Minister knows, the Operation Stack relief lorry park is vital for cross-border transport links between Kent and the continent. The owner of Westenhanger castle has been actively seeking a meeting with the Department for the past six weeks to discuss accessing the compensation package that he has agreed with Highways England, in return for which he will withdraw his application for a judicial review against the park. Will the Minister urge one of his ministerial colleagues to meet me and the owner of Westenhanger castle so that we can resolve this matter and get on with building the lorry park?
Andrew Jones
That was a very entrepreneurial question, Mr Speaker. I can certainly confirm to my hon. Friend that the roads Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), will indeed meet him.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Government could do something about the cross-border position between the Rhondda valley and the upper Afan valley because they still own the tunnel that was used by the train from Treherbert down to Swansea. Will the Government please make sure that I can have the meeting with the Secretary of State for which I have been asking for several weeks to come up with innovative ideas so that this can become a major new cycle track?
Andrew Jones
I am afraid that my local knowledge of those tunnels has not kept pace with the hon. Gentleman’s. All I can say is that I have heard his point and will take it forward with my colleagues.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Six lines radiate out from Chester, two of which are cross-border lines, hence the “360” in Growth Track 360. Chester is recognised as a pinch point within that railway development, so may I invite the Minister to have his next meeting on cross-border transport with Ken Skates in Chester so that he can see what preliminary work might be done before he presses ahead with the main work?
Andrew Jones
It is always delightful to visit the city of Chester, and I look forward to doing so.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
The Tees valley is benefiting from the Government’s significant investment in transport infrastructure across the country. Most recently, we have agreed to fund the Tees valley authorities to develop their plans for a new Tees crossing and to improve connectivity from Teesport to the A1.
Tom Blenkinsop
I thank the Minister for his reply. Last week we received the welcome news that Tesco will be basing all its non-food warehousing at its existing centre in Teesport. Given that economic and employment boost for Teesside, will the Minister reciprocate by pledging full backing and funding for the A66 and a second Tees crossing, as called for by the Teesside combined authority?
Andrew Jones
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor committed to dualling the A66 in last year’s autumn statement. On the new Tees crossing, we have provided funding to take the business case to the next stage. We will happily work with the area’s local authorities. I recognise the importance of Teesport to the local economy and the value that a new Tees crossing would provide, so I am very keen to see that take shape.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
I am committed to managing the cost of HS2 and ensuring maximum value for the taxpayer. Total expenditure on HS2 in the period from 2009-10 to 2015-16 was £1.4 billion, of which £450 million was spent on land and property. The rest has ensured that HS2 is on track for delivery, and includes money for developing the scheme design, consulting affected communities, bringing the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill to Parliament and developing HS2 Ltd. Figures for the current financial year will be available in the summer.
Mrs Gillan
The cost of HS2 is not just to the taxpayer but to those it affects. The House of Lords Select Committee on the HS2 Bill has recommended amending it to ensure that HS2 Ltd does not have a blanket power to compulsorily purchase land for regeneration or development, and to provide that it must limit its land acquisitions to what is needed for the scheme, particularly in relation to clause 48. As you know only too well, Mr Speaker, farmers, landowners and communities have been blighted for years by the scheme, and the threat of further compulsory purchase orders is truly worrying. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that he will accept the Committee’s important and very welcome recommendation on clause 48 and alleviate the anxiety of those affected by this project?
Chris Grayling
First, on behalf of the Government, I thank all members of the House of Lords Select Committee for their work over the past few months. Indeed, I thank those who served on the equivalent Committee in this House, for whom this was a long and arduous task. We are carefully considering the Lords recommendations and we will publish our response shortly. If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I will save my detailed response for that publication, but I am looking extremely carefully at the recommendation to which she referred.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I am sure the Secretary of State is aware that, with regard to the option to have a station in the centre of Sheffield, there is currently no money to get trains out of the station and north to Leeds, and there is no money to increase the station’s capacity at the southern end to get better connectivity to trans-Pennine trains. There is even no money to electrify the line between Sheffield station and the main HS2 route. Does this not increasingly look like a cut-price option? Will he agree to meet local MPs and councillors, and other interested parties, to discuss these matters?
Chris Grayling
May I start by wishing the hon. Gentleman a happy birthday? [Hon. Members: “For tomorrow.”] For tomorrow. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), has indeed been involved in such discussions, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the original proposal for a station at Meadowhall was opposed by the city council, which wanted the route to pass through the city centre. It is in response to pressure from within Sheffield that we have revisited those original plans, but I assure him that those discussions will continue.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that although the costs of the project need to be kept under control, the economic benefits it will bring to areas such as Long Eaton in my constituency will far outweigh some of the costs that we are talking about today?
Chris Grayling
This is one of the key aspects of the development of this project, so my hon. Friend makes an important point. What is happening in the area around Long Eaton, and the new development of a station and surrounding facilities at Toton, will make a huge difference to her area. As she knows, we have been discussing how best to make sure that we get the right solution for Long Eaton, but we will continue to work for her constituents to reflect in the final design what works best for them.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Given what will be the eye-wateringly huge final costs of HS2, surely it makes sense to maximise the use of this asset, so will the Secretary of State tell us whether the line will be used 24 hours a day, seven days a week? If not, will the otherwise wasted capacity be used for freight—and if not, why not?
Chris Grayling
Of course the whole point about HS2 is that it releases capacity on the existing west coast main line for freight. As a result, I see the potential for significant increases in freight across the west coast main line area. As for timetabling, that is a matter for those who decide what is the best commercial proposition for that route, but we expect, and are planning for, very intensive use of the route across a wide variety of destinations, including Stoke-on-Trent.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s last answer worries me slightly. Lichfield suffers all the disadvantages of having the line go through it and no station, because it is too small. I was hoping that he would say that the freeing up of capacity would mean that the west coast main line could have more trains stopping at Lichfield Trent Valley, but is that now not going to be the case, because the line will be blocked up with freight?
Chris Grayling
No, I think there will be room for both. The benefit of HS2 is that it provides an opportunity for more commuter trains, more intermediate trains and more services to places that do not currently receive them. By taking the fast trains off the west coast main line—trains that go straight up to places such as Manchester and Liverpool—more opportunity is provided for better services in places such as Lichfield and the Trent valley, which the current mix of services makes it difficult to achieve.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker, you and the Minister will remember that when I said that the cost of HS2 would soar past £60 billion I was mocked, but it is now past £60 billion and rising. The chief executive has quit and the people in my constituency would like this folly to be stopped now, with the money—£60 billion and rising—put into saving the health service and into our local government, which is going bankrupt.
Chris Grayling
I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman but actually the plans for HS2 have been widely welcomed across the north of England. The project will make a significant difference to the economy of his region. The point I would make to him about cost is that one reason why we are spending more money than is spent on equivalent lines in some other countries is because we are spending money on amelioration measures that minimise the impact on the environment.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
As well as updating the costs of the project, may I urge my right hon. Friend to update the economic benefits to communities such as mine in Milton Keynes, which, as he says, will benefit from a significant increase in commuter and inter-city traffic as a result of the release of capacity on the west coast line?
Chris Grayling
We will continue to provide information about the benefits of this project, but my hon. Friend is right to say that in places such as Milton Keynes—it is one of our most important growth areas, and it will need more commuter services north to south and east to west—the introduction of HS2 will make it possible to deliver a much better service for his constituents and others.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The Adam Smith Institute has warned that HS2 could end up costing up to £80 billion, which would equate to nine times more per mile than comparable high-speed tracks in France. How can the Government assure the public that the already sky-high costs of this project are not going to spiral even further out of control?
Chris Grayling
As I said, this is a choice; we want not only to deliver high-quality infrastructure for the future, but to do so in a way that is environmentally sensitive. That means spending money on tunnels, cuttings and things that other countries would perhaps choose not to do. I want to retain a careful stewardship of Britain’s green and pleasant land while delivering what we need for the future, and that is what we are doing.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
Since 2014, the Access for All programme has completed accessible routes at 25 stations, with 12 more currently in construction, and a further 52 at various stages of design and development.
Nigel Mills
The Minister will understand the real anger in Alfreton at the further delays in the Access for All programme at the station there, where many passengers still cannot use the southbound platform. Can he at least reassure them that the station will be prioritised in the next block of funding, so that the improvements are done in 2019?
Paul Maynard
We had to delay 26 Access for All projects into control period 6, one of which was, unfortunately, Alfreton, because the project there was less developed than others we were considering. Nevertheless, I can reassure my hon. Friend that I am making it clear to Network Rail that I expect the improvements to be delivered early in control period 6, after 2019.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister recognise the importance of the maximum number of people being able to use our rail services? Why are schemes such as Access for All seen as expendable?
Paul Maynard
I certainly do not agree that they are regarded as expendable. We have reached a point at which roughly 70% of passenger journeys are from step-free access stations, of which there are roughly 450 throughout the network. The hon. Lady wrote to me regarding a station in her constituency, and I have asked my officials to look into that more closely to make sure we fully understand what has occurred there. I hope to reply to her soon.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The McNulty report said that the rail industry had to do more to operate efficiently and bring down costs. Will the Minister say what he is doing to persuade the rail industry to do that in relation to step-free access, so that it can be extended to more stations, such as New Barnet?
Paul Maynard
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. When we are looking at improving our accessibility projects throughout the network, we need to ensure that the solutions we come up with are cost-effective but not gold-plated. I am sure that when she was in my role she found what I find now, which is that sometimes projects come before us the cost of which can scarcely be justified and that the same outcome can be achieved much more cheaply.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Confusion and frustration abound in the Lawrence Hill area of my constituency, in relation to step-free access and other disability access improvements to the Lawrence Hill station. Local people have been frustrated by the works there, and rumours abound that they are being cancelled, postponed or just stopped. Will the Minister agree to meet me and visit Lawrence Hill station to talk to local residents about the situation? Preferably, he could clear the matter up right now.
Paul Maynard
I am not familiar with the exact details for that station, but I am more than happy to meet the hon. Lady to discover what is occurring there.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
We are committed to improving accessibility on the rail network. Roughly 70% of train fleets operating passenger services currently meet modern accessibility standards, with work on the remaining vehicles due to be completed by 2020.
Kerry McCarthy
A moment ago, I was engrossed in the answer to the question asked by my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), as that issue also affects my constituency. I very much hope that we make progress on the Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road stations.
On accessibility on trains, the Minister will be aware of the recent case of the Team GB Paralympian, Anne Wafula Strike. It was very brave of her to come forward and speak about what must have been a humiliating experience when no disabled-access toilet was available on the train. What is the Minister doing to ensure that situations like that do not occur and that disabled people are treated with respect?
Paul Maynard
I am glad that the hon. Lady brings up that case. I am sure she shared the same sentiments that I am sure every Member felt on reading that story: it was simply unacceptable. We have made it clear to CrossCountry, through officials, that it was not good enough, and I will reiterate that when I next speak to the company. More importantly, I want to ensure that we meet our target of every rail carriage, including the toilets, being fully accessible by 2020. In situations in which the accessible toilet is out of order, for whatever reason, either that carriage must be taken out of service or, if that would have unacceptable service consequences, any individual on the train who might need the accessible toilet must be made aware of the situation before boarding and thereby have the chance to make alternative arrangements.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Money was secured more than three years ago for step-free access, not only for disabled people but for all people, at Garforth train station. Network Rail has been stalling and delaying. I have secured a commitment to the printing of a poster advertising that the work will happen by May, but may I urge my hon. Friend to speak to Network Rail to get the work done as soon as possible? The money has been in place for three years; delays are not necessary.
Paul Maynard
I am more than happy to discuss the matter further with my hon. Friend. My initial understanding at this stage is that the works at Garforth, as indeed with many on the trans-Pennine routes, are interlinked with the upgrades we are planning on the trans-Pennine network. I am happy to have a further discussion with him.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Last Friday, a disabled wheelchair user, Sandra Nighy, on Southern was left stranded on the train platform in the freezing cold for two hours because there was no one to help her on to the train despite booking assistance 48 hours in advance. She was on an unmanned station, and the trains that passed her by were driver-only with no on-board supervisor. The law is absolutely clear: train operating companies must provide reasonable access for disabled passengers. Does the Minister agree that the failure to do so strips disabled passengers of their dignity and of their right to travel and breaches the Disability Discrimination Act 1995?
Paul Maynard
I am glad that the hon. Lady raises that case. When I heard about it, my interpretation was that, in this case, Southern had not applied the policies that it said were in place for all disabled passengers. The issue is that the situation was far worse because the lady in question booked through Passenger Assist, so the company had plenty of notice that she was on her way. However, under the unions’ proposals, that train would have been cancelled in the first place and unable to depart.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Access for so many disabled and particularly elderly passengers is dependent on advice that can be had from ticket offices. In that respect, can the Minister give me any reassurance about proposals to close the ticket office in God’s own town of New Milton?
Paul Maynard
I am not specifically familiar with proposals in New Milton. But I see no reason why we should have fewer people employed in our stations over the coming years, but the roles that they discharge need to be broadened out to involve helping more passengers, not fewer.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
Train operators are permitted to use penalty fare schemes to deter fare evasion, while allowing inspectors to apply discretion when dealing with passengers. In December 2016, the Department announced planned improvements to the penalty fares regime by including a new third stage independent appeals panel. This and all existing appeals bodies will be independent of train operators and owning groups.
Will Quince
I thank the Minister for that response. Does he agree that train operating companies should not be putting their staff under undue pressure to issue penalty fares? Will he commit to look at the rules to ensure that discretion is always an option where appropriate?
Paul Maynard
I understand the point that my hon. Friend seeks to make. Although revenue protection is very important on our railways, so, too, is proportionality and discretion, hence the changes that I have made not just to the appeals regime, but to the fares and ticketing action plan that I announced last month. For example, those who forget their railcards now have more option to ensure that they are not unfairly penalised. I am more than happy to meet him to discuss his concerns further.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
Ticketless travel and fare dodging is one of many issues on the Chase line. I experienced it at first hand when I joined the London Midland revenue protection team last month. The £20 penalty is insufficient to deter fare dodging. Will my hon. Friend agree to review penalty fares, so that they do become an effective deterrent?
Paul Maynard
I am more than aware of the sterling work that my hon. Friend has done to further the cause of revenue protection by checking tickets on the Chase line, on which I congratulate her. She is quite right that there are concerns within the industry that the penalty fares are set too low. At the moment, I am focusing on reviewing the appeals system to make sure that it is fair and proportionate, and discretion has a role to play. I will keep penalty fares under review.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
It has been agreed in principle that Welsh Government Ministers will procure and manage the next Wales and Borders rail franchise. My Department is working closely with the Welsh Government to ensure the appropriate transfer of the necessary powers. However, I want to make it absolutely clear that, as part of those arrangements, we are ensuring that the train services and stations used by passengers in England are protected and, importantly, treated consistently with those in Wales, both during this procurement process and across the whole life of the franchise.
Daniel Kawczynski
That is a very welcome answer from the Secretary of State. We have briefed him about the extraordinary overcrowding on Arriva trains over the past few years, particularly in the summer months—with the windows sealed and a lot of people cramming into the carriages, it has been intolerable. Will he ensure that the next franchise accommodates the levels required for passengers to travel safely and more services from Shrewsbury to Birmingham airport?
Chris Grayling
I am aware of the capacity issues on the Wales and the Borders franchise and, indeed, on the CrossCountry franchise. One of the challenges, owing to the rapid growth in recent years, is that there are not enough diesel trains to go around at the moment. I had the great pleasure of being at Newton Aycliffe in County Durham for the launch of the first new hybrid train to be manufactured there. That will open up the opportunity for us to deliver significant change to rolling stock across our network, and will enable us to address many of the overcrowding challenges to which my hon. Friend refers.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State will be aware that he decided last October to devolve the cross-border franchise to the Welsh Government, but current legislation does not allow a public sector organisation to bid for the new franchise. Will he think again and allow public sector organisations the ability to bid for the franchise, to allow the public the best possible service when it begins?
Chris Grayling
The Labour party is keen on renationalising our railways. What I would remind it is that if its policies were implemented we would lose the ability to deliver the new trains that are being delivered right across this country, paid for by private sector investment. What Labour Members are calling for is turning back the clock and having older trains on our network. I am afraid that that is not my view.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
Franchising has been instrumental in improving the railways for passengers and as part of the enormous growth in rail usage since privatisation 20 years ago. Our approach to rail reform is about delivering an improved service for passengers through better teamwork between Network Rail and passenger rail franchises, and making Network Rail more customer focused by giving more power to its local route managers.
Clive Efford
We now know that the Secretary of State is putting politics before the interests of passengers, and he is taking a dogmatic approach by ignoring what could improve our railway system. He has refused to allow the Mayor of London to take over suburban services, in spite of the fact that his predecessor thought that that was a good idea. The public are in favour of public ownership: 58% of people polled by Transport for London are in favour of the Mayor having greater control over suburban services and only 14% support his position. Is it not time that public ownership of our railways was considered by the Government, and are not the public in favour of it?
Chris Grayling
It is hardly a surprise that Conservative Members for constituencies outside London have doubts about a Labour Mayor inside London running local services, particularly when the Mayor delivered a business plan that did not offer improved capacity and was founded on a lot of uncosted promises. So far from this Mayor, we have seen a fare freeze that was not a fare freeze and a London of no rail strikes with a rail strike last Monday. I do not take the Mayor’s promises at face value, I am afraid. We have taken a partnership approach that also listens to the people of Kent, who are equally important in this franchise and said they should be equal partners with the people of London in designing it.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
In 1993, the public sector British Rail withdrew services on the Cleethorpes to Sheffield line, making it a Saturdays-only service, which means that people in Gainsborough, Brigg and such towns cannot get to Cleethorpes to enjoy all that it has to offer. As yet, the private sector has not seen fit to restore that service to six days a week. Will the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers meet me and Members for neighbouring constituencies to discuss the issue?
Chris Grayling
We are always happy to talk to my hon. Friend, who remains a doughty champion of his constituency, but he is right to make the point that if we turned the clock back 30 or 40 years to the days of British Rail, the debate in the House today would be about line closures, station closures and a reduction in services. Today, the issues are overcrowding due to numbers rising so fast, new stations, improved facilities and new trains. That is the difference between the policies we have followed and the policies Labour Members want to follow.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The Government’s franchising policy lies in tatters, with desperate attempts to retrofit contracts to protect operators’ profits and, as revealed yesterday, National Express taking the money and running, selling the c2c franchise to the Italian state. The Secretary of State’s director of passenger services awarded the disastrous Southern franchise, while owning shares in the company and advising the winner bidder. The country has had enough of these sleazy deals. Is it not way past time for franchising to be scrapped and the UK rail industry to be revitalised through public ownership?
Chris Grayling
The clock ticks ever backwards. The Opposition do not want inward investment or private sector investment in our railways, but, of course, we still do not hear from them any words on behalf of passengers about the strikes. The Labour party takes money from the rail unions and defends them when they are on strike, no matter what the inconvenience to passengers is. The Opposition are a disgrace. They should stand up and say that these strikes should stop. I will say one thing about the Mayor of London: at least he had the wit and wisdom this week to say that the strikes are wrong. I hear nothing from the hon. Gentleman about the strikes being wrong.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Craig Whittaker
The British built Nissan Leaf continues to be one of the most popular electric cars in the world, but what are the Government doing to support the uptake of other types of vehicles?
Mr Hayes
Like Cicero, we believe that the good of the people is the chief law, so it is for public wellbeing that we want to see low emissions from all types of vehicles. Just yesterday, I announced the results of the low emission freight and logistics trial, which will see the Government providing no less than £24 million to help place about 300 low and zero-emission vehicles into commercial fleets across the UK.
Mr Speaker
One rather wonders whether the results of the trial were communicated to the right hon. Gentleman’s hero, Cicero.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The Minister says that he wants to see emissions reduced in all types of vehicles, so will he explain to the House why just 160,000 of the polluting cheat devices in Volkswagen cars have been remediated out of the 1.2 million cheat devices that are currently on the roads in the UK? At this rate of reparation, it will take three years to clean up Volkswagen’s dirty diesel cheat devices.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Lady is right. Volkswagen needs to do more, which is why I am going to meet its representatives at the beginning of next week to tell them exactly that. I insisted that the company paid £1.1 million, which we received on Christmas eve—I demanded it as a Christmas present—because that was the money that taxpayers had to spend as a result of the emissions scandal.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
I am sorry to say that, since Transport questions began, news broke in my constituency that another person has lost their life as a result of a fatal car accident. I hope that the Minister and the House will join me in offering condolences to the family and friends of the victim.
I welcome the fact that the Government will be doing an awful lot more to encourage the use of ultra-low emission vehicles. However, councils such as mine want to introduce a low emission zone, and they will struggle to introduce electric car charging points and new enforcement cameras without planning and regulatory changes. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that these issues will be at the top of his agenda with the Department for Communities and Local Government?
Mr Hayes
To start with—road safety is a concern of the whole House. My hon. Friend was right to mention the tragedy that he did.
Charging points are vital. One of the great challenges for industry and Government is to ensure that there are adequate numbers of charging points across the whole country. That particularly applies in rural areas such as the one I represent. There may be a need for legislative change to that effect, and we are considering that. We are introducing a modern transport Bill, in which we will address the issue of charging points.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Will any Volkswagen executives face criminal damages here for the diesel emissions scandal?
Mr Hayes
I hold no candle for those businesses that do not do right by consumers or, by the way, by their workers. The actions that have taken place in the United States, which I guess is what the hon. Gentleman is referring to and the actions that are being considered by Volkswagen customers oblige the Government to think again about what further steps we can take, and we are doing so. I have not ruled out a further investigation. I will discuss that with the Secretary of State and raise it with Volkswagen at the meeting I described.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Constituents tell me that one of the barriers to their buying electric vehicles is the complexity and variety of public charging facilities, which require them to carry numerous cards and forms of payment. Does the Minister have any plans to bring some regulation to this market to simplify it and make it more accessible and to encourage more people to purchase electric cars?
Mr Hayes
Indeed. Was it not Ronald Reagan who said that the future does not belong to the fainthearted? We must be big-hearted and far-sighted in respect of electric vehicles, and that does mean more charging points. We will create a regulatory regime sufficient to provide those charging points and, therefore, to assuage the public doubts to which my hon. Friend has drawn the House’s attention.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Despite all the inducements, only 3% of new car sales are of electric cars. Should the Minister be doing more to encourage liquefied petroleum gas switching or hydrogen fuel cell cars?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman will know about our Go Ultra Low campaign, which is match funded by industry, and which is designed to encourage the kind of learning he described. We need to persuade people that that switching is desirable. It is partly about charging points, partly about battery reliability and partly about people simply knowing that electric vehicles can be good for them. We will continue that campaign in exactly the spirit he recommends.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
The VW emissions defeat device cynically deceived 1.2 million vehicle owners in the UK, and I declare that I am one of them. I am delighted that the Minister is going to have VW in next week, because drivers in the UK are being tret unfairly compared with VW drivers in the US. In the absence of any action by the Government so far, UK motorists are having to pursue private group litigation against VW. I want the Minister to understand how badly let down UK VW drivers feel because it appears that the Government are letting VW off the hook, although I hope that that is not the case. Will he, even at this late stage, offer support to the motorists in the UK pursuing their own action?
Mr Hayes
Yes. I am actually on the same page as the hon. Lady. By the way, I am glad we have moved on from the belligerent bombast of earlier—I do not think it did the Opposition any favours—and she makes her case reasonably. There is a case for further steps. That is partly about the retrofit described earlier by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), it is partly about the payment of taxpayer money I described, and it is partly about the consumer. We should consider further steps and, having considered them, take them as and when necessary.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
The Government recently published three strategic studies into long-standing transport challenges in the north-west and have committed to major investment based on the findings. Highways England’s route strategies —by the way, I set up Highways England on my last visit to the Department—have assessed the performance of the strategic roads network and the pressures it faces. Three strategic studies relate to the north-west. Refreshed versions, drawing on the evidence submitted by local stakeholders last year, will be published, and I think they should be published soon, so let us make it March—we will publish them then.
Conor McGinn
In 2014, the roads investment strategy proposed nine new projects in the north-west, but, to date, the plans for just one of them have been announced, while the Government spend six times more on transport infrastructure in London than in the north. How does the Minister think the whole northern powerhouse thing is going, because, when it comes to transport, like much of the traffic in St Helens, it seems to be going nowhere and not very fast?
Mr Hayes
I do not think that is typical of the hon. Gentleman—at least, I hope it is not—because he is being ungenerous and, to some degree, might I say, not admitting all he knows. For surely he will know of the A570 linkway, valued at £3.2 million—that is in St Helens, by the way. He will know of the Windle Island junction improvements, valued at £3.2 million—again in St Helens. He will also know of the Newton-le-Willows interchange, valued at £14.4 million. We are not only acting in the north-west but in his constituency, and he does not want to tell us about it.
Mr Speaker
Order. This question is about the north-west of England. I am not a geographer, but I say to the hon. Lady that last time I looked, it seemed to me that Taunton Deane was rather a long way from the north-west of England.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
It is the surface of the roads in the north-west within the existing infrastructure that worries me; it is a bit like driving on the surface of the moon at times. Where county councils fail to tackle the problem of the plague of potholes that besets motorists in the north-west, will the Minister be imaginative and look at ways whereby district councils could bid for the money that the Government make available so that they can tackle this problem?
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend is right that the noise and disturbance from poor road surfaces has a significant effect on the journeys of those who use cars and trucks. As he knows, I have been in the north-west in a vehicle with him—an open-top vehicle, I hasten to add—waving to his constituents. I know how important road surfaces are, so I will certainly look at his suggestion, not only for the north-west but across the whole nation.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
As you will be aware, Mr Speaker, I have said in this House and elsewhere that I am very committed to improving the transport situation in the south-west, and I am pleased today to announce a new phase in our £7 billion plan for that region. We are launching the next stage of the formal consultation on a major upgrade to the A303—the main A road into Devon and Cornwall. This involves the development of the 1.8-mile tunnel past Stonehenge, which will protect that world heritage site from traffic, reduce local congestion, and speed up journeys to and from the region. We will now be talking to local people to the west of that tunnel about precisely which route it should take around the village immediately to the left. In addition, we are committed to upgrading the remaining sections of the A303 between the M3 and the M5 to dual carriageway. The next step will be public consultations on the A303 Sparkford to Ilchester and A358 Taunton to Southfields schemes that will come very shortly.
Tom Pursglove
A 79-year-old constituent has been repeatedly refused car hire contracts by leading rental companies. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of any restrictions that are being placed on OAPs by these rental companies?
Chris Grayling
I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. This is a very difficult issue. The Equality Act 2010 provides general protection against age discrimination for people of all ages, but there is an exemption for a person conducting an assessment of risk for the purposes of providing a financial service to another person. My Department has not made the assessment that my hon. Friend describes, but I encourage his constituent to contact the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association, which should be able to help him in identifying a suitable provider.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
An icy chill is about to descend on parts of the country. That is not an impending DFT ministerial visit, I hasten to add—it is of course the impending weather front. Will the Secretary of State tell us about the state of preparations for gritting our roads in the coming days? What discussions has he had with his colleagues and those in local government to ensure that at least our roads run more smoothly than our railways?
Chris Grayling
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there was no icy chill last time I visited Cambridge, when he and I were there for the first bit of work, albeit a rather small bit of work with a spade, on the A14 project, which will make a big difference to Cambridge. My ministerial team and I have had detailed discussions about this in recent weeks, and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), has been in regular contact with local authorities. We have in this country, if not a salt mountain, plenty of salt and plenty of grit. We estimate that we have what is necessary to cope with the winter ahead, but we will obviously keep that under review.
Daniel Zeichner
I thank the Secretary of State; let us hope that we are well prepared. Taking him back to the time just before Christmas, given that soon after his visit to Cambridge he told the Evening Standard that cycle lanes cause problems for road users, will he clarify exactly who he thinks road users are? While he is thinking about cyclists—a helpful clue—could he explain why it is taking such an extraordinarily long time to produce a cycling and walking investment strategy?
Chris Grayling
Cyclists use cycle lanes, and motorists and other road users use the roads alongside them. That is fairly straightforward, to be honest. If the hon. Gentleman is eagerly anticipating our cycling and walking strategy, he does not have long to wait.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
It does not surprise me that my right hon. Friend has drawn attention to my rapturously received and beautifully articulated speech on beauty. He is right to say that we now need action. We have established a design panel at Highways England, and in a few weeks’ time we will produce a new design guide. It will dismay all the crass modernists and harsh brutalists, but it will delight all those who believe that our public infrastructure can be stylish and elegant as well as deliver the necessary utility. My role is only this: to rediscover the age-old golden thread with which all of that will be woven.
Mr Speaker
Almost as stylish and elegant as the right hon. Gentleman, I do not doubt.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about hybrid tram-trains and I will look into it. As far as I am aware, the project is on track and on schedule, but I am particularly keen to understand the lessons that can be learned from it, to make sure that any projects elsewhere are done properly and to time the first time around.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Mr John Hayes
I have with me the report to which my hon. Friend refers. It is an excellent piece of work, and I have already arranged to meet its author. I initiated the maritime growth study when I was last in the Department, but it is time to refresh that. It must be a living document. As part of that exercise, we will consider the role of ports now that we are freed from the clutches of the European Union. My ambitions are, as ever, measured and modest: I seek nothing more than for Britannia to rule the waves.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
We have no plans to review the drink-drive limit. The level of 80 mg per 100 ml of blood is one of the higher ones, but no country has a better record than us on road safety and improving performance in tackling drink-driving. Taken together, it is the combination of the right limit and enforcement and the cultural belief that drink-driving is wrong that makes progress.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Before Christmas, a parent at Morley Primary School in my constituency was badly injured when driving in the school’s vicinity, because another car was going too fast, which is a regular occurrence. I have consistently requested that the county council change the speed limit and move the signs—only move them—but it consistently refuses to do so because, it says, nobody has been killed yet. I do not want a child, parent or anybody else to be killed. Is there any way that the Minister can change the criteria by which councils decide to change such speed limits?
Andrew Jones
Local authorities already have the powers to introduce lower speed limits where they think it is appropriate. I think that that should apply especially around schools. The decision does not have to be a reactive one—waiting until something happens—and it is inappropriate to think in such a way. I suggest that I write to the Highways Authority in Derbyshire to highlight the powers that it already has. My right hon. Friend the Minister responsible for roads will visit my hon. Friend’s constituency in a fortnight or so to discuss roads, so perhaps she could pick the matter up with him then.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
Chris Grayling
I think we are some way away from that. Discussions have to take place between our Government and the European Union on arrangements post-Brexit. They will take place, and we will inform the House of progress on the matter in due course.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
A start has been made in the first road investment strategy on upgrading the A47 from Lowestoft to the A1. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that he will work with me and other East Anglian colleagues on the second road investment strategy to ensure that this good work continues.
Mr John Hayes
My hon. Friend will know that we managed to achieve what he wanted in respect of the bridge in his constituency, but he is right that we need to do more in respect of RIS2. To his customary eloquence and commitment he has added prophetic powers, because just this morning I am writing to all the colleagues he describes inviting them to participate in that process. This will be for the people and shaped by the people’s representatives.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
Chris Grayling
I have to confess that I have never heard anyone in this country, north or south of the border, refer to an A road in the United Kingdom as a Euro-route. If they cease to be Euro-routes after we leave the European Union, I suspect that we will be able to count the number of people who miss that on the fingers of one hand.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I declare an interest as a daily commuter on the east coast main line, which is a very well run strategic route. Service outages, infrequent as they are, can be very disruptive. May I ask the Minister to prevail on train operating companies and Network Rail to improve communications with passengers in real time, to ensure that passengers are made aware of these problems and can make alternative arrangements as necessary?
Paul Maynard
It is entirely right to say that passenger information during disruption is something that all train operating companies and Network Rail need to improve. Not only do we need a single source of information that is consistent, but it needs to provide the most up-to-date information. It is not acceptable for people who have checked their phones on leaving home and thought that their train was on time to find, by the time they get to the station, that the train has been cancelled. That is not good enough.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State reject the new proposal of a spur line from HS2 in the constituency of Bolsover between Hilcote and Morton? Not only will it cut the Blackwell council in two, but it will destroy scores of houses in the village of Newton. Will he have a look at the letter I have sent him, in order to pacify the people of Blackwell about this mad idea?
Chris Grayling
Of course I will. I have taken a close interest in the eastern leg, and I have been up and down most of the route myself. I am very keen that we deliver the economic benefits, but that we do so in the way that works best for local communities. I am happy to take a look at the issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It has been yet another week of misery for hundreds of thousands of passengers on Southern rail. Given that the unions have received guarantees on jobs, on pay and—from the independent rail safety regulator—on safety, would the Government now support Conservative proposals to limit strikes, or at least the impact of strikes, via legislation?
Chris Grayling
There is a lot of interest in the matter, and a lot of calls have been made for such measures to be taken. We are considering carefully how we approach future issues. Of course, nothing in legislative terms would solve the current dispute. I think my hon. Friend will join me in expressing the disappointment of Conservative Members about the fact that we have not heard from the Opposition today one word of regret or condemnation, and not one call for the unions to go back to work. They just do not care.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The RAC has estimated that drivers have been over-charged by hundreds of millions of pounds owing to over-zealous enforcement by private car parks. Requiring operators to sign up to accredited trade associations would help to stop that type of behaviour. Does the Secretary of State agree that having all companies sign up would ensure that their business models were based on fair treatment of the motorist?
Andrew Jones
I will happily look into the matter that the hon. Lady raises. It is actually the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government, but I will take it up with my ministerial colleagues.
Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)
In view of the increasing number of passengers and employees using Stansted airport, the growth of the Cambridge biomedical campus, the prospect of Crossrail 2, the announcement of major housing developments and the welcome prospect of new, high-performance trains, what plans has my hon. Friend for increasing track capacity on the West Anglia line to take advantage of those factors?
Paul Maynard
My right hon. Friend is right to raise all those factors. He will know of the important work that the taskforce has done. We are also looking at timetabling, to which I hope he can make substantial contribution. He is right to raise the matter and we are looking at it very closely. Control period 6 announcements are on the way and I hope that his concerns will be reflected in them.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
This time two years ago, when the Blackpool North electrification scheme faced delays and the rail Minister was a Back Bencher, he rightly demanded answers from Ministers. There is now real concern that the electrification of the midland main line will be further postponed or even cancelled north of Corby and Kettering. Will the Minister provide the House with the clarity that he sought for his constituency and give an unequivocal assurance that this key Conservative manifesto promise will not be broken?
Paul Maynard
We are continuing to work towards the key outputs that matter most to passengers. I recognise the importance of the network, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) will work on a cross-party basis to identify the key regional priorities that we want to be reflected in the new franchise. I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood).
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
In Broxtowe, there is widespread and cross-party support for HS2. Of course, we get the east midlands hub at Towton, but there is still concern about the route. Will my right hon. Friend assure residents in Trowell, Strelley Village and Nuthall that their voices will be listened to and that, if necessary, changes to the route will be made without affecting the timetable for delivery?
Chris Grayling
I can absolutely give my right hon. Friend that commitment, as I did to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) a moment ago. The route will bring huge benefits to the east midlands and to Yorkshire, including the areas around Sheffield, but I want to make it clear that we will be as thoughtful and careful as we can about the detail of the route. The reason for the consultation is that it gives us a chance to listen to those views, and we will.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
Mr Speaker, you will be aware of the Vauxhall car fire scandal. Last month, I hosted in the House of Commons around 25 people who had been affected, and heard about traumatised children and how the incidents led to increases in insurance excesses and cost families thousands of pounds. Will a Minister agree to meet not me—I am not interested in meeting Ministers myself—but the families of those affected?
Andrew Jones
I am aware of the issue and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency is taking action with Vauxhall to remedy the situation. I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and some of the families affected.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend provide an update on the progress of plans for a new cross-Pennine road link?
Chris Grayling
As my hon. Friend will know, we have recently announced plans to dual the A66. We are currently waiting for the conclusion of the work on the potential for a trans-Pennine tunnel. I give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance that whether or not it is recommended that that work go ahead, our commitment to delivering trans-Pennine improvements will not be affected in any way by the outcome of that study.
Business of the House
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
The business for the next week is as follows:
Monday 16 January—Second Reading of the National Citizen Service Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 17 January—Opposition day (18th allotted day). There will be a debate entitled “Impact of leaving the EU on the rural economy”, followed by a debate entitled “Impact of Department for Work and Pensions policies on low income households”. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party.
Wednesday 18 January—General debate on exiting the EU and security, law enforcement and criminal justice.
Thursday 19 January—Debate on a motion relating to Kashmir, followed by a general debate on Holocaust Memorial Day 2017. Both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 20 January—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 23 January will include:
Monday 23 January—Second Reading of the Local Government Finance Bill.
Tuesday 24 January—Consideration of Lords amendments followed by a motion relating to the charter for budget responsibility.
Wednesday 25 January—Opposition day (19th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
Thursday 26 January—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 27 January— Private Members’ Bills.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 19 January will be:
Thursday 19 January—General debate on decommissioning of in vitro fertilisation and other NHS fertility services.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business, although I am concerned that it appears we are not going to rise for the summer recess. We still do not have a date. I warn everyone to be prepared to work through the summer. I wish Members and staff a very happy new year. We are going to need all the wisdom and strength we can get for the task ahead.
Following on from your remarks, Mr Speaker, hon. Members have raised with me the issue of extending the time for Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions. Never before has the reasonable voice of Britain been so needed in international affairs. Questions could just be extended by an hour. We have excellent diplomats with institutional memory who can make a big difference in the world.
May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to two reports from the Procedure Committee that may have got lost in the Christmas revelry? The press release for the report published on 18 October had the headline: “Procedure Committee rails ‘against handouts and talked out’ Private Member’s Bill”. Sadly, there was a further incident on Friday 16 December, in relation to a private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), when one speech took one hour and 17 minutes. The vote, with 133 Ayes to 2 Noes, showed the will of the House to be clearly in favour of the Bill. It cannot be right, therefore, that Members who wanted to speak in favour of the Bill could not do so.
One of the report’s recommendations is that you, Mr Speaker, invoke Standing Order 47, which would put a time limit on the consideration of private Members’ Bills. Since I have been in the House, this Standing Order has been used in every single debate apart from on Fridays. In a letter to the Clerk of the House, the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), indicates that this change may need a resolution of the House. A further report of the Procedure Committee, on 14 December 2016, recommended the use of Welsh at Westminster in the Welsh Grand Committee. This was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who indicated to me that it is cheaper to do that here. The Official Reporters say there would be no problem with that. Rather than eat into Back-Bench time, could those two resolutions be taken together in Government time?
We need clarification on the waiting time target. Is it for urgent or non-urgent cases? Earlier this week on a radio programme, the Secretary of State for Health said that Simons Stevens is running the NHS. May we have confirmation that it is the Secretary of State who is running the NHS? We had the bizarre scene of the Secretary of State running down the road. I thought he was doing his 30 minutes’ activity as required by the Health Department, but he then jumped into his car. Having served on the Health Committee for five years, I know about the chaos of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. In an unprecedented move, the passage of the Bill was paused by the then Prime Minister. The shadow Secretary of State for Health has written to the Secretary of State for Health with 25 questions. Will the Leader of the House provide those answers within the target time?
Returning to Brexit, a report before Christmas from the other place, “Brexit: financial services”, confirmed that London was ranked as the leading financial services sector in the world and called for a transition period to protect jobs. Page 3, paragraph 2, in the summary of a report by the Environmental Audit Committee, states:
“The Prime Minister has indicated that the UK is likely to leave the single European market and the Customs Union.”
I had not understood that to be settled Government policy. That is why we need these proper debates. The EAC calls for a new environmental protection Act while negotiations are ongoing and a list of zombie legislation—legislation transposed into British law but not updated. It is possible that the confusion has arisen because the Departments have proliferated like amoebae. It cannot be right that, according to figures from the House of Commons Library in December 2016, the Department for Exiting the European Union has only 300 staff, while the Department for International Trade has 2,709 staff. DExEU is getting £94 million a year, while £26 million is going to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DIT, but DIT has taken staff from the FCO. We need clarity.
We, Her Majesty’s Opposition, have a proposal. In view of the judgment about to be handed down by the Supreme Court on the triggering of article 50 at the end of March, the Leader of the House should consider a review of what each Department does, because the British public will never forgive this Government if they see people dying on trolleys while vanity Departments are set up to keep hon. Members inside the tent rather than outside it. The task before us is enormous, but we need to remember the reasons we joined the EU and why there was a vote to leave. That way, all views can be respected and we can negotiate from a position that protects jobs, workers’ rights, the environment and our security. We need to do what is best for the UK, not base our approach on the rhetoric of the campaign and a clueless Government.
Mr Lidington
I join the hon. Lady in wishing you, Mr Speaker, and House of Commons staff a happy new year.
The hon. Lady mentioned the duration of Foreign Office questions. I accept that there is a great deal of demand from Members across the House to put questions to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and his team, but in fairness I think she will acknowledge that there have also been several opportunities to question Foreign Office Ministers when they have volunteered oral statements, responded to urgent questions, spoken at Backbench Business Committee debates here, as is happening again later today and next week, on Kashmir, and in Westminster Hall. It has always been the case, since I have been in the House, that the allocation of time for questions between different Departments has been a matter for discussion within the usual channels. If the Opposition want to put forward ideas, obviously the Government will look at them, but in fairness one has to say that if time were added to Foreign Office questions, it would have to be subtracted from some other House business, and that needs to be weighed in the balance too.
On the Procedure Committee, the very last thing I would accuse my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) of is ranting. Whether I have agreed with him or not on particular issues, he has always expressed his views in a civilised manner, and the Government will respond to the Committee’s report in the way we do to other Select Committee reports.
The hon. Lady made various points about exiting the EU. On article 50 and the changes within Whitehall, we must not underestimate the reality that the decision the electorate took in the referendum represented a profound and far-reaching change to the policies pursued by successive Governments and to the character of the UK’s international relationships, which for half a century have been built very much around our membership—whether aspiring to it or operating within it—of the EU. It seems perfectly reasonable that, in those circumstances, there should be a reconfiguration of resources and Departments in Whitehall to deal with the complex task of handling the negotiations that lie before us. It is not just the Department for Exiting the European Union that is involved. Many Departments throughout the Government are also involved, at ministerial and official level. On the question of the single market and the customs union, let me repeat what the Prime Minister has often said: one of the core objectives of our negotiation will be to achieve the best possible freedom for British companies to continue to operate within, and trade with, the single European market.
The hon. Lady’s request for an early reply to the questions asked by her hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) will obviously have been noted by the Ministers concerned, and I will ensure that it is properly reported to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. As for waiting time targets, the Secretary of State made very clear during yesterday’s debate that we continued to be committed to the four-hour target, and that we took pride in it.
It is worth noting that despite the pressures being experienced this winter, NHS staff, through their immense professionalism and hard work, have been treating record numbers of patients at A&E departments in hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. It is also the case, however, that NHS England’s director of acute care has estimated that about 30% of the people who currently present themselves at A&E departments really ought to be seen elsewhere in the NHS, or might even benefit from self-treatment at home. It seems sensible for us to think actively—in terms of national policy but also, critically, in terms of local NHS organisations—about how we can provide alternative sources of advice and routes to treatment for people who do not actually need specific A&E services.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
The Government must be applauded for making it a manifesto promise to leave the environment in a better state than the one in which we found it. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the environment, on the potential opportunities presented to us to become world leaders on the issue, and on the technologies related to it—for example, the tidal lagoon technology that is mentioned in the press this morning? If we are to deliver more for less, increasing productivity and resilience in line with our industrial strategy, the environment must become a cornerstone of our social and economic thinking.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I cannot offer an early debate in Government time, although she may find that this is a subject in which the Backbench Business Committee takes an interest; alternatively, there may be an opportunity for a 90-minute debate in Westminster Hall. However, I think that the Government will want to pay close attention to the report that has been published today by our former colleague Charles Hendry. I hope the House will welcome the news that last year was the first year on record in which more electricity in this country was generated from renewables than from coal: that was a good step forward.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business.
I wish you, Mr Speaker, all hon. Members, and all the staff who serve us so well a happy new year. It is a new year in which there is now a maximum of 10 weeks before the Government trigger article 50, as is their intention, but we still do not have a Scooby about what type of article 50 and Brexit plan they have in mind for us. The only Government who have attempted to come up with any Brexit solution are the Scottish Government, who are endeavouring to stay in line with the views of the people of Scotland. Will the Leader of the House tell us what type of debates we shall have on the triggering of article 50, and will he confirm that, regardless of what happens in the Supreme Court, the House will have a vote and a say on what will be the biggest single decision that the country will undertake?
After yesterday’s extraordinary press conference in the United States and what might or might not have happened in that Russian hotel room—I do not want to focus on that—may we have a debate on fake news in this country? I remember the days before fake news was cool, when we were told weapons of mass destruction could reach the United Kingdom within 45 minutes. We are also told by some news organisations that this Government are competent and know what they are going to be doing in terms of Brexit. So may we have a debate about fake news in this country?
Can the Leader of the House tell us what exactly is going on with English votes for English laws, because it seems that nobody wants it anymore? We had another English Legislative Grand Committee on Monday. The bells went on, the House was adjourned, the bells went on again, the House was back in session—the mace went down, the mace went up—and not one word was said. This is now beginning to embarrass this House; this is now beginning to make this House look extremely foolish. When will this bizarre and unnecessary practice end?
Mr Lidington
On the hon. Gentleman’s final point, if the EVEL rules are operating in an uncontroversial and consensual manner, that is something the entire House ought to welcome. If that means the Scottish National party is accommodating itself to the need for English Members to have the final say on laws relating to England which in Scotland relate to policies devolved to the Scottish Parliament, that is a good thing.
The hon. Gentleman asked about article 50. The Prime Minister has said that the Government will publish a document setting out our negotiating objectives before we come to trigger article 50 later this year. As the hon. Gentleman will know, it has been widely reported that the Prime Minister also intends to make a speech on this subject in the next few weeks. Clearly the character of any parliamentary proceedings on article 50 will depend to some extent on the Supreme Court judgment.
On the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the media, clearly what is said in the United States is a matter for the people of the United States. While all of us from time to time have reasons to complain about the character or accuracy of various news reports or articles in the press, that is a fact of life in a free society, and I would always want to err on the side of saying that there should be many and discordant voices without the state interfering in what is said by either broadcast or written media. That is the better way to proceed, and the sort of attempts we sometimes have to intimidate individual journalists, as we saw shamefully in the closing weeks of the referendum campaign in Scotland in 2014, when individual journalists were singled out for attack, is not something in which any Member of the House should take pride.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary recently raised the prospect of the European Court of Justice requiring everyone who uses a vehicle to have insurance, including, for example, householders who mow their lawns on ride-on mowers. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how we can prevent this absurd requirement from being brought into UK legislation?
Mr Lidington
As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, this issue derives from the Vnuk judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Transport are actively involved in the negotiations about the response to this, and I encourage my hon. Friend to make his representations in particular to Transport Ministers, who will be in the frontline of trying to make sure that that judgment is implemented in a way that causes as few difficulties as possible for the users of those vehicles.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
On behalf of the Backbench Business Committee I should like to wish you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House a very happy new year.
I thank the Leader of the House for advertising the wares of the Committee when he advises right hon. and hon. Members of their opportunity to apply to us for debates. May I also remind Members to look at the calendar and think ahead? Time-sensitive debates can be very important. For example, we have a debate next week on Holocaust Memorial Day, in the week before the memorial day itself. If anyone would like a debate on a particular time-sensitive subject, will they please make an application to the Committee in good time?
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his new year wishes and his kind remarks. It is good news that there is now greater awareness across the House of the role of the Backbench Business Committee, and if that can lead to more timely debates and debates on subjects in which electors are interested but which might not be the subject of legislation, that can only be a good thing.
Mr Speaker
I know that the hon. Gentleman has secured election to the Women and Equalities Committee—although he was the only candidate, so his election was not very burdensome. But he should not worry; he will never be overlooked. We will get to him.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) did take my place on that Committee, so there is obviously something going on here.
Air pollution, standing traffic and unpredictable journey times cause stress and have an impact on productivity, on jobs and on the good health of UK plc as well as on us humans. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on critical infrastructure that can benefit business and communities? An example is the Chickenhall link road, which will be a game-changer for the Solent area and for Southampton airport. We should look at business and communities in a holistic way.
Mr Lidington
I think pretty well every Member of the House would agree with the points that my hon. Friend makes. That is why the Chancellor’s inclusion in his autumn statement of £23 billion of expenditure on infrastructure, including transport infrastructure and broadband, is so important.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
When may we have a debate on early-day motion 852?
[That this House congratulates the Welsh Government on the introduction of presumed consent for organ donation in Wales; notes that 39 lives have been saved in the past year; is concerned that the UK has one of the lowest rates of organ donation consent in Europe; notes the UK target to increase organ donation consent rates to 80 per cent by 2020; and further notes the model successes of presumed consent in Wales which could be replicated across the UK to increase numbers of organs available for donation.]
The motion draws attention to the huge success of the presumed consent to organ transplant in Wales. May I also urge the Government to support the private Member’s Bill that will be presented on Monday that calls for the advantages of presumed consent to be spread to the rest of the United Kingdom? We now know that this is a practical law that is popular with the public and saves many lives.
Mr Lidington
I cannot promise a debate in Government time, but the private Member’s Bill to which the hon. Gentleman refers will provide an opportunity for further debate on the subject. There might also be opportunities for a debate through the Backbench Business Committee or in Westminster Hall.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
In considering its budgets for next year, Labour-led North East Lincolnshire Council is considering the closure of Cleethorpes library, a much-loved local facility. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on the value of libraries to local communities?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend might like to seek an Adjournment debate on the issue of Cleethorpes library. I am sure that he and his constituents will be urging the council to look seriously at its priorities and at how to ensure that library services can continue to be provided to the people of Cleethorpes. The provision of library services is clearly the objective that must be sustained.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I hope the Leader of the House agrees that future generations of British people will be very unforgiving if this generation of politicians allows a catastrophic failure to damage or destroy this House in any way, in the knowledge that we did nothing about it now. Will he update the House on when he intends to timetable a debate on the Joint Committee’s recommendations for refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman served on the Joint Committee that made that recommendation. I hope that we can bring this to a debate and get a decision as soon as possible.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I simply do not wish to wait any longer. The voice of Shipley must be heard.
Philip Davies
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for highlighting the fact that my nomination for membership of the Women and Equalities Committee was so popular that nobody wanted to oppose me.
May we have a debate on the outrageous plans of Jockey Club Racecourses to close Kempton Park racecourse? If Jockey Club Racecourses is not about the protection of racecourses and the heritage of British racing, Lord knows what on earth it is about. If the closure had been proposed by Arena Racing Company, members of the Jockey Club would have been the first to complain, particularly given that Kempton Park is a profitable racecourse. May we have a debate to find out what this House can do to stop these outrageous plans, which will be a hammer blow to national hunt racing in this country and will concrete over a huge swathe of the area’s greenbelt, too?
Mr Lidington
As my hon. Friend will understand, this site is ultimately a matter for the Jockey Club, on the one hand—the Jockey Club has a royal charter that obliges it to act for the long-term good of British racing—and the local planning authorities, on the other, but I completely understand his point. I understand not only the importance of Kempton Park to the horseracing industry but the importance of horseracing both as a source of great pleasure to millions of British people but as an industry for this country. Whatever decisions are ultimately taken about Kempton Park, I hope that we will continue to ensure that the horseracing industry thrives, generates jobs and continues to bring great enjoyment and pleasure to so many people.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
I will endeavour to behave on this occasion, Mr Speaker. Well over a year ago I told the House that there is not a single NHS dentist available in my constituency and that the incidence of child tooth decay is five times the national average. Indeed, I understand that my constituency is one of the worst in the country, if not the worst, for dentist provision. I further raised the issue in a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), on 7 November 2016, and I have heard absolutely nothing, despite his promises. Can the Leader of the House advise the House on why the Government do not appear to care about the teeth of people in the Dewsbury constituency?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Lady says that she had a meeting a few weeks ago, before Christmas, with the Minister concerned, but I will ask the Department of Health to follow up in writing on the outcome of the meeting.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
As we all know, our country is about to go into its most important negotiations in decades, with consequences for generations to come, yet the three big issues—these issues divide within parties, not just across the House—of the single market, free movement and the customs union have still not been debated in this place. Some think that that verges on being disgraceful. Will the Leader of the House please now assure the House that we will debate those issues, and not only for the obvious reasons but in order to bring together everybody in this country, however they voted in the referendum—as the Prime Minister quite properly said in her new year’s message that she seeks to do—so that we get the very best deal for everybody and for as long as we possibly can?
Mr Lidington
There will of course be further debates, both general debates on exiting the European Union and others on that matter, as we approach the decision on article 50 and, I am very confident, in the months that follow that. My hon. Friend might also like to know, although this will not satisfy her demand for a debate, that in the next fortnight we will have both Home Office questions, which would cover the free movement issue, and questions to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, on 26 January.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
May we have a debate on what constitutes a crisis in accident and emergency in the national health service? The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary refuse to accept that there is a crisis, but the Welsh Tories say that there is a crisis in A&E in Wales, and the Health Secretary says that the English figures are better than those for Wales but fails to point out that, on the basis of what was released this morning, the Scottish figures are 5% better than those in England. May we have that debate on the definition of what represents “a crisis” before the Government fiddle the figures in their response to patients suffering?
Mr Lidington
We have had both a statement and a lengthy exchange of questions to and answers from the Health Secretary on Monday, and then we had a full day’s debate in the Labour party’s time yesterday on this subject, when all these issues were thoroughly aired. I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought not to be too complacent about the situation in Scotland, given that the latest figures I have seen show that NHS Scotland was meeting only one of eight key targets and that one in 12 hospital bed days in Scotland were being lost because of delayed discharges.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
In wishing happy new year to the Leader of the House, may I say that I hope 2017 is as good for the United Kingdom as 2016 was? In relation to business next week or perhaps the week after—or perhaps even the week after that—will he guarantee that when the Supreme Court makes its decision a Minister will come to the House to give a statement? Will he also agree that no prior comment will be made to the media before this House is informed of what the Government are thinking?
Mr Lidington
We do not yet know the timing of the Supreme Court decision, which makes it slightly difficult for me to give the firm assurance that my hon. Friend wants. Let there be no doubt: the Government will want to come—and I suspect, Mr Speaker, that you will insist that the Government come—to Parliament at the earliest opportunity to explain their response to the judgment.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
First, may I wish you a happy Kiss a Ginger Day, Mr Speaker? [Laughter.] I am sure you can look it up!
The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) rightly raised a serious question about the Committee report, which was produced 18 weeks ago, on the future of the Palace of Westminster. It is now becoming irresponsible that we have not yet had a debate, because a fire in one of the 98 risers in this building would spread very rapidly; if asbestos in any part of this building were discovered it could lead to the closing of this building immediately and indefinitely; and any problem with the 1880s sewerage at the bottom of the building could also close it immediately. Will the Leader of the House therefore make sure that we get on with this immediately, because we are running unnecessary costs and unnecessary risks?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman summarises the points that were made at much greater length in the Committee’s report about the very real challenges in managing risks that there are with the Palace of Westminster building. As I said to the hon. Member for North Antrim, I would hope that we can have a debate as soon as possible.
Mr Speaker
This Kiss a Ginger activity is probably perfectly lawful but I have no plans to partake of it myself. It strikes me as a very rum business altogether; as colleagues can probably tell, I have not the slightest idea about what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was prating, so the matter had to be Googled for me.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
Yesterday, the European Commission took the retrograde decision to restore GSP plus—generalised system of preferences plus—trade status to Sri Lanka. The Commission withdrew that status in 2010 because of concerns about human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan Government. Despite that Government not yet complying with United Nations Human Rights Council resolution 31, and a damning report from the UN Committee Against Torture, the decision has been made. It has still to go through the European Parliament, but may we have a debate in this House to consider the European Commission’s bad decision, which I know is a matter of concern to Members from both sides of the House?
Mr Lidington
I encourage my hon. Friend to apply to the Backbench Business Committee for that debate. I am sure he will acknowledge that the British Government have always been in the front rank of those pressing not only for an end to human rights abuses under the previous Sri Lankan Government, but subsequently for reconciliation and peace-building in Sri Lanka. That was symbolised by the visit by the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, to Jaffna and the north of Sri Lanka during the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference a year or so ago. The British Government’s support for reconciliation and respect for human rights in Sri Lanka is real and continuing.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to all those who contribute to and work in food banks—such as The Gate in Alloa and Broke Not Broken in Kinross in my constituency—throughout the country, particularly over the Christmas period when demand was so high? May we please have a debate in Government time about the worrying and increasing rise in the use of food banks, which all evidence suggests is a direct result of the Government’s attitude to and policies in respect of social security?
Mr Lidington
I agree that we should pay tribute to those who organise and work in food banks. Only since 2010 have Department for Work and Pensions offices been formally encouraged to refer to food banks people in a family crisis and in urgent need; previously, that was forbidden. People use food banks for complex reasons. First, if the hon. Lady looks at the figures she will see that the number of people receiving the key benefits who are subject to a sanction in any one month is very small, and there is not a neat relationship between that and the use of food banks. Secondly, I wish she would acknowledge that the Government’s decision to establish and then increase the national living wage has led to the biggest pay rise for the lowest-paid workers in this country on record.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently point out to the House that a further 33 right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye? Colleagues know that my normal practice is to facilitate everyone who wishes to take part in the business question, and I am keen to sustain that record, but they should be aware that the debate on Yemen is heavily subscribed and some priority has also to be attached to that. In short, we need short questions and short answers if I am not to leave colleagues disappointed.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
May we have a debate on Government support for UK businesses to export? There has been a welcome increase in UK export finance facilities, but we lag behind other competitors on further support to get companies into markets and support for them when they are already there.
Mr Lidington
It is particularly important that we encourage more small and medium-sized businesses to take part in exports—they often do so through supply chains, rather than exporting directly. I shall flag up my hon. Friend’s focus on the subject to the Secretary of State for International Trade, although I suspect the Backbench Business Committee is the best way forward for him.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Ind)
Greater Manchester police are losing control of Rochdale town centre. Not enough priority is being given to policing begging, street drinking, antisocial behaviour and shoplifting. Surely that warrants a debate in Parliament.
Mr Lidington
Those are clearly matters primarily for the area commander, the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner in the hon. Gentleman’s area, but he might be lucky in securing a Westminster Hall or Adjournment debate to make his points in more detail.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
In Labour’s la-la land, nuclear energy has no part to play in the UK’s nuclear energy mix. In fact, the Labour leader said:
“I say no nuclear power, decommission the stations we’ve got”.
May we have a debate sometime soon to establish which is the party of nuclear energy, as nuclear energy creates wealth, jobs and prosperity in Weaver Vale and elsewhere in the north-west of England?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that nuclear energy plays a critical role in ensuring that we have the right energy mix in the future. We have a key area for the nuclear sector in the north-west. Places such as Sellafield and Springfields provide high-quality, well-paid jobs in areas where they are much needed.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Can we have a debate in Government time on the cost of telephone calls to UK Government Departments, particularly in relation to yesterday’s revelation that the Home Office spousal visa helpline is £1.37 a minute over and above network charges? Is it not time that this telephone tax is ended by this Government?
Mr Lidington
I am not aware of the details, but I will ask the relevant Home Office Minister to write to the hon. Gentleman.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
Next week, I will be speaking at an event about energy switching, or should I say lack of energy switching because the majority of consumers do not switch their energy supplier and get a poor deal. May we have a debate about what can be done to engage consumers, such as those in Cannock Chase, in this market?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Record numbers of people have been switching suppliers, but she is right to say that most people stick with the one that they happen to have. It is something that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking at very closely indeed to see what more can be done.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Women face intimidation on a daily basis as they enter the Mattock Lane Marie Stopes pregnancy clinic from protesters who weaponise rosary beads and use gruesome images of foetuses. The police say that existing public order legislation is insufficient to keep the pavement a safe space. Can we have a statement from the Government on establishing buffer zones so that women can be protected in their hour of need, as the group Sister Supporter advocates?
Mr Lidington
Any situation that involves balancing the right of people to assemble and demonstrate peacefully and the right of other people to go about their lawful business will, inevitably, require local police judgment of some sort. There are questions to the Home Secretary on Monday 23 January, which will give the hon. Lady the opportunity to put that point directly to Ministers.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
I am saddened to have to inform the House that my constituent, Rolf Noskwith, passed away last week. Not only was Mr Noskwith a distinguished businessman and generous community benefactor, but he worked alongside Alan Turing as a cryptographer at Bletchley Park. His death reminds us that we are rapidly losing the last of this heroic generation. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in expressing our condolences to his widow and family. Will my right hon. Friend investigate the possibility of establishing a permanent memorial here in Parliament to commemorate the pioneering work of the men and women of Bletchley, whose vital contribution undoubtedly shortened the war by at least two years?
Mr Lidington
I join my hon. Friend in expressing condolences to Mr Noskwith’s family and friends and to salute the vital and secret work that he and so many other men and women did at Bletchley Park during the second world war. They really are the unsung heroes of that period. My hon. Friend may wish to write formally to the House of Commons Commission about a memorial. She will be reassured to know that the Bletchley Park Trust has reconfigured the museum at Bletchley Park so that it is much more of a memorial than it has sometimes been in the past to the heroic work of those men and women.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I understand that my private Member’s Bill is mentioned regularly in the House in business questions and that the Leader of the House’s response is that he is waiting for me to come forward with some costs. We are talking about a private Member’s Bill, which means that there is only me. The Leader of the House has an array of civil servants who are willing and able to provide those figures for him. However, if he wants to let me know in detail what exactly he wants, he can write to me, and I will be happy to provide it—I will try on my own—for him and his civil servants. He must accept that this is the will of this House and that Members, from every part of this country and from right across this House, gave up their Friday surgeries to be in the Chamber when the Bill was debated. Will he stop trying to prevent the passage of this Bill and let me know when he will put it into Committee and come forward with a money resolution?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Lady is sincere, as always, in speaking up for her private Member’s Bill, but it is also the case that the Bill was published, I think, only two or three days before it was introduced, and there was no memorandum of costs associated with it. Frankly, it is also the case—[Interruption.] She is sincere in her championship. The Bill is not exactly a disinterested initiative, but a deliberate effort to try to ensure that we have very unequal-sized constituencies. As I have said before, the Government are continuing to consider the financial implications of her Bill.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
May we please have a debate on immigration policy? That would give the Government the opportunity to explain what progress they are making on meeting the immigration target. Of course, it would give Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition an opportunity to explain what their policy is.
Mr Lidington
Yes; my hon. Friend will have an opportunity to pursue Home Office Ministers on Monday 23 January. I fear that, even during a whole day’s debate, getting a reliable policy out of the Leader of the Opposition might be beyond us.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
First, I wish the Leader of the House a happy new year and welcome the Hendry report on tidal energy.
May we have a debate in Government time on transmission lines? Low-carbon 21st-century energy comes from wind, civil nuclear and tidal power situated in coastal areas, which are sensitive. However, National Grid proposes only one system: pylons, which are 1950s technology. We want 21st-century technology for 21st-century low-carbon energy. May we have a debate on National Grid and its role in disregarding the will of many communities?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point that I know matters to a lot of people living in rural areas in particular, and coastal areas too. I would encourage him to seek a Westminster Hall debate. There are also questions next week to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which might give him an additional peg on which to hang those arguments.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
On Saturday, I took part in the Corby park run, which is brilliantly organised week in, week out by Paul Humphreys and his brilliant team. They are also fundraising for a new defibrillator in West Glebe Park. May we have a debate next week to recognise the enormous community contribution that park runs make across the country, and also to say a huge thank you to all those who give up their free time to organise them?
Mr Lidington
I cannot offer a debate in Government time. My hon. Friend is right to salute the importance of the park run movement as an entirely voluntary body that has energised, in more than one sense, thousands of people around the country to get more active and fitter in the way that every doctor would recommend. Also, as he says of Corby, it has helped to raise significant sums of money for charities.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
Teachers at Whitehaven Academy in west Cumbria have been striking over the crumbling buildings and meagre resources. In 2010, the Government scrapped the Building Schools for the Future programme, under which Whitehaven Academy was to get significant funding. Netherhall and Millom schools are also waiting for funding. Will the Secretary of State for Education make a statement to the House about exactly how the Government are going to sort out this mess so that Cumbrian children can have the education they deserve?
Mr Lidington
I will ask the Education Secretary or one of her team to write to the hon. Lady about that particular issue. I am sure that the hon. Lady would welcome the fact that the national funding formula for schools will ensure a fairer distribution of available resources than has been the case in the past.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. In order to try to accommodate everybody, might I suggest that we now move to single-sentence questions and, of course, pithy replies?
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Mr Speaker, may I use your good offices to remind colleagues that we debate Holocaust Memorial Day next week? The book of commitment is open from Monday for two weeks, thanks to your good offices, Mr Speaker, in the corridor between the Members’ Staircase and the Members’ Cloakroom.
I also ask that we have a statement following Sunday’s conference on the middle east in Paris. Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions went on far longer this week because the Government did not give a statement or respond to an urgent question on the subject. It would be far better to have a statement in Government time on the outcome of that conference.
Mr Lidington
It will be for Foreign Office Ministers to hear my hon. Friend’s comments and to decide whether they can offer a statement. I am sure that, as in previous years, many hon. Members from all parties will want to sign the Holocaust remembrance book.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
Can we have a further debate on the crisis in social care? Today, Nottingham University hospitals have more than 200 patients who are medically safe to be discharged, but cannot be. Is it any wonder that Nottingham University hospital is on black alert yet again and that Nottinghamshire County Council is calling on the Government to take some action? When are the Government going to wake up to this crisis?
Mr Lidington
While it is undoubtedly true that there are pressures on the national health service and on social care at this time, the Government have acted through the better care fund and the social care precept and, most recently, by bringing forward £900 million of additional spending to give local authorities additional resources. It is also the case that there is a lot of local variation. More than half of the delayed discharges in our hospitals relate to just 24 local authorities, so it is also a case of disseminating best practice and embedding that everywhere in the country.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Late last year, the Government confirmed that this House would be presented with a plan on how the Government will begin their process of exiting the European Union. Will my right hon. Friend outline the potential processes by which this House will be engaged on that plan?
Mr Lidington
I am sure that there will be opportunities for that plan to be debated here. I am sure, too, that when that is published, the relevant Select Committees will probably want to take a look at it. I do not think my hon. Friend will be disappointed regarding parliamentary scrutiny.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
A Government reason for the closure of Dungavel immigration removal centre is that it will lessen the use of police cells, yet it turns out that the Home Office does not hold information on how many times police cells are used. Can we have a debate in Government time about the farcical ongoing estate management reviews?
Mr Lidington
The current state of affairs regarding Dungavel is that the planning application for the new facility that would replace it was refused by Renfrewshire planning committee in November last year. Dungavel will remain open. Its future is dependent on a successful planning application for the new short-term holding facility.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Can we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary on his assessment of the credibility of the allegations made in the dossier about President-elect Trump? It is clear that the UK Government have a great deal of knowledge about these things. The dossier was written in the UK, and the UK Government have placed and lifted a D notice on the former MI6 officer who wrote the allegations. We had a warning before Christmas from the head of MI6 about hostile states attempting to subvert western democratic processes. Can we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary on what action he is taking to prevent us and our NATO allies from being subject to cyber-attacks and propaganda attacks from hostile states?
Mr Lidington
The Foreign Secretary and, indeed, the Prime Minister have repeatedly made clear their concerns about the cyber-capacity and cyber-tactics of Russia and other countries with regard to the interests of the United Kingdom. The hon. Lady will understand that I cannot go into details about these matters, but the issues are considered regularly by the National Security Council.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Can we have a statement from the Government about the increased role of the Ministry of Defence police in undertaking duties in civilian areas outside Faslane and Coulport, to establish who took the decision, why it was made, whether these officers are armed and under what chain of command they operate?
Mr Lidington
I was checking whether Defence questions were coming up next week, and since they are not, I will ask the relevant Defence Minister to write to the hon. Gentleman.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The Leader of the House is in denial. We need a debate, which needs to be led by the Prime Minister, so that we can ask her very pertinent questions about what she is doing about the NHS. For instance, Simon Stevens yesterday said that it was obviously “stretching” the truth to say that the NHS had got more than it had asked for, and we are spending less than other developed countries. Those are the types of issues we need to ask questions about, and that is why the Prime Minister needs to be here. The NHS is in crisis, and the Government are doing nothing about it.
Mr Lidington
The Government are actually meeting the spending commitment that the NHS wanted to support its plan. Yes, there are pressures—nobody denies that—but since 2010 we have seen significant increases in the number of doctors, nurses, diagnostic tests and A&E attendances and treatments. There is real improvement, and we should pay tribute to the NHS staff who are delivering that.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Can we have a debate about how the Government could take a more proactive role to preserve banking and post office services on our local high streets? In the space of two years, the Bank of Scotland has closed one branch in my constituency, and the Royal Bank of Scotland will have closed three. We have had announcements this week that four post offices are under threat across Scotland, and I am very conscious, given the experience in my constituency, of the burden falling on small convenience store managers and shop owners and of the lack of service to customers and small business.
Mr Lidington
My understanding is that the Post Office proposes that the Crown post offices that it closes will instead become sub-post offices, or sub-post offices on a franchise basis will continue in those communities. It is the provision of the service that seems to me to be important. It is right that there should be full consultation with local communities about any of these proposed closures, but it is also a reality that more and more of our constituents are using online banking services, and that is bound to have an impact on the economic viability of branch networks.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Can we have an urgent statement from the energy Minister on the forthcoming industrial action in the nuclear industry, which is a direct result of the Government’s betrayal of workers in that industry, despite the amendments that the Opposition put down to the Enterprise Bill and despite the promises that were made at the time of privatisation?
Mr Lidington
I cannot offer the promise of a statement, but this may be something the hon. Gentleman wishes to seek an Adjournment debate on.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Following on from the question asked by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), can the postal services Minister give a statement on the Government’s role in the Post Office and its future? I received a letter this week saying that Morningside post office would be closed and franchised. It is a very profitable and well-used post office, and that closure should be stopped. Can we have a statement about what the Government are going to do about these closures?
Mr Lidington
There is, as with all such proposals, a process that the Post Office operates for consultation and decision. I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to use that opportunity on behalf of his constituents. However, it is also the case that the vast majority, some 97%, of the Post Office’s branches around the country are already operated on the basis that they are sub-post offices—independent businesses with a post office franchise.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Can we have a statement on the unlawful implementation of various provisions of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, including its use regarding internet connection records and bulk personal data sets, following the ruling by the European Court of Justice that general and indiscriminate retention of emails and communications by Governments is illegal—a point made frequently and at length by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and I during the Act’s progress through the House?
Mr Lidington
The Government are considering their response to that judgment, but it is certainly the view of those who serve us in the security and intelligence agencies that the ability to collect bulk data is of vital importance in the continuing battle against terrorism.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
May we have a debate on the excellent report by the Defence Committee on decision making in defence policy? In particular, it notes the lack of understanding of military strategy among key decision makers. May we have a debate on military strategy that will allow us to look at issues such as whether forward deployment of personnel represents deterrence or provocation?
Mr Lidington
We would welcome the possibility of a debate, perhaps through the Backbench Business Committee. The forward deployment of UK forces as part of NATO contingents in Estonia and in Poland is all about deterrence and solidarity with a NATO ally. NATO is an organisation that Clem Attlee and Ernie Bevin helped to create. I look forward to the day when we have a Labour leadership that again gives full-hearted support to NATO.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Government have talked out three out of four SNP private Members’ Bills, their treatment of the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) is completely appalling, and their response to the Procedure Committee’s report is as inadequate as the system itself. They did accept, however, that there should be a change to Standing Orders to require private Members’ Bills to be published slightly earlier than currently. When will they give us time to debate that proposal?
Mr Lidington
We are looking at a number of proposed changes to Standing Orders, many of which have come from the Procedure Committee and some from other Committees of the House. It will probably be for the convenience of the House if we can find an opportunity to deal with all those as a block rather than considering them piecemeal, so that is the kind of arrangement I am hoping to secure.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I am very sorry to be called so late on Kiss a Ginger Day, Mr Speaker. We only get one day a year, after all—I am wondering whether you might be colour-blind.
May we have a debate on the future of our parks funding? Graves park in my constituency receives EU higher-level stewardship funding because of its high value regarding nature conservation, and the park’s budget has already been under serious pressure because of slashed local authority funding. I would be grateful if we could have a debate on this in Government time.
Mr Lidington
Questions to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers next Thursday or questions to Communities and Local Government Ministers next Monday might provide an opportunity to raise that matter. Clearly the future of stewardship funding is one of the matters that the Government are considering in the context of the negotiations overall.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Dozens of my constituents in Blantyre have complained to me about being mis-sold solar panels by Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Systems under the Government’s green deal programme. By way of an answer to a written parliamentary question, I have learned that that company, which has since gone into liquidation, was sanctioned by the Government in November 2015 for breaches of the green deal code of practice. May we have a statement from the Government on what support they will offer to my constituents who have been left struggling to pay their electricity bills which, in some cases, have tripled?
Mr Lidington
There is a risk in any system that somebody might seek to abuse it. I suggest that the hon. Lady writes either to me or directly to the Minister responsible for these matters setting out the detail of what has happened to her constituents to try to secure a more detailed response to their concerns.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
As a brown-haired Member of the House, I am delighted to be the last Labour Member to be called.
The Leader of the House has already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) about her Bill. She has offered support in relation to whatever problems he has, and he is now saying that it is an issue of time. By anyone’s maths, if the Bill was published only three days before it was supported in this House, that is eight weeks and two days ago. Will he clearly explain what the problem is with bringing this Bill into Committee, or is it that there are problems on his own Back Benches because it had too much support from Conservative Members?
Mr Lidington
As I said earlier, the Government continue to consider the financial implications of the Bill.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Leader of the House has been asked twice for an important debate about the Post Office. The Government cannot simply wash their hands of the matter. The general post office in my Dundee constituency has been in the centre of town for almost a century but is set to close, and arguments for a sub-post office are simply not good enough. Furthermore, many pensioners do not go online to do their banking or to check their pensions, so may I ask the Leader of the House, for the third time, for an urgent debate on the very serious matter of closing post offices?
Mr Lidington
I think that the key concern of pensioners and others in the hon. Gentleman’s Dundee constituency would surely be whether they continue to have access to the post office services that they need. Whether those are provided via a Crown post office or through a franchised sub-post office is a separate issue; it is the quality and accessibility of the service that should surely come first.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
May we have a debate in Government time on the future and current performance of UK Border Force at airports? According to the Tourism Industry Council, if the 23 million EU nationals who visit every year are subject to full border checks, staffing would have to increase by 200%—and that is on top of current failures. What are the Government’s plans?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman will be able to make that point to the Home Secretary during Home Office questions on 23 January.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The plight of religious minorities such as the Yazidi people, who are subject to terrible conditions under Daesh, including sexual slavery, should be a primary consideration for us all. Will the Government make a statement on what more we will do and on whether we will institute programmes such as that operating in Baden-Württemberg in Germany to support those people at their time of terrible need?
Mr Lidington
We are providing an enormous amount of support—almost £2.5 billion—to ease the humanitarian crisis in Syria and neighbouring countries. That is helping people in the region, including Yazidi refugees. Our resettlement schemes are also giving as much priority as possible to people who have been victims or who are at risk of sexual abuse, and to women and children who are particularly vulnerable. Clearly we always look actively at other ways in which we can help those people. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has responsibility for the middle east, is sitting alongside me on the Front Bench and he will have heard the points made by the hon. Lady.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
There cannot be much that cheapens the honours system more than dishing out gongs to people who have been found by a UN committee to have breached human rights, including those of disabled people. I am talking not of a despotic regime, but of two senior civil servants at the Department for Work and Pensions. With that in mind, will the Leader of the House facilitate a debate on how we can reform the honours system?
Mr Lidington
No. The Government have already made it clear that we regard the report from that particular UN committee as a grotesque misrepresentation of the state of affairs in the United Kingdom. For one thing, it took no account of our very successful record in getting a record number of disabled people into work, or of the support programmes for disabled people who are in work.
Women in the House of Commons
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
We now come to the Select Committee statement. The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and, of course, call Mrs Maria Miller to respond to them in turn. Members can expect to be called only once. Interventions should be questions, and should be brief. Those on the Front Bench may take part in questioning. I remind the House that ordinarily such a statement, and the questioning on it, can be expected to take, in total, approximately 20 minutes.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to make a statement to the House on the fifth report of the Women and Equalities Committee on women in the House of Commons after the next general election, in 2020. The successful preparation of all our reports depends on the hard work of the Committee’s Clerks and staff, the diligence of hon. Members who make up our Committee—I am glad to see my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) and for Bath (Ben Howlett) in the Chamber—and the generosity of our witnesses, who give up their time to prepare for and take part in our sessions. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), the right hon. Members for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Moray (Angus Robertson), and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), all of whom enthusiastically shared their views with the Committee and told us about the work of their respective parties.
If, 100 years ago, the suffragettes who fought for women’s rights—for our right to be elected and to sit in this place—had been told that just 455 women would be elected to this place over the next 10 decades, I am not sure whether they would have laughed or cried. I think they would be proud of the fact that the United Kingdom has had two female Prime Ministers, but the fact is that there are as many men sitting in this place today as there have ever been women elected to be Members of Parliament.
At the moment, we have 195 women MPs and 455 men. I am yet to see any evidence to suggest that women are less qualified than men to represent their communities, or that women do not want the opportunity to be a Member of Parliament and to improve the lives of those who live in their community. Therefore, this startling imbalance should cause us all a great deal of concern. At best we are failing to reach out; at worst the parties, which are, for the most part, responsible for selecting candidates, are failing in their duty. The Committee’s report provides an evidence-based set of recommendations to change that, to help to ensure that Britain does not slip further down the global rankings for female parliamentary participation, to promote a more representative Parliament and to make this place stronger.
Our report has consciously focused on female representation, but our recommendations should, we feel, also open up discussions about how to secure improved diversity in other areas so that we have a Parliament with more black and minority ethnic representation and more disabled members. All that will help to ensure that the debates that we have and the laws that we make are better. Of course, the report builds on significant work that has already been done on representation in Parliament, such as the 2010 report of the Speaker’s Conference on parliamentary representation —convened by you, Mr Speaker—and the comprehensive work done by Professor Sarah Childs, who produced “The Good Parliament”.
The trigger for the Committee’s new report was the Boundary Commission’s initial proposals about reducing the size of Parliament to 600 constituencies. There is no reason why that process should adversely impact women or any particular group, but the proposals mean that the seats of more than 20 women MPs would, to all intents and purposes, disappear. If political parties do not take action, it could mean that there is a smaller proportion of women MPs after the next general election.
The Committee’s recommendations are for the Government, political parties and, indeed, Parliament, because we all have to take responsibility. The first of our key recommendations is for more transparency from parties about the work that they are doing to improve candidate selection. We feel that the Government should immediately bring into force the statutory requirement for political parties to publish their parliamentary candidate diversity data for general elections, as set out in section 106 of the Equality Act 2010, so that we can properly scrutinise parties’ records of selecting a diverse slate of parliamentary candidates.
Secondly, we recommend that the Government should seek to introduce in legislation in this Parliament a statutory minimum proportion of female parliamentary candidates in general elections for each political party. We have proposed a minimum of 45% of women. This measure would be brought into force only if the number and proportion of women MPs failed to increase significantly after the next general election.
Thirdly, we have set out in our recommendations a domestic target of 45% for the representation of women in Parliament and local government by 2030. That is to inform the work being done by the Office for National Statistics to establish domestic indicators for the UN sustainable development goals—particularly goal 5, an indicator for which my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) and David Cameron fought hard when these goals, which apply to the UK as well as to other members of the UN, were established. To make progress, the measures need to have teeth, so the Committee has recommended the extension of the Electoral Commission’s remit to introduce fines for non-compliance.
In our evidence sessions with the chairman and leaders of the political parties, it was evident that there is enormous support for a more representative Parliament. Indeed, each of them agreed that Parliament would be a better place if 50% of MPs were women. However, we need to turn those warm sentiments into bums on seats—I hope that that is not unparliamentary language. The parties lack clear and comprehensive plans to turn those important warm words into clear action.
This Parliament is the mother of all Parliaments, but at the moment, on our watch, we are letting ourselves down on the global stage. Since 1999, Britain has fallen from 25th to 48th in the world for female representation. Parliament should have a clear aspiration to be the global leader for female representation and diversity more generally. The recommendations in the report can help us to achieve that.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the Women and Equalities Committee for this important report. The Labour party is committed to increasing the representation of women in Parliament and at every level of politics. As the report recognises, more than half of women Members of Parliament are Labour Members—women make up 43.7% of the parliamentary Labour party. Much of that is to do with Labour’s commitment to all-women shortlists. Does the right hon. Lady think that other parties should introduce all-women shortlists for their parliamentary selections? Does she agree that parties that are not already taking direct positive action to tackle the under-representation of women in Parliament should do so as a matter of urgency?
Mrs Miller
The parties should look at the evidence of what works. Our report clearly states that there is a body of evidence that parties can look at. It is not for a Select Committee to dictate to parliamentary parties how they run their selection procedures. That is for them, but they should also consider the evidence.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Recalling that the Labour party lost one of its safest seats—Blaenau Gwent—in 2005 over the imposition of a women-only shortlist, what role does my right hon. Friend see for local associations in choosing the candidate who is best for the area, or for voters in deciding to vote for the person they think is the best to represent that area, irrespective of gender?
Mrs Miller
I thank my hon. Friend and fellow Select Committee member for that question. He is right that associations or local parties have a huge role to play in ensuring that they get the right person for the job in their area. However, it is surprising that just one in four candidates at the last general election was female. Perhaps we need to ensure that the right training and support are in place so that there is a diversity of candidates for associations and parties to choose from.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Scottish National party welcomes the publication of the report and we are grateful for being able to contribute in the Select Committee. We firmly believe that all political parties should be held to account for their action to tackle this democratic deficit. It is simply not acceptable in 2017 for women to be discriminated against or under-represented in the boardroom, in politics or anywhere else.
The SNP is committed to increasing the number of female elected representatives. For example, we have increased the number of women Members of Parliament and Members of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government’s gender-balanced Cabinet is one of the few in the world. The SNP Scottish Government are also taking decisive action to ensure that women are represented in senior and decision-making roles, including in the boardroom. Our “Programme for Government” contains many ambitious commitments that support women’s equality. Are the UK Government considering similar measures? When will they bring them to fruition?
Mrs Miller
The recommendations in our report are for the Government to consider. It is important that significant progress is made at the next general election, at which 45% of candidates should be female. The hon. Lady mentioned equal representation in Cabinets. I was heartened that Justin Trudeau had a gender-balanced Cabinet when he became premier in Canada and that he said, “What do you expect in 2016?” I think that we should ask, “What do we expect in 2017?”
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentioned the excellent report by Professor Sarah Childs. Does she agree that some of its recommendations would also help to bring more women into Parliament?
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are building on firm foundations. Parliament has to look carefully at its operation to ensure that it is doing everything it can to encourage more women to come forward. Historically, we have looked very closely at childcare and family-friendly working. We should also be looking very carefully at how the dissuading effects—the violence and online abuse that female Members experience—can put people off. They are just as important and the House needs to take them very seriously.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
When John Bright first coined the term “the mother of Parliaments” he was saying that even England, the mother of Parliaments, had still not brought full democracy to the country because the vast majority of its people were not able to vote. We are coming up to the 100th anniversary of some women, in 1918, being allowed to vote. Is not one of the biggest problems finance? Many women are still paid less than men, and working-class candidates still find it difficult to get selected, because it is a very expensive business.
Mrs Miller
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This came out in relation to fairer child support. The cost of becoming a Member of Parliament can be very steep indeed and is therefore out of the reach of some people, whether they are male or female. The parties need to think carefully about whether they can lessen the obstacles that they put in the way of candidates, whether through financial support or other measures. I know that my own party, the Conservative party, has looked at that very carefully and provided practical help.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I basically back what my right hon. Friend is aiming for, but with caution on one or two issues. Does she accept that at some stage the number of women MPs had to match the number of men still in Parliament? It was only some 30 years ago, when my wife was elected, that fewer than 5% of MPs were female. To reach nearly 30% is quite some progress, and I am glad we have met the equality my right hon. Friend has spoken about.
It is important not to think that the Government should require parties and Parliament to do things; Parliament and parties should require the Government to do things. One of those things is not putting people into Parliament, but giving people the opportunities and experience so that they can, with the necessary luck, be chosen on merit.
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend makes some interesting points. His wife, of course, was one of my role models when I looked at Parliament and saw the effective nature of women and the work they did here. The University of London only started to admit women in 1878, but now more than 50% of its students are female. Other institutions have made the journey more successfully than we have, so it is right that we ask questions about why progress has not been made more quickly.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
As national secretary of the Scottish National party until the end of the last year, I saw the successes but also the struggles that come with implementing all-women shortlists. In some cases, despite having the requirement, we struggled to find women candidates. What more does the right hon. Lady think can be done at that formative point at which people might become candidates, for example in terms of work experience with local politicians, standing for a local council or taking on responsibilities at a local party level?
Mrs Miller
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the work needs to go in early. I applaud 50:50 Parliament’s work and its current campaign #AskHerToStand. Many hon. Ladies here today will know that it often takes asking women to stand for Parliament before they do so. Such early work, particularly standing for local government, can be an effective way of building people’s confidence to take this on as a career choice.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend have any concerns that a man from a working-class background could be discriminated against if all the proposals and recommendations contained in her report are accepted?
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Speaking as someone who was born in a council house and went to a comprehensive school, I do not want to see this place becoming populated by an unrepresentative group of people, but it is unrepresentative at the moment. We have to take some tough decisions, rather than failing to take action because of the threat that some groups might feel discriminated against, to put right what is a real injustice in terms of female representation.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for her statement and the hard work she does in leading our Committee. The UK has signed up to the universal UN sustainable development goals, in which the international community vowed to leave no one behind. While African nations have achieved over 50% female representation, it is embarrassing that in our Parliament that figure is only 30%. Will she join me in calling on the Department for International Development to focus on parliamentary representation as it publishes its SDG implementation plan?
Mrs Miller
I thank my hon. Friend and fellow Committee member for his comment. As he knows, we heard yesterday in our evidence session on the SDGs that the credibility of our country will be in jeopardy if we do not do more to implement those goals, particularly goal 5, which was fought for so hard by my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney and David Cameron. Part of that is about ensuring that we make significant improvements in parliamentary representation.
Points of Order
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have heard you on occasion, Sir, advise Ministers at the Dispatch Box to address the House, not their own Back Benchers. I wonder whether you have noticed that the Leader of the House has developed an unfortunate habit of staring either at the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) or vacantly into space when answering questions from the quarter of the House where Scottish National party Members sit. There is an issue here not only of audibility but of non-verbal communication. For example, when the Leader of the House was unable to distinguish between a 94% performance in accident and emergency in Scotland, compared with 88% in England, had he been looking our way, he would have seen SNP Members shaking their heads. When he made an unfounded allegation about the conduct of the Scottish referendum campaign, which was impeccable, he would have seen us laughing at him. I do not want to pick out the Leader of the House in particular, but perhaps you could encourage all Ministers to do Members the courtesy of responding to them when being asked questions in debates and statements.
Mr Speaker
My first point is that statements made in the Chamber should always be communicated through the Chair. The second is that people speaking from the Dispatch Box should address and, in so doing, look at the House, rather than behind them at the Member to whom they might be responding. Beyond that I will not venture. If I were uncharitable, I would imagine that the right hon. Gentleman was seeking, against all precedent and expectation of him, to propagandise, but because I am not uncharitable, I cannot imagine that he was seeking to do anything of the kind.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you are a staunch defender of Back-Bench Members’ rights, so may I ask your advice? A Government proposal to site an asylum hostel in my constituency has caused great angst and concern there. It is an inappropriate place. It is the wrong decision. In connection with that, I have been pursuing questions with the Minister for Immigration. The Government seem to have taken a decision to put these hostels in mostly Labour areas. I have been trying to ascertain in which constituencies the hostels are being sited. The Minister has replied several times, but his last reply said that he could not give me the individual locations for the safety of the asylum seekers. That is odd because on Monday night Halton Borough Council will be considering the planning application for the asylum hostel, which has gone through full public consultation. I cannot see, therefore, how the Minister can give such an answer. I have tabled a further question to the Minister. If he still refuses to answer, given the information I have put before the House today, what advice would you give me, Mr Speaker?
Mr Speaker
Off the top of my head, my advice is as follows. My principal suggestion is that the hon. Gentleman go to the Table Office and seek its advice on the nature and terms of the questions to be tabled. [Interruption.] He mutters, I think, that he has already done that.
Mr Speaker
If that has not availed him, I am disappointed to hear it. Having had no prior notification of this matter, and therefore off the top of my head, I have two further thoughts. One is that the hon. Gentleman can, without delay, seek an Adjournment debate with the relevant Minister, in which he would have a face-to-face opportunity, over a decent period, to probe the Minister with the relentlessness and tenacity for which he is renowned in all parts of the House. Secondly, he can use freedom of information opportunities to try to ascertain the facts that he wants to ascertain. I have a hunch that, if neither of those approaches helps, he will be raising his concern with me on the Floor again.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Momentarily, I felt moved to be charitable. I always thought that when I addressed the Chair, I was addressing the House—and, if I may say so, my pleasure in so doing is magnified when I address the Chair and you, Sir, are occupying it. [Laughter.]
Mr Speaker
Well! My cup runneth over. To be complimented by a parliamentarian of the repute of the right hon. Gentleman really does cause me, for the rest of the day, to go about my business with an additional glint in my eye and a spring in my step.
Mr Speaker
And possibly two inches taller. I am a happy man indeed. I have always liked the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), in the 20 years I have known him, and I like him even more now.
Mr Speaker
I think the hon. Gentleman had better watch himself a little bit with the Deputy Speakers in the coming days.
Backbench Business
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Yemen
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the impact of the conflict on civilians; condemns any breach of international humanitarian law; and calls for an urgent independent investigation into reports of breaches of international humanitarian law on both sides of the conflict.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this very important and timely debate. It is good to see members of all parties in the Chamber. I pay tribute to those who have worked on Yemen for much longer than I have; my interest has arisen over the past year or so, as a result of my role as Chair of the International Development Committee.
I shall focus first on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and then on the specific issue raised in the motion: the alleged violations of international humanitarian law by those on all sides. I shall not address the specific matter of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as I know that my friend and co-sponsor of the motion, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White)—who chairs the Committees on Arms Export Controls—will address that important issue if he catches your eye, Mr Speaker.
The Yemen conflict began early in 2015, less than two years ago, but it has its roots in the Arab spring of 2011. When Ali Abdullah Saleh was succeeded by President Hadi, the Houthi movement took advantage of the new President’s weakness, took control of parts of northern Yemen and later took the capital, Sana’a. From there the conflict intensified, with the intervention in 2015 of the Saudi Arabian-led coalition, backed by United States, United Kingdom and French intelligence, and on the other side the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran.
Yemen has been called the forgotten crisis—for example, by Amnesty International—but it is a crisis that we surely cannot ignore. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said that the intensity and severity of the fighting in Yemen has left the country looking as Syria did after five years of conflict. It is estimated that since the conflict began nearly 10,000 people have been killed, roughly 4,000 civilians have lost their lives and 37,000 have been injured, which amounts to an average of 75 deaths or injuries on each day of the conflict. Surely, we cannot allow that to continue.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and his Committee for the work that they have done on Yemen, and, indeed, to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White),
The issue here is not just the scorecard of shame to which my hon. Friend has referred, but the granting of access to those amazing aid organisations. Does he agree that the most important aspect of what we are discussing today is the need for a ceasefire, which will allow the aid to get through?
Stephen Twigg
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s own long-standing work on the issue and to the work of the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen. He is absolutely right to say that a ceasefire is crucial, and I shall come on to access for humanitarian organisations.
At the end of 2015, the International Development Committee decided to conduct an inquiry into the crisis. Last year, we published two reports on Yemen. The first, which we produced on our own, related specifically to the humanitarian crisis, and the second was produced in conjunction with the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, through the work of the Committees on Arms Export Controls. One of the recommendations in our first report was that the UK Government should put pressure on all parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law. That includes, very importantly, measures to protect civilians and, as we have been reminded by my right hon. Friend, to allow humanitarian agencies a safe space in which to operate.
The humanitarian situation is grave. Our own Government have described the crisis in Yemen as one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world. The United Nations estimates that more than 80% of the population—more than 20 million people—are in immediate need of humanitarian assistance. Fourteen million people face food shortages, 19 million have no access to safe drinking water, and more than 3 million have had to flee their homes because of the conflict. The situation is particularly dire for children: the United Nations has estimated that eight children are killed or maimed every day in Yemen and that nearly 50% of school-age children are not at school.
The situation is exacerbated by the difficulty of gaining access for imports of essential supplies such as energy, food and medicine. That fuels the humanitarian crisis. Supplies are filtering through to the country more quickly than they were six months ago, and that progress is obviously welcome, but levels remain significantly below those of March 2015. Not only is that damaging the economy, but any further changes in the availability of food will pose a risk of famine. It is to DFID’s credit—I am pleased to see that the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), is present—that it is putting more than £100 million into Yemen to help to relieve some of the most pressing humanitarian challenges. The UK is the fourth largest donor to Yemen, and we are leading the way in many respects, as we so often do in humanitarian crises, but we need to do more to press other countries to fund relief.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
If DFID is giving £100 million to Yemen—I totally support that—what is happening to the money? Presumably, it is blocked, because we cannot get through to the people who really need it. I suppose that it is in some bank or food store somewhere.
Stephen Twigg
The situation varies in different parts of the country, but I remember that when the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne)—who is sitting next to the hon. Gentleman—was a DFID Minister, we discussed this issue when he appeared before the Select Committee nearly a year ago to give evidence. One of the challenges is precisely the one of which the hon. Gentleman has reminded us: securing access within the country, so that the aid can get through. The UK does not necessarily need to spend more money, but we should do our utmost to get the aid through. That brings us on to the challenges of achieving a ceasefire but also political progress in Yemen.
Even in the present challenging circumstances, DFID is working to improve food and water security and to provide emergency resilience for those who are most at risk. Unfortunately, the organisations that have been, and in some cases still are, on the ground helping to alleviate the humanitarian situation have told the Select Committee that their work has been threatened by the conflict. Since March 2015, 13 health workers have died and 31 have been injured. The World Health Organisation tells us that more than 70 health centres have been damaged or destroyed completely and that more than 600 have closed owing to damage or shortage of supplies or staff. Last year, the non-governmental organisation, Doctors of the World, withdrew from Yemen because it simply could not guarantee the safety of its volunteers on the ground. A number of non-governmental organisations have told us that the humanitarian space in Yemen is shrinking, making it even more difficult for them to carry out their work. All sides in the conflict need to comply with international humanitarian law, and one of the ways they should do so is to ensure humanitarian organisations can work unimpeded in Yemen.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that attacks on humanitarian operations have occurred on both sides, including by the Saudi-led coalition sometimes even when co-ordinates have been provided? On 27 October 2015 it was reported that there had been an attack on a Médecins sans Frontières hospital, even though the co-ordinates had been provided to the coalition two weeks before.
Stephen Twigg
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done on this issue and agree entirely with what he says, which brings me to the second part of my speech.
The second major recommendation that came out of both reports—it was also recommended by the Foreign Affairs Committee report, which disagreed with us on the question of arms sales but agreed with us on this issue—is that there must be an independent, United Nations-led investigation of alleged violations of international humanitarian law by both sides in this conflict.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
I just want to make the point that not all Foreign Affairs Committee members disagreed with the report; a minority agreed with it.
Stephen Twigg
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and pay tribute to her for her long-standing interest in, and activity on, these issues, not least her active participation in the Committees on Arms Export Controls, which I believe perform a vital function and should continue.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I had not intended to intervene at this point, but as the FAC report has been mentioned, is it not a fact that all three reports—those of the Business, Innovation and Skills, the International Development and the Foreign Affairs Committees—were agreed by majority votes?
Stephen Twigg
I believe that is the case; certainly ours was agreed by a majority vote. I thought that my hon. Friend was going to make the different point that all three reports are in support of this motion. I am not aware of any of those voting in the minority in any of those three Committees doing so because they disagreed with this recommendation. I hope that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington and I have framed a motion that can enjoy support across the House, because it focuses on the issue of an independent investigation.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Chairman of our Select Committee will recall that when we took that vote—my decision is on record—it was my particular concern that the independent investigation take place. I feel strongly about that and want to put it on record today.
Stephen Twigg
I thank the hon. Lady, who is an assiduous member of the International Development Committee. I do indeed recall that her focus was very much on needing to see the independent investigation first, and that was why she voted in the way she did. However, we all agreed across the Committee that there should be an independent international investigation, and that, indeed, featured in our first report as well as the second.
Let me now focus on the proposal for an investigation that is independent and international. In May 2015, at the beginning of the conflict, Human Rights Watch accused the Houthi rebels of violations of international law in the southern seaport city of Aden; the crimes highlighted included the killing of civilians and the arrest of aid workers at gunpoint. Since then the Houthis have been accused of a range of other violations of international humanitarian law, such as the prevention of the import of basic commodities, as well as medicine, propane, and oxygen cylinders, into the besieged city of Taiz.
A United Nations expert panel has documented 185 alleged abuses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) reminded us, Médecins sans Frontières, which often works in the most difficult and challenging humanitarian situations, suffered attacks on three hospitals in three months. In September 2016, the Yemen Data Project reported that one third of all Saudi-led raids on Yemen have hit civilian sites, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has estimated that 66% of all civilian deaths in Yemen have been caused by Saudi-led air strikes.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I agree with my hon. Friend and concur with his point, but the UN panel also said that the problem facing the Saudi coalition and the Gulf Co-operation Council countries was that the Houthi rebels are operating in urban areas and against international law; they are effectively using civilians as human shields. There are problems with Saudi air strikes—they are killing civilians—but that point helps provide a more balanced picture of how this is occurring.
Stephen Twigg
Yes, indeed. I was seeking to be absolutely balanced in making the point that very serious allegations have been made against the Houthis, and I gave just two examples—one from Aden and one from Taiz—but I reiterate the point of the UN panel that there have been 185 alleged abuses. I very deliberately say alleged abuses; that is why this motion argues for an independent investigation into all of those alleged abuses.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
I am concerned that, as usual in these debates, I will not have enough time to answer all the questions asked, although I will do my best. I did not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s speech, from which the House is learning a lot, and I hope he will concede that we take every report seriously, but the panel of experts that put the report together did not actually visit the country. We need to take account of that context when monitoring and understanding what is going on. I am not saying that we should ignore the report, but it is being used here today as if somehow we should add value to it. They did not enter the country; they were not able to provide the necessary intelligence that we would expect from a panel of UN experts.
Stephen Twigg
Surely they did not enter the country because of the challenges that I have been describing; they did not wilfully decide, “We’re not going to bother going”, and just come up with the figure of 185. This was based on serious research and work done by the United Nations and I am disappointed that the Minister is so dismissive of that.
Mr Ellwood
This is important, because the lines “There are 105” or “There are over 100” do get used. The Ministry of Defence has looked at every single one of the allegations, and we have asked for more information on a number of them. I am sorry to labour the point, but to offer clarification and give information to the House, the assessment was made by aerial photography with months in between, and therefore we cannot ascertain what has happened unless we have more information as to whether these acts of atrocity were caused by the Houthis or the coalition. That is the point I am trying to make.
Stephen Twigg
I agree with that, and that is precisely why the motion says we should have a fully independent international investigation into all allegations against “both sides”. It may well be that some of these violations have been committed by the Houthis. I did not say that there were 105 alleged abuses by the Saudi-led coalition; there are alleged abuses by it, and there are alleged abuses by the Houthis as well.
Graham Jones
I should say in support of my hon. Friend that the UN panel was blocked from entering the country by the Houthis. The panel explains that in the report and points out that it tried everything to get in. Furthermore, the Houthis also blocked the peace negotiators from leaving Sana’a to go to Geneva for the peace talks. So the Houthis have been complicit in creating this problem of evidence.
Stephen Twigg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have heard nobody in all the debates in the International Development Committee and other Committees of the House in any sense suggest that the Houthis are not to blame, and that is why the proposal is that we should have an investigation into abuses by both sides in this conflict.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Perhaps my hon. Friend is going to come on to this, but our discussion seems to be being conducted on the basis of the Saudi-led coalition versus the Houthis. Does this not miss the very unhelpful, and indeed sinister, role played by the Iranians, particularly in providing conventional weaponry? Without going into all the data, I would suspect that many more people have been killed, injured and dispossessed by the use of conventional weaponry, of which there is a steady pipeline coming into Yemen from Iran, than they have by air action.
Stephen Twigg
I have already mentioned the role of Iran in supporting the Houthis, and any independent international UN-led investigation would certainly address the issue of Iranian involvement, but I reiterate the point that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has estimated that two thirds of all the civilian deaths in Yemen have been caused by the Saudi-led coalition.
Stephen Doughty
Surely one of the reasons that we need a full and independent investigation is that we are not clear about what has been assessed, and by whom. The Saudis have not produced reports through the joint incidents assessment team on the vast majority of the allegations, whether they are correct or not, and we are not clear about what this Government have assessed. Indeed, they have changed their position a number of times on the question of whether they have made an assessment or not. This has involved providing corrections to the House, in which it was revealed that they made mistakes in the evidence that they provided to us.
Stephen Twigg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank him for his comments because they enable me to move on to the question of the timeline—
Stephen Twigg
I will not give way now, because I want to move on to talk about the timeline of the Government’s response on this matter.
The United Nations Human Rights Council discussed Yemen in September 2015. The Government of the Netherlands tabled a motion to the Human Rights Council that would have mandated what today’s motion is proposing. That motion, tabled 16 months ago, would have set up a UN mission to document violations by all sides in the conflict since it began. The Netherlands withdrew the draft on 30 September 2015, and instead the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution tabled by Arab states which deleted calls for an independent inquiry.
On 24 November 2015, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is in his place today, told this House that Saudi Arabia was investigating reported allegations of violation of international humanitarian law. He said:
“These investigations must be concluded…The situation on the ground is very difficult and, in many cases, we are unable to have access to verify what has happened…We have been wanting to encourage Saudi Arabia and other parties that are involved…and we want these cases looked into efficiently and properly by the country itself.”—[Official Report, 24 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1184-5.]
That was 14 months ago.
On 3 February last year—almost a year ago—during Department for International Development questions, the former DFID Minister, the right hon. Member for New Forest West, said:
“We have supported the UN Human Rights Council resolution that requires the Government of Yemen to investigate those matters”.—[Official Report, 3 February 2016; Vol. 605, c. 907.]
He said that the Government of Yemen should investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law that were happening during the conflict. The following day, during a Back-Bench business debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East said again that he had raised the issue of an investigation directly with the Government of Saudi Arabia. That was almost a year ago.
Then the International Development Committee conducted its first inquiry, and on 8 July last year, the Government published their response to our report. Their response stated:
“The UK Government is not opposing calls for an international independent investigation into the alleged breaches of IHL but, first and foremost, we want to see the Saudi Arabian Government investigate allegations of breaches of IHL which are attributed to them”.
That was six months ago. In August last year, following the ministerial corrections to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth referred, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary regarding the corrections to parliamentary questions and Westminster Hall debates relating to allegations of violations of IHL. The Foreign Office’s response in August reiterated what had been said in response to our inquiry—namely, that the Saudis should be the ones to investigate first and foremost.
Last September, during a debate on an urgent question tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East said that Saudi Arabia had to conduct thorough and conclusive investigations into incidents where breaches of IHL had been alleged. He praised the fact that Saudi Arabia had released the results of eight reports in the previous month. That was four months ago. Then in October, during an Adjournment debate led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, who is in his place today, reiterated that Saudi Arabia needed to be the party that investigated violations. He stated that the Government were
“very clear that the investigation needs to be led, in the first instance, by the Saudi Government”.—[Official Report, 18 October 2016; Vol. 615, c. 782.]
So, over the past 14 months, the Government have repeatedly been asked about Saudi Arabia’s own investigations. To my knowledge—the Minister might be able to update us today—Saudi Arabia has produced nine reports on violations, even though there have been many more allegations made. Progress on this matter has been glacial, and I find it remarkable that the Government are still holding the line that Saudi Arabia must take responsibility for investigating its own alleged violations.
Mr Ellwood
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting him again, but I think it will be helpful if I provide further clarity as he develops his argument. First, on the Human Rights Council and the formation of texts, there is the question of consensus, as we have seen more recently in relation to UN Security Council resolution 2334. He knows this from his own experience: it is consensus that eventually leads to the creation of a text that is agreed by everyone so that it can actually pass. I hope that he recognises that fact. My second point—just to test your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker—is that I agree absolutely that the production of these reports has been far too slow. The reason for that is that we are dealing with a country that has never written a report like this in its life and it is having to learn the hard way how to show the transparency that the international community expects.
Stephen Twigg
I thank the Minister for those points of clarification, which I understand and appreciate. Of course I recognise the way in which United Nations bodies, including the Human Rights Council and the Security Council, operate. The point that I was seeking to make is that the original text from the Netherlands would have enabled the independent investigation to begin more than a year ago. Because of the diplomacy involved—I accept some of the realities of that—that did not happen. My argument today is that that has been a missed opportunity and that we could have started on this path at a much earlier stage.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
The process is slow because Saudi Arabia is a fledgling state. It is still a very young state that is not used to this level of scrutiny and transparency, and it will therefore take a long time for these reports to come out.
Stephen Twigg
The hon. Lady anticipates my final remarks. She used the word “slow”, as did the Minister. I have used the word “glacial”. The process is too slow, and I look forward to hearing the Minister tell us at what point the British Government will take the view that we need to move to an independent inquiry. I quoted the Government saying six months ago that they were not opposed to calls for an independent international inquiry but that first and foremost they wanted to see the Saudi Arabian Government carry out their own investigation. This situation has pertained for 14 months. How much longer do we have to wait before we can move to an independent investigation?
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Ministry of Defence has delivered two training sessions in Saudi Arabia on the process of investigating alleged violations of international humanitarian law? I hope, as I am sure he does, that the MOD will have underlined the importance of dealing with these matters in an expedited manner.
Stephen Twigg
Absolutely, and I am sure that the Minister will have more to say on that when he speaks later. If it was the purpose of those sessions to remind all parties concerned that they have obligations under international humanitarian law, it is vital that those obligations should be fulfilled quickly.
The view taken by the International Development Committee and other Select Committees of this House was that we would only get the full investigation that we need if it was completely independent. It is now long overdue for us as a country to move to support a fully independent international investigation. It is simply not acceptable for us to wait indefinitely for the Saudi Arabians to conduct their own investigations while people are still dying in this conflict.
Graham Jones
Morocco has 15 jets, Jordan has 15 jets, Kuwait has 15 jets, Bahrain has 15 jets, Qatar has 10 jets, the United Arab Emirates have 30 jets and Sudan has 15 jets. This is not just about Saudi Arabia; it involves the Gulf Co-operation Council and the Arab League as well. Will all those countries be involved in the inquiry?
Stephen Twigg
As I have made clear throughout every intervention that I have taken, the inquiry would cover all allegations made against any party to the conflict, but it is quite clear that the Saudis lead the coalition and their alleged violations will be investigated. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), who is no longer in his place, reminded us earlier that the Iranians will also require investigation.
Graham Jones
Who dropped the bombs then? What do the allegations say about who carried out the air strikes and dropped the bombs?
Stephen Twigg
They say it was predominantly Saudi Arabia. There is little doubt that the Saudis have the predominant air power. But of course it is not only about the alleged violations involving air power; it is about all the alleged violations by all sides, including shelling by the Houthis, which must be investigated. That is the purpose of saying today that we want to see an independent international investigation.
I finish by saying that the motion enables the House to come together and to put to one side our different points of view on the question of UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia and others—the motion is not about that. I reiterate that, although the International Development Committee and the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee took one view on arms sales and the Foreign Affairs Committee took another, all three Committees took the view that we should have an independent, UN-led international investigation. This debate provides Members on both sides of the House with an opportunity to send a clear message to the Government and the wider international community that we want to see urgent and immediate progress to enable a fully independent investigation to take place.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the next speaker, it will be obvious to the House that a great many people wish to speak this afternoon and that there is limited time. I would like to try not to impose a time limit, because the debate flows better if we do not have a time limit. I trust hon. Members to behave courteously to their colleagues by speaking for around seven minutes. If lots of people speak for considerably longer than that, we will have a time limit, which will be unfair to some people. I know that I can trust Alistair Burt to begin.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I much appreciate your introduction, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chair of the International Development Committee, and his colleagues on both Committees for their thorough report. I also thank him for the way he introduced this difficult and complex situation. I also welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), and the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). We will listen carefully to their responses.
I was Minister with responsibility for the middle east between 2010 and 2013, and I also had departmental responsibility for arms control, so I have some background and feel for these difficult and complex issues. I do not want to spend a huge amount of time on the humanitarian statistics, simply because we are well aware of them—the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby got the statistics into the public domain quite effectively. I thank the Library of the House of Commons for producing yet another excellent background briefing. I am sure we all also want to thank Stephen O’Brien for his remarkable work through the UN relief agencies. To put one quotation in Hansard, he said of the recent attack on a funeral:
“This attack took place against the backdrop of a desperately worsening humanitarian situation across Yemen, with four out of every five of Yemen’s 28 million people in real and immediate need of assistance.
I was in Sana’a only last week and saw the relentless heart-breaking situation for myself: medical facilities with no medicines to treat basic conditions; parents struggling to put food in the mouths of their children even once a day; and entire communities terrifyingly affected by conflict and without access to basic services or livelihoods.”
The issue before us, as always, is not simply the relief of humanitarian pressures. We can do more on that, but it does not solve the problem.
I will talk about the elements of the motion that address the conflict, the impact on civilians and how the conflict can be resolved, because that is the most important thing. If the humanitarian crisis is to be ended, it will not be through more aid but through an end to the conflict.
I am exceptionally fond of Yemen. My visits between 2010 and 2013 introduced me to some of the country’s leaders, whose despair as events evolved was obvious. In 2011, I met some of the young people and women in the squares of Sana’a who helped to start changing the country. Things have not gone well, and the people of Yemen have been betrayed once again by those in their country who have responsibility for them, but I hope the spark of reform that was there with the youth and the women is not lost in the Yemen of the future. I hope that the political settlement, which will eventually come, includes those who were not included in the past—those people have a role to play.
We have this conflict because of that past betrayal, because of the manipulation by Ali Abdullah Saleh of all sides in the various conflicts over a lengthy time, because aid money that went into the country was used for the wrong purposes, and because there was a failure of governance and a failure in the process to deal with internal grievances, including those of the Houthis. All that led to a situation where it suits some to continue the conflict internally, but the cost is borne by the people of Yemen. It is essential that we recognise and understand that.
From the outside, it is understandable that we focus on the humanitarian crisis and that, to a degree, we focus overmuch on the role of Saudi Arabia—I will come to that in a second—but it is essential to recognise that, if we want to make a difference, we have to look at and understand why the conflict has persisted as long as it has. The conflict exists on the back of the civil strife that has been going on in Yemen for a long time. It exists because Yemen is genuinely important. Yemen matters, and this should not be a forgotten war in a forgotten country.
First, in a basic human sense, Yemen is a country of art, culture and music. It is a country of gentle people who have given a great deal to the world, and it is terrible that in our time we associate Yemen with conflict. Secondly, Yemen overlooks important sea lanes, and the Houthis have already attacked ships in the area. Thirdly, Yemen is ungoverned space. It matters to us if there is instability in the region. Yemen may be a faraway place of which many people know not very much, but it matters. Accordingly, Yemen’s location and the ability of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to exploit that ungoverned space mean that AQAP’s ability to direct attacks towards us and others in the west has increasingly become a matter of concern and importance for us. None of us in this House needs further information on the general instability in the region.
Understanding all that gives us an understanding of why the coalition came together, of why there is a UN resolution and of why the United Kingdom has an involvement. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is directly affected by instability in Yemen. It can be, and has been, physically attacked. Between 2015 and 2016, some 37 ballistic missiles were fired by Houthi rebels towards Saudi Arabia, inflicting damage. It is important that that is known, because sometimes the conflict is considered purely to be an internal issue in Yemen. The Houthis are sometimes not considered to be well armed, or anything else, but they are.
Graham Jones
The missiles supplied by North Korea in the 1990s, Scud-Bs, have a range of 300 to 500 km and are being shot down by Patriot defence missile systems procured by Saudi Arabia from the United States.
Alistair Burt
As the hon. Gentleman indicates, there are serious armaments in the area, which causes concern to all sides. That is a reason why the coalition is there, and I maintain that it is in the United Kingdom’s interest to continue supporting the coalition, to continue supporting the partners in the coalition and to recognise what is being challenged in Yemen—it is not only the loss of the democratically supported Government of President Hadi but, as has already been mentioned, the degree of Iranian influence. The Iranians have said publicly that they see Sana’a as yet another capital that they hold, and the risk and danger of that is that Iran is a regime with a clear intent to destabilise the region, to use terrorism to do so and to threaten stability in other areas. The consequence of that, not only in an unstable region but for those outside, is that the degree of risk to the United Kingdom and others has increased. Accordingly, it is not in the United Kingdom’s interests if the outcome of the conflict is that the Iranians are successful and terrorism is successful.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) mentioned the fewer than 20 Scud strikes, which should be deplored, but coalition air forces are engaging in 150 air strikes, and more, a day. There is a disproportionality here that everyone in this House should recognise.
Alistair Burt
It is very easy for us on these comfortable Benches here in Westminster to talk about disproportionality in a conflict far away. My point is that the United Kingdom has focused on the activities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia without truly understanding why it is engaged, why the coalition is there and why the United Kingdom has an interest. I simply want to put that on the record. That is not, in any way, to minimise the reason and need for humanitarian law to be respected and for the activities of those who engage in warfare to conduct it according to the rules, but it does raise the rarely made argument about why on earth we are engaged in this and why the outcome matters to the United Kingdom.
Stephen Twigg
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I have enormous respect for him and his experience, and I am listening carefully to what he has to say. For me, the crucial issue is respect for international humanitarian law. What is his answer to the point I raised: at what point would it be right to look at these matters independently, rather than leaving it to the Saudis to lead the investigation?
Alistair Burt
That point comes when the United Kingdom Government are not satisfied that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can fulfil its obligations, but I do not believe that position has been reached. I am sure the Minister will talk about the nature of our engagement with Saudi Arabia and how, as he says, it affects a group of states, through the Gulf Co-operation Council, that are engaged in a conflict in a manner they have not been before. There is an important point here: if we want and expect people in other parts of the world to be responsible for their own defence and security, they are going to have to get on with it and they are learning some of the processes. That is happening at the moment.
Secondly, on the nature of our engagement, I refer all colleagues to the very good report by the BBC’s Frank Gardner just before Christmas that is on the BBC website. Most of us recognise that Frank Gardner is a pretty independent voice, and he has looked at the nature of engagement. The openness of the Saudi authorities in dealing with him and explaining what they do, and the openness of the Saudi Foreign Minister in coming to this House, with any Member of this Chamber having access to talk about these issues and question in a manner not done before, is an important step forward. We know that everything is by no means perfect or clear, but the steps that have been taken by the British Government to encourage full disclosure have been important.
I must close on this next point, because Madam Deputy Speaker was very generous. We are beginning to learn that the importance of ending a conflict is paramount to the people who are affected by it, but there are good outcomes and less than good outcomes. Sometimes unless we are involved we can see outcomes to conflict that are not in our long-term interest and not in the interest of stability in the area. That is why we should continue to support our allies, who are working through the Gulf coalition. We should continue to be engaged fully with them, but recognise that our interests lie in a situation that does not create a terrorist cell in Sana’a and does not result in a Hezbollah-type operation active in Yemen. We must recognise that those states that oppose such situations are right to consider that their long-term stability and ours is best satisfied by a solution that ends the conflict, and puts in place a democratic Government supported by Yemenis and a Yemeni political process, not the outside interference of Iran.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
If anyone should be allowed to exceed their six minutes, it is the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who is worth all the minutes he speaks about this important subject. Those who have been in the all-party group on Yemen, which I have chaired for 26 years—almost as long as President Saleh was President of Yemen—recognise that the right hon. Gentleman has always been, both in government and out of it, very aware of the importance of this beautiful country. We are very aware of his personal concern that it is being hurt and it is suffering every single day.
The right hon. Gentleman describes Yemen as the “forgotten war”. I am extremely proud of being a Member of this House, because what has been clear over the past few months is that Yemen is not the forgotten war in this House. At Foreign Office questions on Tuesday, 48 hours ago, 26 minutes of the 45 available were dedicated to some aspect of the situation in Yemen. Along with members of the all-party group—the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), a fellow Yemeni who was born in Yemen, as I was, and whom I am delighted to see here, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who could not be here today—I recently hosted Yemen day for the first time in a number of years. At that event, we heard excellent speeches from the two Ministers representing the Government here today, the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), and from Stephen O’Brien.
We were also able to interact with members of the Yemeni community, which is more important, because in all our discussions we must remember that it is the people of Yemen who are suffering. The families of the people of Yemen live in different parts of this country, with some in Liverpool, West Derby—I am not sure whether there are any in Warwick and Leamington, but I am so pleased that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) has co-sponsored this debate. They are all over the country, but they feel powerless to do what they need to do to bring this matter to the attention of this House and the international community. I am therefore delighted that we are, yet again, having a debate on Yemen and that so many Members are in this House on a Thursday afternoon, when it is not usually this well attended; we probably could have had a much longer debate.
I want to confine my remarks to the urgency and importance of a ceasefire. I welcome what the shadow Foreign Secretary said at Foreign Office questions on Tuesday and the focus of those on the Opposition Front Bench, which is also the focus of the Government. I hate it when we fight over Yemen, be it on party lines, or about the role of Saudi Arabia or what is happening as far as the investigations are concerned. We clearly need investigations, as the motion suggests. I desperately want us to unite behind one concept: the importance of the ceasefire.
A few weeks ago, I was at the UN Security Council. Because of the ability of Matthew Rycroft to get parliamentarians in, I was able, after 30 years in this House, to watch my first live session of the Security Council. Every one of its members wanted to do something in support of a ceasefire—this was unanimous and included all the permanent members. Of course they had little digs at each other and at this country for our role, but the most important thing was that all the countries spoke with one voice. That is why it is so important that the draft resolution, which is really our resolution because we are the penholders, should be tabled before the UN as a matter of urgency. I know that the Minister told the shadow Minister that we table resolutions only when we know they are going to be implemented. I do not have the figures on how many of the UN’s resolutions have actually been implemented, but I know it has got up to about 2,500. The fact is that we need that resolution, because the best way to guarantee that people are focusing on the peace process and a ceasefire is if the UN speaks with one voice. That is why I seek a timetable from the Government today: a timetable to ensure that we get that resolution before the Security Council.
I was delighted by the ceasefire brokered on Syria, where the Russians and the Turks were able to make sure that we had peace in Syria. I know it is a bit wobbly, but it was followed by the UN endorsing that ceasefire. If we can get this in Syria, why can we not have it in Yemen? I am very pleased with the role the Foreign Secretary has played and the honesty with which he has spoken about Yemen. If we take him at his word, the British Foreign Secretary will be working with the new US Secretary of State and with the Russians, who are now the friends of the Americans—or will be after 20 January. The Chinese will go along with the ceasefire—I met the Chinese ambassador recently and asked whether China would support it and he said it would—and the French are on board. As the five permanent members are going to be on board and the other countries are so supportive, I think we can get this through. Will the Minister therefore tell us when that timetable is going to be achieved?
My final point is about the aid agencies. The Chairman of the International Development Committee read out the scorecard of shame: the 3.3 million women and children who are malnourished; the 370,000 children who are in immediate risk of starvation; the 7 million who do not know where their next meal is coming from; the 10 million who have no access to safe drinking water; and the fact that four fifths of the entire population—21 million, which is equivalent to the populations of London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow combined—are in desperate need of urgent assistance. These incredible organisations, ranging from Médecins sans Frontières to Islamic Relief, the World Federation of Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslim Communities, Oxfam, Save the Children, the Disasters Emergency Committee, are all trying to get the aid in. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), another person who knows about Yemen so well, from when he served there, was right to ask: where is the aid going? The aid cannot get in effectively unless the planes land at Sana’a airport and unless the ports are able to accept it. We have to have a ceasefire.
If I am to have a new year’s resolution, and if the House can have a collective new year’s resolution, it should be that by 31 December we will have peace in Yemen and a proper political solution. Until we get that, Members of this House will continue to raise this subject, so that the forgotten war is never forgotten and we can bring peace to what is a beautiful, beautiful country.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) just raised a very good prospect for 2017: peace in Yemen. Would that not be wonderful?
The south-east tip of the Arabian peninsula has been important to us for at least 200 years. The area was crucial to the functioning of the British empire, particularly after 1869, when the Suez canal opened and the route to India was much shortened. When oil came to replace coal, Aden became even more important, and British Petroleum set up refineries there. Time passed and the Aden protectorate became part of our empire. Indeed, the British Government had to rule it through 23 sheikdoms or tribal areas that were not great friends of one another. That remains the case to this day. We cannot just think of them as the Houthis or something; they are all different tribes, which is the problem.
This is where I come in. In the ’50s, the right hon. Gentleman and his sister, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), were born when I was in Aden—
Bob Stewart
I understand that the right hon. Gentleman was born there, although his sister might not have been. I definitely was not born there: I was a little boy there, as my father was a soldier with the Aden Protectorate Levies.
Keith Vaz
The worst thing about my having intervened from a sedentary position is that the hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said. My sister and I were both born there, it is just that he said that we were born when he arrived in Aden, and I was making the point that the two events were not connected. [Laughter.]
Bob Stewart
Thank God for that, Madam Deputy Speaker.
My interest in Aden comes from my time there as a little boy. I loved the place: it was a great place to grow up between 1954 and 1957. What a fabulous place to be—if one was on the right side, of course. Since 1990, Yemen has gone from bad to worse. It has essentially become some sort of cockpit that some say is an area of fighting between the two branches of Islam. That may well be the case, but do not think that within that each side is homogeneous—they are not.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
It does stretch credulity that the Iranian regime has defined the Houthis as part of Twelver Shi’a Islam, which they most certainly are not. That is more an indication of mischief-making than of any orthodox theological position.
Bob Stewart
Into that cockpit comes more mischief-making with the arrival of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and then the latest lot, Daesh. The poor devils who live there have had these people imposed on them. They are not native to Yemen—they are not people like the right hon. Member for Leicester East, who really should be an Adeni, or a Yemeni, if he wants to be—they are people coming in from outside. It is a great tragedy that Security Council resolution 2216, which was passed unanimously, has not had much effect. In a way, that is a disgrace on the world.
Bob Stewart
I give way again to a gentleman who talks such sense on this subject.
Graham Jones
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s kind words. He referred to ISIS, which is of course developing in a vacuum. The UN panel of experts identified that where that vacuum exists—with the Houthis threatening from one side and no stabilisation force, United Arab Emirates or otherwise, on the ground—Sunni people, towns and communities are turning to the black flag as a way of getting security against the Houthis, a subsect of Shi’a Islam, coming at them. They are turning to ISIS as a defence mechanism. The problem is an absence of any governance at all and people wanting to protect themselves.
Bob Stewart
As ever, it is the little people who are suffering in this war. Apparently, 7,000 people have died. To me, that chimes with the number of people killed at Srebrenica, which I was kind of involved with all those years ago. When Srebrenica occurred, the world suddenly got its backside in gear and sorted it out. I return to my original point: let us hope that 2017 sorts this situation out. It is clear that a political solution must be had, some way or other.
First, the protagonists from both sides have to meet. They have tried, and it is very difficult, but that is the only way forward. The diplomat from Mauritius, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, seems to be respected on all sides. The first thing we require is a chairman or chairwoman who is respected, and that man is respected. Let us hope he can work it.
My second point about the steps towards resolution is that the people negotiating must be protected, because they should be able to negotiate in safety. They have had some problems in the Gulf, so perhaps they should move to Geneva, the traditional place for negotiations, if necessary.
Thirdly, there must be a ceasefire that will hold. We must recognise that although ceasefires are written down on paper, they inevitably will not hold. They will never be perfect. We should almost expect that if there is a ceasefire, it will be breached. We have to live with that.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Has the hon. Gentleman seen the text of the resolution that the British have drafted but not yet put before the Security Council? Clause 1 of that resolution calls for a ceasefire and references the UN road map. Does he agree that that might be the basis for negotiations?
Bob Stewart
I have not read it, but it sounds very sensible and logical. Everything to do with sorting out problems has to be sensible and logical.
Fourthly, I have already alluded to the fact that AQAP and Daesh are not local to the region. The one thing all the protagonist share is that they hate these people who have come in from outside. AQAP and Daesh are part of the enemy and should not be involved.
Fifthly, there should be a withdrawal of armed forces from Sana’a and other towns. It will be very difficult, and it will probably involve UN peacekeepers of some sort. I always think of the model of the British going into Rhodesia and separating people, which was good. We cannot do it; whoever the peacekeepers are, they should probably be from an Islamic state. Good military officers and good military troops should go in, if there is to be some kind of resolution. The UN will have to grip this one.
Sixthly, a political solution is obviously the objective, and I very much hope that this year we will get one. For goodness’ sake, if Yemen is a forgotten war, let us make it not forgotten, and let us then make it a forgotten war by next year because it is over.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Unlike several Members who have already spoken, I have never been to Yemen, but last September I went to Oman. What is interesting about Oman—a country that, of course, has a border with Yemen—is that it has managed, in a very difficult situation, to stay out of the conflict. The Iranians are trying to smuggle weaponry into Yemen through Oman. Yemenis fleeing from the conflict are being treated in Omani hospitals, and there is a potential for the issue to take on a wider role. Interestingly, what is probably not widely known is that the Omanis are not Shi’a or Sunni, but Ibadi. This small group has a distinctive position in the history of Islam, but so, too, does the group that we now call the Houthis. It is quite clear that this is a regional conflict, with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Co-Operation Council countries and north Africa countries also involved as part of the UN-mandated and UN-supported coalition. On the other side is Iran and Hezbollah, and their commanders have revealed that they, too, have lost people in Yemen.
In a sense, what we are seeing in Syria is an alliance between the Alawites, who belong to a complicated branch that is close to Shi’a-ism, and Iran, Hezbollah, and, of course, Putin’s Russia. In Yemen, we have something similar: a coalition of Sunni Governments supporting a weak Government in what has become a failed state and, on the other side, a coalition with former President Saleh meddling and refusing to accept the transition to the new Government. A political solution is probably even more difficult to achieve here than in Syria, because the United States is not in any real position to influence the outcome, whereas Russia has an influence in Syria. Potentially, that has serious ramifications. The Houthis fired missiles at United Arab Emirates’ ships. They also fired missiles at United States’ naval vessels. There is the potential for this conflict to widen. This is a regional security issue, and it is quite right that the United Nations Security Council has to engage with it.
We cannot simply say that Saudi Arabia and Iran can solve this conflict, because the internal actors are not proxies for Iran or Saudi Arabia. Therefore, crudely to say that we should condemn the British Government’s support for the Saudis or that we should condemn Iran’s support for the Houthis will not take us anywhere. Sadly, I suspect that even if there were a regional deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia and they agreed a common position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, this conflict in Yemen would still continue because of all those factors I have mentioned. Therefore, this crisis needs to be addressed with urgency and to have big international involvement. We should remember that, above all else, these people are among the very poorest in the world, and they are suffering not just warfare, but terrible poverty, partly because of mismanagement and misgovernment over many years.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
I am pleased to have secured this debate along with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting us this opportunity.
The conflict in Yemen between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels has created grave instability and danger. Amnesty International has stated that the conflict has seen
“violations of international humanitarian law committed by both sides with impunity.”
UN reports suggest that around 60% of airstrikes during the war have been conducted by Saudi-led forces.
The Committees on Arms Export Controls had an inquiry last year into the sale of UK arms to Saudi Arabia. It is clear to me that there is an urgent need for the Government to suspend such licences, pending the results of an independent UN-led investigation into potential breaches of international humanitarian law. That was the position taken by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and the International Development Committee in the conclusion of their inquiry.
Meanwhile, the Government have repeated their view that the Saudis should be allowed to conduct their own investigations. Almost two years into the conflict, the Saudi-led joint incidents and assessment team has initiated only around 15 investigations. Saferworld estimates that the number of credible allegations to be “well over 100”. Furthermore, feedback by that team is limited to press releases and press conferences, rather than comprehensive reports.
During the Defence Secretary’s statement on 19 December, I asked my right hon. Friend to outline the circumstances under which the Government would pause arms sales to Saudi Arabia, to which the response was:
“If we have evidence that international humanitarian law had been breached”.—[Official Report, 19 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 1224.]
I point to the devastating twin attack on a funeral hall in Sana’a in October, killing 140 people and injuring as many as 500. According to UN reports, the attacks were minutes apart, targeting a location where it was known that senior Houthi officials were assembling among families and children.
The US has since launched a review of that attack and cancelled a sale of precision-guided munitions worth around $350 million to Saudi Arabia, citing “systemic” and “endemic” problems with Saudi targeting in Yemen. For an attack to fail to distinguish between those fighting in a conflict and civilians gives serious weight to the argument that international humanitarian law has been broken.
The UK should be an example to the world in terms of our licensing regime, our commitment to the rule of law and our responsiveness to challenges. Criterion 2(c) of our arms export licensing regime forbids the authorisation of arms sales if there is a “clear risk” of a violation of international humanitarian law. In his response today, will the Minister outline at what point that threshold is met? The evidence that the Committees of Arms Export Controls heard last year was compelling in suggesting that there is very much a “clear risk”.
I have heard arguments that if we do not supply arms, a nation with a weaker licensing regime will do so instead. I pre-empt any such point today and suggest that that is no way to approach any situation, not least the sale of weapons. We must be accountable for our own actions, particularly if we are to be an example in cementing the rule of law into our practices. Such a position does not fulfil our obligations under the criteria and the law. Unless we wish to become one of these other weaker countries, we should maintain that position.
A legal opinion in December 2015 by Matrix Chambers argues that the sale of UK arms constitutes a violation of our obligations under national, EU and international law. I also pre-empt the widely recognised point that our strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia is one that must be maintained. I absolutely agree with that position, but that does not extend to our acting as its proxy defence. We pride ourselves on our relationship with Saudi Arabia, but it must not be a mechanism to deflect criticism, and our close ties should not be used to support otherwise.
Graham Jones
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The primary subject of the debate is the people of Yemen who are suffering. That reflects my personal feelings. The objective is clear: a ceasefire, which is the only way to relieve the situation in Yemen. Stopping arms sales to Saudi is a bogus argument.
I put this to the hon. Gentleman: you have seen the arms sales from Putin and Moscow to Assad, and you have seen the devastation in Aleppo, so I find it incredible that you can make the argument about ethical arms sales and our ethical arms sales, and then allow Saudi Arabia, using our petrol pounds, to buy arms from whoever it wants. You see from Aleppo the devastation that could be caused if they bought Russian arms. That is a ridiculous argument.
Chris White
Thank you for the final point, but I suggest that where the hon. Gentleman talks about ethics he is missing my point entirely. This is not necessarily about ethics; it is about the rule of law and the criteria for our arms export licensing.
Seema Kennedy
My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. I would echo the comments made by my Lancashire neighbour, the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones). On the relationship with Saudi, does my hon. Friend not recognise that, through the good offices of Ministers such as the Minister who is in his place the behaviour of Saudi has changed? For example, it now accepts that it will no longer use cluster bombs.
Chris White
I will answer briefly by saying that the Government had already been in discussions with Saudi Arabia regarding cluster munitions—in 2010—but I do not think that the Saudi Arabian Government took a terribly large amount of notice of our Government’s persuasion until after the events when those munitions were identified.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Committee, is making a strong speech. Members on both sides of the House and Governments of both parties led the world in arguing for the arms trade treaty, including the previous Labour Government, who put the process in place, and indeed the other arms export control criteria, so that we have a rules-based system for our defence industry to operate within and one that adheres to humanitarian principles. Does he agree that that wider principle will be at stake if we do not adhere to it?
Several hon. Members rose—
Chris White
I am sorry, but I am probably getting well past the Deputy Speaker’s patience.
To return to the statement made by the Secretary of State for Defence on 19 December and to the specific question raised by the hon. Member for Hyndburn, we learned the Government’s finding that British made cluster munitions had been used by the Saudi-led coalition in May 2016. That has a number of implications and is a cause for concern, and I challenge the Minister on the responsiveness of our arms exports licensing regime. It is unacceptable that an international ally used a weapon manufactured in Britain with complete disregard for the 2008 convention on cluster munitions, of which the UK is a signatory.
Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris White
I will continue; my apologies. We will see. If I get a strange look, I might give way shortly.
We are duty bound by the 2008 convention to prevent the use of cluster munitions, so what steps were taken to convince the Saudis of our opposition to the use of such munitions and to convince them to decommission those weapons? I recognise that the Government have not sold cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia since 1989, but it is important to consider the durability of our munitions.
Dr Monaghan
We know that the UK Government stopped supplying cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia in 1989. However, we also know that the UK Government continued to maintain those horrific weapons until 2010. No doubt, the Minister will tell us why that contract was in place for 21 years, but does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the crucial point is that accountability should extend beyond simply sales to maintenance contracts?
Chris White
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to that intervention.
The humanitarian crisis requires an urgent and comprehensive response from the international community. Everyone in the Chamber agrees with that. As each month goes by and casualties grow, the case for an independent, UN-led investigation of potential breaches becomes all the more compelling. From a UK perspective, and to protect our reputation as an example to the world in arms export licensing, it is right that we suspend our sale of arms to Saudi Arabia until such an investigation is completed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should remind the House of something. A few hon. Gentleman this afternoon have used the word “you” when, really, they meant “one”, or they should have said “the hon. Gentleman” or “the hon. Lady”. I have not interrupted people because I do not wish to spoil the flow of their arguments, but it must be noted that that is inappropriate use of language, and the debate works much better if we keep it in the third person.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Yemen is one of the oldest civilisations in the Gulf, yet a unified Yemeni state was not formed until 1990. The BBC gives an excellent timeline on that, and I urge Members to look at it. Yemen has a history of war, assassinations, and political, civil and internal conflict, with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides thrown in. Its history is a toll of misery in many respects.
In 1992, along came al-Qaeda. We heard little of al-Qaeda initially, but following the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole, violence grew from al-Qaeda. In 2009, Saudi and Yemini branches merged to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the death toll has risen yearly. The northern-based Houthi, or Partisans of God, insurgency against the majority Sunni Yemeni Government started to grow in 2004. Houthis adhere to a branch of Shi’a Islam, and I appreciate that it is a branch.
Ex-President Saleh became President of North Yemen in 1978, and President of Yemen, following unification with the south, in 1990. He was forced to leave office in 2012, since when he has fought alongside the Houthi insurgents to control Yemen. In February 2015, a panel of UN experts released a report alleging that, during his time in power, Saleh amassed a fortune worth between $30 billion and $62 billion. The report claims that the assets—including gold, cash, property and other commodities—are held under various names in at least 20 countries.
In 2012, President Hadi was inaugurated, but he fled to Aden in 2015, as the Houthis took over large parts of the country. President Hadi is supported by the Gulf Co-operation Council—the military alliance that is often referred to as being led by Saudi Arabia.
In April 2015, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Yemen’s Houthi rebels and allies, including former President Ali Saleh and his son. That arms embargo has been broken many times by the Iranians.
The 2016 global terrorism index lists Yemen as the country facing the sixth highest level of terrorism in the world. Of the 20 most fatal terrorist attacks in 2015, two were in Yemen—carried out by Houthi extremists. In 2015, 1,591 Yeminis were killed in terrorist attacks. Three groups carried out 90% of the attacks: the Houthis, AQAP and a new group, the IS affiliates. The Houthi still claimed responsibility for 63% of deaths and 62% of the attacks, the majority of which were against private citizens and property.
There is no doubt that violence has engulfed Yemen. That country has a history of conflict and tensions between its regions, and its ethnic and religious groups. Its leadership has a history of failing the ordinary people of Yemen. It is naive to suggest that Yemen is not also a proxy battle for dominance between Sunni and Shi’a powers drawing in wealthier and more powerful regional countries. The Houthis have also launched attacks on their neighbour, Saudi Arabia. I will not repeat all the information we have heard about the famine, disease and death tolls that result from the conflict, but this disastrous situation has reached a stalemate. Ceasefires and peace deals have been made and broken, and no side seems to see a real interest in reaching and maintaining a settlement.
In a region where the headlines so often include the horrific barrel bombing of civilians in Aleppo, a rising tide of refugees, murder, rape, and the torture of followers of differing religious groups, the warring parties in the Yemeni conflict have no real impetus in getting behind peace initiatives. I appreciate that the UN special envoy has worked hard. There is little in the motion before us that I think anyone in this House would not support, but I will talk about where we should be going because I am not going to get into a tit-for-tat argument about whether the Saudis are the main problem or whether the coalition is the problem. The problem is that we do not have a clear road map to resolve the conflict.
I have looked at what I think is a very good report from Chatham House, which is one of the UK’s best independent think-tanks and can be trusted to take an impartial view. Its report points out that
“the conflict is in fact multipolar, fuelled by regional and international support for the various parties involved in the fighting. There is broad consensus among international policy-makers that the only way the conflict can be brought to a sustainable end is through political mediation.”
Tensions are rife not only between the two warring factions—the two ex-Presidents—and we need to tackle those because the groups are also deeply divided. Whether we come down on the side of the Houthis or on the other side, an ongoing civil war will still ultimately emerge. We need a peace process that is more inclusive. I wish we would all listen much more to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who happens to be, in my view, one of the great experts on the region. We need to move away from prioritising elite-level mediation and security concerns, particularly counter-terrorism initiatives, to look at the economic needs of the population.
The Chatham House report also states:
“The new political process will need to give equal weight to bottom-up, grassroots local approaches to peacebuilding alongside top-down, national and elite-level interests; and ensure that the political, security and economic tracks of the transition are interlinked rather than dealt with separately. Failure to expand representation and to focus on local governance will…lead to renewed hostilities at a local level that could push Yemen a step closer to becoming a ‘chaos state’”.
There are many reasons why we in the UK need to pay great attention to what is happening in Yemen. Yemen sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red sea with the Gulf of Aden, through which most of the world’s oil and trade traverse on a daily basis. Security and stability in the straits is vital to the whole world’s economies and whoever controls the straits has a potential stranglehold on those economies.
The situation is a matter of urgent attention for the world. In my view, it is only the United Nations that can speak on behalf of the world, so it is to the UN that we must turn. It is the UN’s responsibility to take that bottom-up, rather than top-down, approach. A coalition of support for the people of Yemen is where we must give our support. Rather than dividing the issue into attacks on Saudi Arabia or attacks on Iran, let us focus on the peace needs of the people of Yemen.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
Colleagues have used the phrase “forgotten war” a number of times during the debate, so I pay tribute to many hon. Members on both sides of the House who keep bringing the issue of Yemen back to the Chamber to ensure that it is not forgotten.
There is an acute humanitarian crisis. I do not want to go over those details again, as many hon. and right hon. Members who have spent time in Yemen have detailed that. However, I would like to put on the record my thanks—and, I think, the thanks of us all—for the Government’s great contribution to helping the Yemenis, including the £100 million of Department for International Development money that has been spent. [Interruption.] I cannot, unfortunately, hear the sedentary interventions. I am proud that we have made our 0.7% commitment. It says a lot about this Government, the previous coalition Government and our commitment to being an outward-looking global nation, which is very important, particularly after the referendum result.
We are all here to discuss stability and peace in Yemen. That is our aim and it is what is right for the people of Yemen. However, I would argue that it is greatly in the interests of all our constituents as well. We have seen that terrorist organisations thrive in war zones and failed states. There was Afghanistan. Then it was Syria, where Daesh grew. Now that it cannot get a foothold in Syria, it is moving over into Turkey. We are providing people who want to kill our constituents with a training ground, so the stability of the state of Yemen can only be in the best interests of our constituents.
Stephen Doughty
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady. She is making a very important point. Does she share my disappointment that there continues to be a small—I am glad to say that it is only small—number of Members in the House who continue to say that we should scrap all the aid budgets and scrap DFID? It is actually very much in our national security interests and in the interests of the people who are suffering in those countries that we continue to provide funding.
Seema Kennedy
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman and I can see a little bit of cross-party love coming through. I do not think he will agree with the rest of my speech, but we totally agree on this point.
The conflict is having a profound effect, of course, on the people of Yemen, but it is having a wider effect on Saudi Arabia, which is suffering from the effects of migration, disease and terrorism on its borders. As I said in my intervention, Saudi Arabia is a state that has existed only for decades, to which its people might say, “Well, as a Persian, of course you’d say that.” It is in a state of transition. We have heard that some of its leaders are starting projects to think about how it will move towards further democracy and have more representation from women and other groups. As an ally, we should support the state in that and we should support its Government.
I was heartened when the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister came to speak to hon. Members before Christmas. He was open about recognising that there is a great challenge for his country, because we do not want a situation where Jeddah and Riyadh are controlled by Daesh or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The war is legal, but we can argue about how effective President Hadi is as the leader in Yemen. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) and I differ on the role of selling armaments to Saudi Arabia, and I would echo some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) on that. One must understand that relationships take a long time to build up in the middle east and they are reliant on trust, so we must keep talking to people. Historical relationships through trade and diplomacy take an awfully long time to build.
Graham Jones
Has the hon. Lady seen that the European Council on Foreign Relations has said that it is absolutely vital that Europe and the EU post-Trump keep a good relationship with the GCC and the Arab League in relation to Security Council resolution 2216 and the intervention in Yemen? If we are to resolve this problem, we have to see that it is about building relationships, not destroying relationships, as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) wants to do.
Seema Kennedy
I agree: it is about relationships, and it is about influence and guidance.
What is written in the law about arms export control—my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) was instrumental in overseeing that when he was the Minister responsible—is very important. We need to do those things, and all arms exported to anybody go through a rigorous process. The coalition fighting in Yemen, which is led by Saudi Arabia but includes other Arab countries, is defending its borders and its interests.
Since what happened in the early 2000s, we have heard that we want to get out of the middle east and that countries there need to be self-sustaining, independent and more democratic.
Seema Kennedy
I just need to finish this point before I lose my train of thought.
We need to allow those countries to do that, with the guidance that one would expect from an ally and a friend. Having our personnel there explaining compliance with international humanitarian law and explaining targeting is very important. I do not really like saying what my Labour neighbour, the hon. Member for Hyndburn, is saying, but if we are not in there, who do we really think will be there doing these things? This relationship is fundamental in terms of trade, security and the intelligence and co-operation we get.
Seema Kennedy
I am not going to speak for longer, because there are more expert voices in this House. I thank the hon. Members who are here today to speak in the debate, but all of us must really think about what we are talking about and whether it will actually protect Yemenis in the long run.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Brexit aside, I feel as though this House has spent more time on Yemen than on most other issues. That is not a complaint—I would spend as long as I could debating the disastrous situation facing people in Yemen. Sadly, the evidence is that this Government are not entirely listening.
The misleading of the British people and the international community over Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and its use of cluster weapons, in particular, is a blot on the record of current and former members of the Government. Ministers stuck to their stock phrases of denial, denial, denial, before the Defence Secretary was chosen to open the worst possible Christmas present and reveal that Ministers had, indeed, misled the House on a number of occasions. I wonder what the likelihood is of any such Minister facing sanctions for their part in that cover-up. Call me cynical, but I am not holding my breath. Perhaps the Ministers concerned were, to quote something the Minister said earlier this week, “inadvertently disingenuously” misleading the House, although I am sure that was not the case.
At least none of the Ministers was quite so misleading as the spokesman for the Saudi coalition, Major General Asseri, who claimed that Saudi Arabia’s British cluster bombs were obsolete and had been destroyed. In fact, he went further and declared that Saudi Arabia’s Tornado strike aircraft were not configured to drop the weapons. Now that our Defence Secretary has admitted that British cluster bombs were used, it is interesting to wonder how that happened if the Saudis had no aircraft configured to deliver them.
If we ever get to the truth of this matter, we may find that the Government’s denial lasted for only as long as Saudi Arabia still had a number of British-made cluster bombs left to use. In other words, someone somewhere appears to have made a calculation that the use of these weapons may just have been enough to deliver a kind of victory and that the Saudi and UK Governments should deny their use until that had been achieved. Given the continuing situation in Yemen, I have to conclude that the code of denial was broken simply because Saudi Arabia now has no or few cluster bombs left to deploy.
However, if it is not the case that the stocks have been exhausted, and there is evidence that the Saudis still hold such weapons, will the Government commit to doing all they can to have them withdrawn from service and destroyed and to get Saudi Arabia to sign the convention on cluster munitions? That is what the Government are committed to doing under the convention: article 21 expressly obliges parties to the treaty to encourage non-members to ratify it. So I ask the Government to commit to coming back to the House to report on progress in securing Saudi agreement to withdrawing any remaining cluster munitions from use and to signing up to the convention.
Interestingly, the convention, perhaps uniquely, allows signatories to co-operate militarily with states that have not signed it, but it does not require them to do so. Surely, if we believe that cluster bombs should not be used, and especially not indiscriminately against civilian targets, it is clear that we should not be working in a coalition doing exactly that.
In addition to cluster bombs, the people of Yemen face another threat—from the increasing use of armed drones, especially in targeting so-called high-value al-Qaeda figures. While such strikes have been part of US operations in other countries, those carried out in Yemen have been criticised for having far fewer safeguards than those in other countries. If that is the case, will the Government use their bilateral discussions with the Americans to press for a change in their approach?
As the incoming Administration in Washington take shape, many fear that events are moving in an unhelpful direction. Some of the views placed on the record by senior members of the President-elect’s team are frankly astounding. Comments I have seen attributed to General Mike Flynn, the incoming National Security Adviser, would appear better suited to a fake news site. Unfortunately, it seems they are true reflections of his views—for instance, that fear of Muslims is rational. The most concerning aspect of that was not just the horrible nature of the statement, but the shallow, hate-mongering video he was promoting to the world. Well, I have some news for General Flynn: President Hadi is a Muslim, and so, too, are the leaders of Saudi Arabia. Appointing someone to play a key role in a conflict such as that in Yemen who states that it is rational to hate all those involved defies belief.
In an earlier debate in Westminster Hall, the Minister for Europe and the Americas chided those of us expressing concern about the Saudi coalition’s tactics and behaviour, and he suggested the situation was too complex for us to understand. He is, of course, entirely right that the situation is hugely complex, which means there is all the more need for an independent investigation, but some issues are very clear, and so are some of the actions we must take, because the UK’s involvement in this situation is deeply regrettable. We must investigate, and we must suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. We must clarify exactly what the role of UK military personnel has been, and we must do everything we can to build a consensus around individuals and institutions that can build a new future for Yemen. In that respect, I am pleased that the United Nations special envoy to Yemen has called a new round of talks in Tunis at the end of the month to advance Yemen’s constitutional process, and I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing the participants well in their endeavours.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
I cannot say that it is a pleasure to take part in this debate on Yemen today. Almost a year ago, we discussed this very subject in this Chamber. Yesterday, I reviewed what was said in that debate, and it is a source of great sadness that I could simply read out my speech of 12 months ago because nothing has changed, except for one thing: the suffering of the people of Yemen has got worse—much worse—and there is unimaginable suffering.
Another thing has changed: many more Members of Parliament are taking a keen interest in this forgotten conflict. Members of the public, including my constituents, are now becoming aware of the atrocities that are taking place. The BBC report by Fergal Keane was terrifying in showing what is going on. It is so easy to put these parts of the world out of the public eye, especially when there is another crisis nearby in Syria.
My own interest results from the fact that I was born in Aden, so I have always felt a special affinity for the country, and I would like to return. I know that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) feels the same, and I hope we will be some of the first MPs to visit when the devastating civil war is at an end.
The situation continues to disintegrate, and even though we have a United Nations road map, it continues to be nowhere near implementation. I continue to be hopeful that this conflict can be resolved through diplomatic means, but that depends on the willingness of external powers to make it happen, just as it does on the willingness of the two sides in Yemen itself.
The transfer of power from President Saleh to President Hadi in 2011 could have been a fresh start. It was brokered by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Co-operation Council. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni men and women peacefully demonstrated for democracy, but, sadly, the internal situation deteriorated—a process led by ex-President Saleh and the Houthis—so Yemen is now in a desperate state.
These events started as an attempt to put the democratically elected Government back in place, but Yemen has now become a failed state, with many different actors, including Iran, Russia, al-Qaeda and Daesh, all creating chaos. Even worse, there is a humanitarian crisis, with millions of people displaced and thousands dying.
Will the Minister comment on what is going to happen following the inauguration of the United States President, who appears to have a shaky grasp of issues in the region? Secretary of State John Kerry spent much time working on the road map, but I feel that the UK may now have to take the lead if we want to get a quick resolution to this humanitarian crisis. There is a real groundswell of support in this House, and beyond, for us to do exactly that.
We have a very close relationships with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries that are part of the coalition. As a critical friend, we have already pushed Saudi Arabia to be more transparent and to investigate each violation and publish the result.
Mrs Moon
Will the hon. Lady join me in particularly commending the work of the RAF personnel who have been guiding the Saudis in relation to rules of engagement? It is absolutely crucial that we are there, changing the nature of the conflict, and that is possible because of this long-standing commitment. If we just criticise the Saudis, the conflict will get worse.
Mrs Drummond
Absolutely—I totally agree. We have a very long-standing relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, and long may it continue. We can work side by side with them to create peace in the region.
We will need an independent investigation into reports of breaches of international humanitarian law, not least because of the violations by the Houthis, but let us concentrate on getting the road map back on track first. Can the Minister confirm that there are people on the ground who can verify each violation, as I am concerned that there are difficulties in getting international experts into Yemen? We have all heard in other speeches about the humanitarian crisis. I am very grateful to all the charities who work so hard in Yemen and who update us regularly in the all-party parliamentary group. I am pleased that the news channels have started to alert the public on this neglected civil war.
Unfortunately, people in Yemen cannot escape. They are either too poor or cannot cross borders because the only border is that of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Co-operation Council, or Oman—or the sea. Yemen has always been one of the poorest areas in the world. Before the conflict, 90% of food was imported. With the closure of ports and lack of cranes, 14 million people are now food-insecure and half of them are classified as severely food-insecure—that is 7 million people. I am sure we have all read about families scavenging on rubbish dumps just to survive.
I am pleased that because of the pressure that the Government have put on the Saudi coalition, the blockade of ports has eased, but imports are still significantly below pre-conflict levels. Bureaucratic obstacles, restrictions on access, and insecurity are not helping. I urge the Government to continue the pressure on the coalition and the Houthis to allow aid to move quickly through the country. The aid is available, but until flights are resumed into Sana’a international airport and food aid is allowed to move freely from the ports and around the country, the humanitarian crisis will continue.
I am confident that Yemen has the capacity to thrive again, as it has done so in the short time in which was there has been peace. Although it is not a major producer of oil or gas compared with other states in Arabia, oil was responsible for three quarters of Government income before the crisis, and there may be possibilities of exploiting other wells. Agriculture in Yemen depends on fuel to drive irrigation pumps to produce cereal. It is estimated by Famine Early Warning Systems Network that the planting of staple foodstuffs in Yemen is now down by around 30% on previous years. This is not influenced by climatic conditions, since rainfall has been at healthy levels in the main cultivated regions; it is simply because the war and its consequences are destroying agriculture.
I know that the international community will want to help Yemen to get back on its feet once peace has been established, but that will not happen until we show leadership. I hope that the UK Government will take on that role immediately, as too many people depend on it. It is also in our national interest, as al-Qaeda and, particularly, Daesh will use it as a base once they have been evicted from Syria and Iraq. There is no time to waste. I hope that the House will continue to push for further action to save what could be a thriving country like some of its neighbours, inshallah.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is unimaginable. A number of Members have referred to some of the statistics involved. I would refer only to the fact that 19 million people in Yemen—70% of the population—need humanitarian or protection assistance. This is clearly a huge crisis that the international community is responding to, or at least partly responding to. I hope that the Minister will be able to update the House on the progress being made on the United Nations appeal, which currently, according to the latest figures I have seen, is just under 60% funded.
I want to focus my comments, I am afraid—some Members will feel that this is not the appropriate focus—on the Saudi actions. I do so because the military action that is taken by the Houthis and the Saudis is a major driver of the humanitarian crisis that we see in Yemen. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Houthis are committing serious human rights abuses. The Minister was right to point out to me in a written answer about the attacks on Saudi Arabia that 90 Saudi deaths have been caused by the Houthis through cross-border attacks, with more than 500 people injured. However, it is also right that we in this place focus our attention on the Saudis, because they are our allies and they are using the weapons that we are providing them with.
I will limit my remarks to a few questions on which I hope the Minister will receive some inspiration in responding to the debate. First, do the UK Government know whether UK planes were used in the delivery of cluster munitions? This question has been posed before, but I do not believe that an answer has been given. I take that to mean that they probably have been used, in specific operations. Have the Government looked at whether UK-supplied aircraft have been used to deliver cluster munitions, whether there are any legal obligations under the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Act 2010 that would pertain to those activities, and whether the use of UK aircraft in that way would be covered by the UK’s cluster munitions prohibition?
A number of Members have mentioned that cluster munitions have been sold to the Saudis only up to a certain period. We know that 500 cluster munitions were delivered over a three-year period, and that they were safe and suitable for service only until 2008. I hope the Minister can clarify what that means in terms of the increased risk of civilian casualties. Presumably, if they are safe and suitable for service only until 2008, more recent use would increase the risk of civilian casualties because the ordnance would not explode on impact.
Mr Ellwood
Leaning on my previous military experience, as a general rule I would not want to go anywhere near any munition that has passed its sell-by date. I will write to the right hon. Gentleman with a more detailed answer, but I understand that these munitions did not fully blow up as they should have done. The fact that they were so old meant that they failed to work. This serves as advice to any country that has such stocks in their armouries: once the sell-by date has gone, they should clearly be removed. In this particular case, the country is not a signatory to the cluster munitions convention. From that perspective, it is not illegal to use cluster munitions, although we obviously advise against it.
Tom Brake
I understand that, but some Opposition Members would challenge the Minister on whether their use, in any circumstances, can be deemed legal. It is regrettable that he is arguing, in effect, that their use can be considered legal in some circumstances, because most people would consider their impact to be indiscriminate.
Graham Jones
I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument and he knows that I am going to make a counter-point. The state of Qatar is involved in the Gulf Co-operation Council mission in Yemen, so does he think that we should suspend our sales of coastal defence systems to it?
Tom Brake
I had anticipated the hon. Gentleman’s line of inquiry, but the focus of my remarks is on what the Saudis are doing, the use of cluster munitions and whether there is sufficient evidence to call for a suspension of arms sales and sufficient support for an independent inquiry, which the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) called for in his opening remarks. I believe that there is.
Will the Minister explain the basis on which the Saudi Arabians refused in 2010 to swap their cluster munitions for the more precise Paveway III bombs? I understand that the Ministry of Defence offered a free swap with no cost implications, so what is the Government’s understanding of why the Saudis refused to take up that offer?
My final point relates to the joint incidents assessment team, to which, as I made clear in an earlier intervention, the Government have provided advice on how to investigate matters of international humanitarian law. One of the JIAT members is Mansour al-Mansour, a Bahraini judge who played a significant and unfortunate role in a series of trials in Bahrain about which it has been said:
“A pattern of due process violations occurred at the pre-trial and trial levels that denied most defendants elementary fair trial guarantees.”
Does the Minister think that that person and, possibly, other members of the JIAT are suitably qualified to adjudicate on the issue of civilian casualties in Yemen? Clearly, the credibility of the JIAT must depend on the credibility of its individual members.
Emily Thornberry
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mansour al-Mansour is known in Bahrain as “the butcher”?
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Lady for putting that on the record. Clearly, there are significant concerns about his role and, therefore, his suitability for sitting on the JIAT.
In conclusion, there is a huge amount of evidence that suggests that the UK should suspend arms sales. I want to finish on the first point that was made in this debate, which is that there is now an overwhelming case for an independent inquiry into Saudi activities in Yemen. I fail to understand why the Government do not show the same enthusiasm as they did when they rightly made a very strong case for a similar independent inquiry in Sri Lanka.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for securing this debate. Although I do not entirely agree with their views on the matter—I think they know that—this gives us an opportunity to debate and bring the issue of Yemen back into the public domain. Sadly, neither the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) nor my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) are in their places, but it was interesting to hear their thoughtful contributions.
It may come as no surprise that I want to focus on the humanitarian aid aspect of the situation in Yemen, given that I serve on the International Development Committee. This debate takes place in a week when the term “humanitarian crisis” has been used. For me, it is what is happening in Yemen that is a humanitarian crisis, not some of the other issues that have been raised in the Chamber today.
It is two years since hostilities began to escalate in Yemen. The suffering of children and their families continues. Today more than 18 million people are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, many of whom, very sadly, are children. Some have described the situation as a children’s emergency. The United Nations estimates that more than 4,000 civilians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured. It has also been estimated that more than 3 million Yemenis are internally displaced. They and many others suffer from food insecurity. Close to half of Yemen’s health facilities are either closed or able to function only partially. Nearly 2,000 schools remain closed due to damage and destruction.
The International Development Committee often talks about the need for education for children. The sustainable development goals use the term, “Leave no one behind”, and concerns in Syria have led to the No Lost Generation initiative. I fear that Yemen may have another lost generation of children whose long-term futures will suffer because of a lack of education as a result of the conflict.
Last year, the Committee heard evidence from a number of non-governmental organisations and members of the Yemeni diaspora. Some of their stories, particularly those of the diaspora, were really striking and incredibly moving, including those about the need for water, food and urgent medical supplies—things that we take for granted in our own country. Low levels of imports of commercial supplies, such as fuel and medicines, simply add to the humanitarian crisis, as do the problems at Yemeni ports. Even so, the conflict continues to be described as the “forgotten war”, so debates such as this are helpful in raising awareness.
Graham Jones
The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech on behalf of young people who are severely affected by the forgotten war in Yemen. I hope that she will go on to talk about the outrageous and disgusting use of child soldiers in Yemen. The UN and the UNICEF report identify two particular groups: the resistance groups—not the United Arab Emirates and Saudi armies—and the Houthis. The predominant age of those child soldiers running around with Kalashnikovs and getting killed is between six and eight. That is absolutely outrageous and I hope that she will comment on it.
Wendy Morton
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. That specific point is not in my speech, but it is very important. Not only does war have an impact on children’s education, livelihoods and health; some get dragged into war and become part of it.
Graham Jones
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and she makes a powerful point. The UNICEF report has evidence that the Houthis in particular are purchasing young people from foreign countries and bringing them into Yemen to fight as child soldiers.
Wendy Morton
Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman, who makes his point eloquently. I hope that he will speak later in the debate and elaborate on it.
Debates such as this help to raise awareness, including in this Chamber on a number of occasions over the past year to 18 months. They also help to raise awareness beyond the Chamber, including among our constituents and the media. I fear that it is often overshadowed, understandably, by other events in the middle east region. Of course, by that I am referring to Syria; and yet, according to Save the Children, Yemen is the country with the largest number of people in need of humanitarian assistance. Conflict drives food emergencies, and it is clearly impacting on the broader humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Such conflict also makes it extremely difficult for DFID, NGOs and other aid agencies to deliver aid safely and effectively. That is why safe humanitarian corridors are absolutely vital, and we must continue to press for them.
At this point in my speech, it would be fair for me to recognise the tremendous work and commitment of DFID staff and the work that they do in delivering UK aid to those who need it in Yemen, with more than £100 million in aid being delivered through schemes such as the Social Fund for Development, the Yemen humanitarian resilience programme, the programme to address malnutrition in Yemen and protection support through the UNHCR. The UK is one of the leading donors to Yemen; in fact, it is the fourth largest. Surely this is a good indication of the good work that our 0.7% commitment on international development can do, and how that aid goes out to help some of the world’s poorest and those most in need. We must continue to use our leadership role to influence other donors as much as possible to encourage them to step up to the plate.
That brings me to the wider point of seeking a political settlement and a cessation of hostilities. The UK has strong relationships in the region, and I urge us to continue to use our influence there to help to bring about the lasting peace settlement for people in Yemen that we are all desperately searching for. Today we have debated the security situation, and we know from what we have heard and seen that this is a brutal conflict. We should recognise that the allegations about violations of international humanitarian law are exactly that—allegations. They must be investigated, but surely we must not let that overshadow the real answer to the crisis, which is a ceasefire, peace and long-lasting stability, not just in Yemen but in the region. In bringing that about, we should make sure that we avoid creating a vacuum that could be filled by those whom we would not wish to enter it.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
There have been some powerful contributions to the debate, and I welcome the chance to discuss Yemen in further detail. This has been talked about as a forgotten crisis, although not in the House and certainly not in my constituency. I am delighted to say that the Yemeni community in Cardiff has a long history, and it has long expressed its concerns to me about the situation.
That community is also willing to reach out to Yemen. Before Christmas, I was delighted to support the Disasters Emergency Committee campaign in raising funds for Yemen. The campaign had already been very publicly supported by Grangetown Primary School in my constituency, by TramShed and by the Cardiff Devils ice hockey team. That unusual coalition came together to make it clear that they did not want the scenes that we saw on TV over Christmas of people suffering and starving—those horrific scenes that the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) and other Conservative Members referred to—to continue.
I agree with the comments made by many Members across the House about the need for an absolute focus on securing a ceasefire and a peace settlement. Only through that can we truly address the horrors that we see in Yemen and the situation that Stephen O’Brien rightly described as a humanitarian catastrophe. Oxfam International states that 7 million people do not know where their next meal will come from, and we have all seen those horrible images on our screens. The UN and World Health Organisation estimate that 18.8 million Yemeni citizens—almost two thirds of the population—are in dire need of assistance and protection. As of 25 October last year, health facilities reported that there had been almost 44,000 casualties, which is an average of 75 people killed or injured every day. There are 3.15 million internally displaced people.
We have heard about the import restrictions at ports and the crisis in accessing food that has been caused by food shortages. Oxfam reports that almost half a million infants and young people are in need of immediate treatment for severe acute malnutrition. The war has led to the collapse of food imports. Yemen imported 90% of its food supplies before the escalation of the conflict. In November 2015, the country imported enough food supplies to meet demands, but in October 2016 imported food covered only 40% of the demand. Many aid agencies are warning that if the plunging trends in food imports continue unabated, they may come to a complete halt in four months.
There is a risk of a cholera outbreak, because the restrictions on fuel imports are having a catastrophic effect on Yemen’s water and sanitation infrastructure. There has been an extremely worrying rise in gender-based violence, especially sexual violence, domestic violence and early marriage. Reports indicate an increase of 70% in reported incidents today compared with March 2015, and 8,000 or more incidents were recorded between January and September 2016, with 64% of the cases defined as emotional and psychological abuse or physical assault.
The psychological impact of the conflict on children, let alone the physical impact, is absolutely appalling. I will read out the words of 13-year-old Wahiha:
“I see the damage everywhere and I see how many people are affected by the bombs. I feel scared when I see weapons and especially when I hear the sound of planes up in the sky. When you hear that sound it means a big explosion will follow and that people will be killed... Hospitals and schools are damaged too. For children there is no education any more. Life is very difficult in Yemen right now.”
That is a powerful testimony from one of the young people living through the conflict. The UN tells us that 3,000 children have been killed or injured since March 2015.
I pay tribute, as others have done, to the DFID team working in Yemen. Our Committee’s report found that DFID had been instrumental in supporting and facilitating the humanitarian relief effort through its timely and flexible response, and we commended the Department for that. DFID has more than doubled its humanitarian commitment to Yemen, making the UK the fourth largest donor last year. DFID’s work is crucial evidence of why we need to adhere to our 0.7% aid commitment. To do so is not only morally right, but in our national and global interest.
I believe, as I have done for a long time, that such excellent work risks being undermined by the continued sale to Saudi Arabia of arms that are being used in Yemen. Let me be clear from the outset that I accept the very serious concerns that have been raised about the wider regional nature of the conflict. I do not have an agenda against Saudi Arabia, nor do I have an agenda against our defence industry. I believe in a regulated defence industry that adheres to the rule of law. The reality is that the UN estimates that more than 60% of civilian casualties were the result of attacks by the Saudi-led coalition. We might as well look at the current evidence: we have heard in the last few days about a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that was reported to have killed five people, including two children, near a primary school in the north of Yemen. That is just in recent days.
We have heard about the atrocities committed by the Houthis, and I want to be clear that I recognise and condemn them. We heard some absolutely disgusting stories about the use of child soldiers. The Houthis are blockading humanitarian access and using landmines and other indiscriminate weapons—just as cluster munitions are—against civilians. They have carried out appalling, indiscriminate artillery attacks at Taiz and along the borders, in which they have killed civilians.
We are not selling arms to the Houthis, however; we are selling arms to the Saudi-led coalition. Human Rights Watch reports that 61 allegedly unlawful coalition actions and airstrikes have resulted in the death of 900 civilians, and there have been attacks on markets, schools and hospitals. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) asked who was dropping these bombs, and where they were coming from. Human Rights Watch suggests that US-supplied munitions were used at 23 of those locations. UK-made weapons, including one produced as recently as 2015, have also been found there.
Let us be absolutely clear. The UK is a signatory to the arms trade treaty, and we led the fight for it internationally. I am proud of the fact that there was cross-party support for it, and that successive Governments have driven it forward. We have signed up to the EU consolidated criteria and we have our own regulations, which are very clear. A legal opinion has been produced which states that the UK is potentially in breach of article 6.3 of the arms trade treaty because the Government ought to have had the necessary knowledge that serious violations of international law were taking place; that the UK may be in breach of article 7 because there is a clear risk that future weapons supplies could be used to commit or facilitate serious breaches of international law; and that in such an ongoing crisis, no feasible mitigation measures were deemed possible.
The position is clear: we are signed up to those restrictions. Unfortunately, we have had a series of obfuscations and confusions not only from the Saudis, but from the UK Government, who changed their position several times on whether they conducted assessments, the nature of those assessments and the date on which they were conducted. The Minister and others admitted that progress has been glacial. That is simply not acceptable. As the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), a former Foreign Minister, pointed out, the Saudi Foreign Minister visited twice. That was a great opportunity to question him. He gave us assurances that there would be responses to the investigations, yet we have not seen them.
There are more than 180 documented incidents. Clearly, some will prove not to be true, but that is why we need a thorough investigation, and progress to date has been slow, whether from the Saudi Government and the Joint Incident Assessment Team, or the UK Government, who I believe know full well what is going on and have conducted assessments and possess information to show whether atrocities have been committed against civilians. We need independent verification of what has gone on. Until we get that, I support the calls for a temporary suspension of arms sales because of the principles that the arms trade treaty sets out.
I hope that the Minister will give us some clear assurances about what assessments and investigations are happening and whether he is convinced that the UK is adhering to its legal obligations. We know that legal proceedings are ongoing and due to be in the courts soon. It is crucial that, before those proceedings, the UK Government are clear about what they knew and when they knew it because we need assurances that we are adhering to our international obligations.
The crisis in Yemen will be resolved only through a peace settlement and a negotiated solution. All our efforts must be focused on that. There is a great deal of unity on that in the House, on the need for a humanitarian and development response, and, indeed, on the need for an independent investigation. We have a part to play in that; we are selling arms to one of the parties. Until we have clear answers, I will remain unsatisfied.
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
Many Members have used the phrase “the forgotten war” this afternoon, but as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) made clear, the House has been doing everything it can to ensure that that war is not forgotten. Although he is not in his place, I pay particular tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for all he has done over many years to highlight Yemen’s plight.
I know the country and the region well, having travelled there. I have been to and around Yemen on several occasions, and I therefore regard the situation there with particular sadness. As my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) said about her own speech, I could be making the same remarks as those I made a year ago in the same debate in which she spoke.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) set out with brilliance and insight, as always, the background to the situation. He did that in a measured and balanced tone, which is crucial.
The pre-war position in Yemen was always complex. I think that it was Ali Abdullah Saleh who described governing Yemen as like dancing on the heads of snakes, so complex is the tribal, political and religious make-up of that country. It is the most populous country in the middle east with a population of around 30 million, yet it has the lowest annual income per head—pre-war, it was $1,500. It has significant economic challenges and a young, male population with limited opportunities, even pre-war, to prosper. Yemen also relies heavily on foreign imports and was heavily armed, again, even pre-war. All that created a challenge for that country before the conflict broke out.
The position is even more challenging now. The geopolitical context is that Yemen is surrounded by a complex power network of different states and alliances, which make it all the more important to focus on it.
Possibly uniquely in this House, I do not intend to repeat the important points that other hon. Members have made—they have been very well made—but I will briefly touch on two things: the background and Saudi Arabia’s involvement, and the future.
It is right, as all hon. Members who have spoken said, that we remember that there is fault on both sides. Simply attempting to apportion blame does not advance the cause of peace. Of course, like all other hon. Members, I condemn any deaths of innocent civilians. It is right that, when they occur, they are properly investigated.
I cannot express the background more effectively, eloquently or eruditely than my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). The conflict came about through the Houthi attempt to take over the country some years ago, the march on Sana’a and the request by President Hadi, leading the legitimate Government of Yemen, for aid to stop that advance. The Saudi-led international coalition responded. We must remember that, just as there are consequences of action, on which we are focusing today, there would have been significant consequences to inaction had the Houthis been allowed to continue their advance and take over the country. I would argue that the consequences would have been much worse for the people of Yemen. There would also have been greater regional instability and a risk to our national interest.
We should also not forget that Saudi Arabia is regularly attacked across its border in the context of the conflict and that it has the right to defend itself. I therefore believe that it was right for the coalition to step in and act in defence of a legitimate Government and regional stability. It is also right to remember the vital role that Saudi Arabia plays in the region to our national interest and the partnership that we have with them in intelligence matters and in taking on terrorism. That engagement and relationship are vital to our national interest. It is not an uncritical relationship—as with all our relationships with our friends, we will be critical in a measured way when appropriate—but not engaging and not participating constructively in that relationship would be detrimental to our national interest, the interests of the people of Yemen and to regional stability.
I conclude by focusing on three key elements as we look to the future. First, a ceasefire to allow aid to get into the country and talks to take place is vital. I do not believe that any hon. Member would disagree with that. I particularly pay tribute to DFID for its work, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) for his work in his previous role in pressing the case for a ceasefire and to the Minister for his tireless work. The people of Yemen could have no better friend in this country than the Minister for the middle east.
Secondly, there must be a long-term political settlement that will hold. That settlement must emerge from within Yemen and its people and not be imposed from outside, although of course countries and friends of ours, such as Oman, have a significant role to play in facilitating such a settlement. It must ensure that all tribes and groups in Yemen are represented and that none are excluded.
Thirdly, it is important to focus on rebuilding Yemen and giving the people hope. That will involve investment from outside and security. I believe that it will also have to involve a clear focus on fuel because so much of what goes on in Yemen—electricity generation and the provision of water—relies on diesel fuel.
Mrs Moon
Is this not a prime example of when UN resolution 1325 could come into play? It involves the engagement of women in rebuilding a society after conflict and in setting out the peace conditions. Women and children have been many of the victims in this war. Is this not a wonderful example of how women can be involved in rebuilding Yemen?
Edward Argar
I cannot disagree with the hon. Lady. She makes her point well and effectively. She is right about the role that women can play in rebuilding a country after conflict. Of course, everyone in that country needs to play a role in helping to rebuild it. I hope that when we next debate this matter, significant progress will have occurred. The Minister, the British Government and the people of Yemen desire that. I hope that 2017 will bring peace to that troubled country.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
There is a hidden element running through this debate. This House and the UK Government can hope to influence the conduct of Saudi Arabia and the other states of the Gulf Co-operation Council. We have less hope and opportunity of influencing the Houthi and the various elements active in Yemen, including Iran. No Opposition Member who wishes to be critical of Saudi is blind to the crimes committed against humanity, against their own people, by the Houthi leadership and other elements of the coalition Government. So if we are talking with emphasis about Saudi, it is not because we ignore the other side and its crimes, but if we are to move the debate on, all we can do—as a major ally, weapons supplier and market—is to influence Saudi. That is why we are doing it. Some Members have tried to present the discussion in terms of some people being anti-Saudi or forgetting about the Houthis, but that is not where we are going. We can influence Saudi. The argument from Opposition Members is that Her Majesty’s Government have been niggardly in how they have tried to influence Saudi. I will provide some evidence.
On 13 December, the United States Government vetoed the sale of 16,000 guidance systems for munitions that were going to be sold by US companies to Saudi Arabia. That tells me a couple of things. Why does Saudi need 16,000 guidance systems for bombs? It is something to do with the disproportionality of the air offensive that Saudi and several other air forces in the Arab world have been conducting. That disproportionality is getting in the way of a settlement. What began as a civil war—yes, there were some implications around the Saudi border—has been turned into a humanitarian disaster by the sheer scale of the action the Saudis have undertaken.
The fact that the Saudis are continuing after there is very little left to bomb suggests an unwillingness by the Saudi regime to come to a compromise before it is able to impose the political settlement it wants. It is therefore incumbent upon the UK to try to put pressure on the Saudis to reduce the scale of the bombing and say that they have to do something else. If the United States can do it, so can we. The US spokesman, when announcing the veto of the weapons sales in December, said, “We will not give a blank cheque to the Saudi regime.” My criticism of HM Government is precisely that they are trying to give a blank cheque to the Saudi Government.
Edward Agar
The hon. Gentleman makes his point well, but does he recall that the Secretary of State for Defence, in a statement to this House on 19 December, made it clear that the United States Government had suspended a particular licence but had continued to supply military jets, helicopters and other ammunition to Saudi Arabia? It was not a blank cheque.
George Kerevan
I am well aware of that. Politics is politics in the western world, so while the US was banning the guidance systems, it was simultaneously agreeing a major contract to supply battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, but that just makes my point. If we presume, as HM Government do, that Saudi Arabia is an ally, the way we should deal with it is not to give it a blank cheque but to give it a choice. It is carrot and stick. The British Government have not done that. They spent a long time pretending or arguing that British cluster weapons had not been used. Once that was definitively proved, they moved back to saying that Saudi should conduct its own inquiries.
We have been training the Saudi air force. For the past 40 years, we have been helping to set up the command and control system for the Saudi air force. If it is not getting it right now, it is for political reasons, not because of any defectiveness in its command and control system. Waiting on the Saudis to investigate is a subterfuge. We have to put political pressure on the Saudis to come to the negotiating table to reduce the scale of the bombing and move towards some kind of ceasefire, and to do it properly. If we do not do that, we let them off the hook. As long as the British Government are being so soft—I use the word advisedly—on the Saudis in this context, we will never to get the international inquiry, which is the start of the process.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) crystallised the debate right at the very beginning by asking at what point do the British Government move on from demanding the Saudis investigate the failures in the bombing war to having an independent inquiry. That is the simplest thing. It is an even more modest request of HM Government than suspending arms sales temporarily, yet they will not even do that. That is the issue.
My final point is that as long as the British Government continue to underwrite the excessive Saudi bombing offensive, it becomes more and more likely that British personnel, in the military and in the Government, could be culpable legally.
Graham Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the Saudis can purchase arms from abroad from whoever by selling petrol to nations like the United Kingdom? Perhaps he has been to a local petrol station near him and filled his car up with Saudi Arabian petrol. Did he ask at the petrol station whether it was ethical petrol or whether it was funding arms purchased by Saudi Arabia?
George Kerevan
Fortunately, I can safely say that I do not possess and have never possessed a driving licence. I make the point again that I am not trying to identify Saudi as the only culprit in this difficult situation. I am saying that the only people we can influence is the Saudi regime. That is why I am trying to get the British Government to underwrite and support an independent inquiry.
My final point relates to the possible legal culpability of British service personnel, whom I greatly applaud. The Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Act 2010 makes it clear that it is an offence to “assist, encourage or induce” other persons to make use of cluster bombs. That is a pretty wide definition. As long as the British Government go on underwriting the Saudi air offensive, the more it becomes a possibility that British personnel could fall under that heading.
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about legal culpability, but does he agree that that relates not just to cluster munitions but to the wider sales and compliance with the arms trade treaty? I do not know whether he has had the chance to look at the freedom of information request, but officials in the Foreign Office were clearly very exercised. They say that, owing to the high-profile nature of this subject and the attention it is getting from Parliament, the media and the courts, they have been advised that they have to correct answers. They are clearly worried about their legal position. Is that why we are seeing such obfuscation from them?
George Kerevan
I totally accept what the hon. Gentleman says. In his contribution, he made the wider legal case very well.
My worry is for British personnel if a legal case begins to develop. The Minister alluded to section 9 of the 2010 Act, which gives a defence for British personnel involved in an international conflict with allies who might not be party to the UN cluster convention, but the problem is that it is only a technical, theoretical defence. I do not think that section 9 could be interpreted beyond a point where we know a non-compliant state is deliberately using British cluster weapons over a long time, causing great civilian casualties. The position under the 2010 Act then becomes more opaque. Will the Minister comment on what legal advice the British Government have taken on those grounds?
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for securing today’s important debate through the Backbench Business Committee.
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen continues to worsen, despite all the parliamentary time we have spent over the past months discussing it. The situation is continually deteriorating, despite all the reassurances from our Government that millions of pounds is being spent on aid. There seem to be no end in sight for the suffering of the Yemeni people in the near future. Meanwhile, according to figures from Oxfam, some 14 million are food insecure, with about 7.5 million on the brink of famine. Unless something changes radically, the situation is set only to worsen in 2017. Yemen was heavily dependent on food imports prior to the conflict, and the war has had a devastating effect on food security. Not enough is making its way into the country to meet daily demand.
The country’s decimated infrastructure is making it impossible to get food to all who need it. It is not just roads that have been destroyed; ports have been targeted by the Saudi-led coalition. As a result of air strikes on the port of Hodeidah, only one of the six loading cranes remains functional. Prior to that, aid groups had complained that the coalition naval blockade prevented relief supplies from entering Yemen. There is further evidence to suggest that aid agencies are not being given proper opportunity to deliver aid.
About a year ago, Oxfam and other NGOs were sent a diplomatic note stating that if they were delivering aid anywhere remotely close to where Houthis were operating, they were doing so at their own risk. In effect, the Saudis were saying that they would not take responsibility for bombing aid workers if they were near Houthis. That diktat, which was surely a breach of international humanitarian law, has meant that civilians in need of aid are unable to receive it. Hunger should not be used as a weapon of war. Famine Early Warning Systems Network warns:
“To mitigate severe, ongoing food insecurity and prevent Famine over the coming year, the international community and local actors must protect the ability of private traders to import staple food”,
that
“more resources are needed to support the continuation and expansion of humanitarian response”
and that traders and humanitarian actors must have access to conflict zones.
The UK needs to play its part and heed these recommendations. The Saudis are a key ally of the UK, and we should be working to ensure that it is acting responsibly in the conflict. Such responsibility includes military operations—actions should be proportionate to the military threat—yet we continue to hear reports that would suggest that this is not the case. Serious questions need to be asked of the Saudis about their targeting. There are too many documented cases of indiscriminate bombings leading to thousands of needless civilian death and injuries, including of many children, as we have heard.
As we have also heard, the conflict is certainly not one-sided, but the fact remains that we are a key ally of the Saudis and have licensed £3.3 billion-worth of arms sales since their intervention in Yemen. We cannot shirk responsibility. That is particularly the case where UK-supplied weapons are being used in the conflict. Too many questions remain improperly answered around the use of BL755 cluster munitions. I have pursued the Government on this issue since last June, and I am sick of their cluster bluster. Members deserve nothing less than full transparency and disclosure.
Last June, I asked the MOD, by way of written question, when the UK had last maintained cluster munitions held by Saudi Arabia. The Secretary of State delivered a succinct and blunt response, saying:
“The UK has never maintained cluster munitions held by Saudi Arabia.”
Yesterday, I got sight of a response to a freedom of information request submitted to the MOD by Amnesty International. Contained within is confirmation that up until 2008 there was contracted manpower support in place for the maintenance, handling and storage of these cluster bombs. I will be seeking urgent clarification from the MOD on this. I seriously hope that I have not been misled by the Department.
Furthermore, it is revealed in the freedom of information response that the MOD offered to replace all of the Saudi stocks of BL755s with Paveway III precision-guided bombs as recently as 2010 but that the Saudis continually refused this offer. The MOD must provide answers to the House urgently as to why this offer was allowed to be declined without repercussion. Why have subsequent arms export licences been issued without question when the Saudis have so resolutely refused to give up their stockpile of UK-produced cluster munitions?
We also need concrete answers from the Saudis on how many of the BL755 bombs have been dropped on Yemen and absolute transparency on the targeting data of such air strikes. Furthermore, will the UK Government take sole responsibility for ensuring that any and all UK-produced cluster munitions dropped in Yemen are cleared, working alongside national de-mining institutions, including the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre, and increasing the direct funding it receives from the UK as necessary? In short, I am asking the Government for an undertaking to clean up their own mess and show an appropriate level of responsibility. Our foreign policy needs to put the innocent civilians of Yemen first and foremost, now more than ever. Our efforts can help to avert a full-scale famine, but the time to act and help secure a ceasefire is now.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for securing this debate and pay tribute, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), each and every minute of whose speech was a valuable contribution to this debate.
The primary purpose of this debate is to end the killing and suffering, to secure a ceasefire and to stop the humanitarian crisis. It is not just the primary purpose; it is pretty much the sole purpose. There are some other ancillary issues, but that is what we are here to do. This is a humanitarian crisis and a forgotten war—it has been under-reported and under-considered. I therefore welcome this debate. We must elevate it not only for those living in Yemen but for others in the region who will suffer and perhaps also for the people of western Europe, given some of the extreme Islamist elements within Yemen.
The country has a history of problems. To the members of the Labour club in Accrington, I say, “The problem is we have this despotic leader, Saleh, who has now returned. He was once fought by the Houthis, but now he’s joined them. He milked the nation, and after robbing it and leaving impoverished, he is now involved in a war.” This is a very simple view, but it is the view that the United Nations takes in UN Security Council resolution 2216: that there has been—dare I use the word?—a coup. A coup has been carried out by some very terrible people, including Houthis and the Saleh alliance, and the resistance on the other side has become involved in committing some atrocious acts. A vacuum has been created by the former President, who is now causing trouble again.
If we do not stop the conflict in 2017—if we do not resolve the situation and bring about a ceasefire—there is a risk that the situation will become intractable. It will not be in the interests of Iran or Saudi Arabia to achieve a peaceful settlement, and they will continue the middle east proxy war. We must not allow the conflict to reach that stage, which is one of the reasons why resolution 2216 refers to an arms embargo, a blockade, and the need to stop the transfer of assets that is bringing illegal weapons such as guns and munitions into Yemen and exacerbating the situation.
Let us consider the scale of what is happening. The United Nations has reported that children aged between six and eight are carrying Kalashnikovs, and are being killed. This is the war that we face.
George Kerevan
I fully accept what my hon. Friend is saying about the use of child soldiers by the Houthis. Does he not recall, however, that the United Nations found Saudi Arabia to be culpable of being the biggest killer of children in the war in Yemen through its bombing, and that the Saudi regime forced the UN to take Saudi Arabia off its list of states with the worst records of dealing badly with children?
Graham Jones
That is a valid point. The United Nations has had trouble, and no one the in Chamber thinks that either side of the conflict is right. Both sides are killing people. That is what needs to end, and that is we need to focus on rather than blaming individual nations.
Let me set the record straight. I come to this debate frustrated, because 2016 was the year of false truth, false fact and fake news. It was a terrible year for Britain and for the world, in which moderate people in a democracy lost arguments to extremists—Breitbart on one side and The Canary on the other, or the alt-right versus the hard left of the Labour party. Yemen is being used as the next vehicle for the advocating of some lunacy, rather than the principled position of those who ask, “How can we help these people?” It is about time that moderate Britain fought back against some of those who pursue such extremist views.
We must not allow this to become an Iran versus Saudi conflict, because if we do, the situation will indeed become intractable. I accept, however, that all the reports show that there is a mass of complications on the ground. It is not simply Iran versus Saudi, because we have not reached that stage yet, but we ought to be exceedingly mindful of the possibility. We have Saleh, the guy who robbed Yemen. According to the UN, when he was President and also an arms dealer, he was buying bullets for 50 cents as an arms dealer and selling them to himself as President at a dollar a time. He was buying Kalashnikovs and other guns for $150 as an arms dealer, and selling them to himself as President for $600. The UN describes this man as creaming off the whole Yemeni state. At one depot, there were 1,500 troops; he had an invoice for 80,000. There are nine teachers for every child in Yemen, if we believe ex-President Saleh. Of course, he wants his old position back, and he wants to use all the money and assets that the United Nations is trying to freeze to fund a war in which ordinary people are being mercilessly killed.
Let us face some truths. The biggest donors to Yemen over the years, which have, in the past, prevented the humanitarian crisis from being what it is today, have been the Gulf Co-operation Council and Saudi Arabia. Because of the Houthis, the aid tap has been turned off. Worse than that, however, because the Houthis want to fight Saudi Arabia on the border, foreign workers from Yemen can no longer work in Saudi Arabia, which is logical, so all the remittances have dried up. No wonder the country is in poverty—and we are allowing these people to get away with it. It is obvious why Security Council resolution 2216 pins it all on the Houthis, the people who started this in an alliance with the person whom they were formerly fighting, President Saleh. Therein lies the problem, and the reason for resolution 2216.
We must try to deal with the situation, but that will mean building bridges. According to the UN reports, the GCC has tried—twice in Geneva, and also through the Muscat principles—to bring the two parties together for a peaceful settlement. Which party is resisting the peace talks? It is the Houthis, who will not allow a peace delegation to fly to Geneva, and will not allow the UN panel of experts to go in and observe the situation on the ground. This is a group of people who to my mind—I say this to the people in the Labour club in Accrington—are just trying to rob the state. They are not interested in a peaceful settlement, and that makes things very difficult, but we should never abandon the principle of trying to build bridges, and that includes trying not to upset or destabilise the GCC or the Arab League.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am enjoying listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Does he agree that one of the things that shows these people’s intent is that the coup disrupted a constitutional process that was in place in Yemen to try to bring in a lasting and stable Government?
Graham Jones
I wish this debate were longer, as I could speak for two hours on this issue. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby is right; I have had a good go at going for three hours. The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) is right, however. The proposal in that constitutional settlement was for a six-state federated Yemen, and President Saleh walked away from that; he walked away from the talks at Geneva because he did not want a federated state. He wanted to do what he was doing before: milk the state for himself. That is the problem, and all the while the people are suffering.
The Saudis are trying to get aid in. We have donated £100 million, which I am pleased about, but that is a fraction of what Saudi Arabia donates, yet we are trying to castigate the Saudis.
This conflict has been presented as Saudi Arabia against the people of Yemen: what an absolute load of garbage. The Saudis are operating under a UN mandate; five members of the GCC and four members of the Arab League are operating under that mandate, and Saudi is one component of that. It is the biggest component; I do not deny that. The Saudis are also guilty, it appears, of doing some awful things, and they should be held to account; nobody is saying anybody should be exempt from the law. But we must never take our eye off the ball: people are suffering in Yemen, and we must try to get to the end result of relieving that suffering. That is the primary purpose, and I am never going to slip away from that. I am not going to be taken on to some hard-left, loony left or right-wing bandwagon about arms sales to Saudi Arabia if that impacts negatively on the people in the region. I stand here unequivocal: I am here to help the people of Yemen, and I want to see the best outcome for them.
Tom Brake
Is the hon. Gentleman aware, however, that after the strike on the funeral in which I think 140 people died, even the UK Government were quoted as saying they were going to review their policy towards arms exports to Saudi Arabia? I wonder whether he has had any feedback on what that review has stated.
Graham Jones
There is an issue there; there is a concern—a well-meaning and genuine concern—that the speed and efficacy of Saudi’s investigations into some of the things they have done is not up to the required standard. However, as has been explained by many Members, they have attempted at least to come to this place, to speak with foreign powers, and to allow coalition partners who supply military equipment, as well as the British, to go in and be involved in looking at what is going on and in training. They have tried to a degree—although we do not know to what degree—to be open and transparent.
Graham Jones
My hon. Friend takes my next words out of my mouth, and I congratulate her on raising a point that has perhaps not been raised enough. If we read the UN report and all other reports, this is the situation on ground: we have the Houthi-Saleh alliance marching south and, as there are next to no Government forces, they are marching through and they are marching into Sunni areas. We are seeing a repeat of Mosul; we are seeing history repeat itself in Iraq. We are seeing Shi’as marching into Sunni areas and the consequence of that, as in Mosul, is a consolidation of the presence of the black flag over these places.
So when I see 150,000 Saudi troops marching to the south through Aden and Iraq, and when I see the UAE send troops in—if I lived in the area I would prefer that as a force—I am at least satisfied that some degree of civil and military force is moving into place to try to secure the area. Instead, as is happening, as we see from the UN report, towns and communities are becoming fearful. Salafists and extremists then turn to their towns and communities and say, “The only way we can defend ourselves from those Houthis and Saleh supporters is to raise the black flag.” It will be terrible, because we will not be able to remove ISIS from those communities for years to come. We are storing up a major problem. So when I see the Saudi and UAE troops moving to south Yemen, it has to be welcomed. Let us not forget that it is not just the Houthis and the Saleh alliance who are using child soldiers; the resistance forces who are fighting them are doing so as well. We need a restoration of civil governance. We cannot support a coup against a legitimate Government, even if that Government are not popular or efficient. We cannot allow that to happen.
I want to talk about arms, because some issues relating to arms have not yet been discussed. Who is supplying arms to Yemen? The UN register of interests gives us a list of the countries that have done so. They are: Russia, Bulgaria, Moldova, France, the USA, Ukraine, Belarus and China. Those armaments have included tanks, attack aircraft, rocket launchers and MiG jets. All those have been provided to the nation of Yemen. But I will tell you one country that has not supplied arms to Yemen: the United Kingdom. We have not supplied arms to Yemen, but all those other countries have done so. That ought to be noted. We have a good, robust system of arms export controls, far better than many others—[Interruption.] I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall end my remarks by saying that 2017 will be the year in which we will seek a ceasefire, and that I shall stand up and oppose anyone who wants to jump on the passing bandwagon of using Yemen to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
As we have heard, the conflict in Yemen has sometimes been labelled a forgotten conflict. I want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who mentioned earlier that it has not been forgotten in this House. I also want to pay tribute to the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for their excellent contributions to the debate, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. It has given all of us here in Parliament a chance to keep the issue at the forefront of the public debate and to remember those killed and injured as a result of the ongoing violence and those who are starving or stricken with illness as a result of the breakdown of civil society.
We must also remember the UK’s central role in the middle east, and in particular in this conflict. It is our moral and civic duty—and also in our best pragmatic, strategic self-interest—to do all we can to end the conflict and bring peace to Yemen. I think that there is consensus across the Chamber that that is what must happen, first and foremost because the humanitarian suffering in the country has now reached a horrifying tipping point.
I was grateful this week to have the opportunity to host a presentation by a range of aid organisations, setting out the scale and scope of the human suffering we are now seeing in the Yemeni population. We were warned by Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Yemen Safe Passage Group that the dangers of famine in the country are now very real indeed.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
My hon. Friend mentioned Oxfam. I have been contacted by a number of constituents who are supporting Oxfam’s Red Line for Yemen campaign. Will she join me in welcoming the campaign and support its call for the Government to uphold the spirit of the arms trade treaty and end any illegal arms sales that could be used to cause further suffering in Yemen?
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising awareness of that campaign, and I hope that many more people will now sign up to it.
Even before this conflict, Yemen was reliant on imports for between 90% and 95% of its food. By October 2016, the combined effect of a blockade of ports by coalition forces and severe damage to roads and port facilities meant that imported food covered only 40% of demand.
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
Ordinarily I would give way, but the hon. Gentleman had 15 minutes to make his speech and I want to make sure that the Minister has time to answer the important questions we have all posed. Please forgive me.
Oxfam has stated that, if the trend of plunging food imports continues unabated, food imports will come to a complete halt in four months’ time. Adding to the spiralling economic problems now facing the country—the central bank has stopped salary payments to Government employees, pension payments to the elderly and welfare payments to the vulnerable—a human tragedy on an almost epic scale is upon us. The estimate of the experts is that, by April or May 2017, there is a high likelihood of a “cataclysmic” famine that would condemn millions to suffering and death.
It is important that we bear in mind that those civilian victims are not a by-product of the conflict. They are the targets of military action, with the lack of food being used as a weapon of war. We have a moral responsibility to our fellow human beings to act now to address this crisis, which is why I welcome the work of aid organisations in Yemen. They have ensured, as best as they possibly can, that aid is delivered to those who need it now. I recognise that the UK Government have contributed more than £100 million-worth of aid to the country, and the Scottish Government have donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s ongoing Yemen crisis appeal, but our charity alone will not avert this tragedy.
What the people of Yemen need now, as much as they need food, is international leadership. I welcome the efforts of the outgoing US Secretary of State, who tried to broker a ceasefire deal at the end of last year, but we know that the incoming Trump Administration are unlikely to take the same view of relations in the region. I fear that the policies of the new White House Administration will instigate a worrying degree of further instability in the middle east, a point also made by the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond).
Keith Vaz
Because of the vacuum that has been created—obviously, with a new Administration—Britain holds the pen, as we are told, at the Security Council. There is nothing to stop us hosting a conference that tries to bring all sides together or tabling a resolution, because it will take several months for the new American Administration to get into the right position. Of course, they might take a different view from the Obama Administration.
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
The right hon. Gentleman demonstrates how we can show international leadership on this issue. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), has already been very active in this area, but we need to build on his efforts. We should do so not just because of the humanitarian crisis but because it also makes strategic sense in helping to combat the bastions of al-Qaeda terrorism on the gulf of Aden while de-escalating the tensions caused by what the Foreign Secretary called the “proxy war” between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Before we take on the role of peace broker, we have to face up to our role in the conflict now. If Saudi Arabia and Iran are, in the Foreign Secretary’s words, the “puppeteers” in the conflict, the UK has often acted as the quartermaster. That must end now. The UK has exported £3.3 billion of military equipment to Saudi Arabia since 2015. If we are to be an honest, impartial broker in the conflict, the Government must immediately suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia and facilitate a full, independent, UN-led inquiry into Saudi Arabia’s conduct in the war in Yemen. That has to happen because we now know that, after consistently failing to live up to our moral and legal responsibilities on the use of the now-banned cluster munitions manufactured in the UK and exported to Saudi Arabia, the current approach to arms sales has failed in the case of Yemen. The Yemeni people are the innocent victims.
The Government must show the same leadership shown by the Netherlands and Germany in suspending licences for arms exports to Saudi Arabia. More specifically, at the end of last year the US Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) has already said, banned the sale of guided munitions kits to Saudi Arabia. Will the Minister clarify whether the UK Government have granted export licences to Saudi Arabia for any similar weapons manufactured here in the UK? Would the Government be happy to do so in the future? In addition, rather than relying on the Saudis to dispose of the weapons themselves, Ministers should demand that they are turned over to our own personnel for disposal. As signatories to the cluster munitions convention, are we not legally obliged to do everything we can to prevent their use? Decommissioning them ourselves would serve that responsibility, so will Ministers pledge to do so today?
To be the honest broker that the region so desperately needs, we need to be clear about the involvement of UK forces on the ground in Saudi Arabia. When it published its report in September, the Foreign Affairs Committee recommended that the UK Government answer the following questions:
“How many UK personnel are assisting the Saudi Arabian armed forces and in what roles, including BAE Systems employees;
What is the extent of the involvement of each group of UK personnel with the Saudis operations in Yemen; and
How are UK personnel advising the Saudi Arabian armed forces on IHL and what level of understanding do they have of the coalition’s regard for IHL in its operations in Yemen.”
Those answers should also be forthcoming now.
This Government have an opportunity: to show international leadership; to use our power and influence in the middle east to stop violence, not to sell more weapons; and to end the suffering of millions of Yemeni men, women and children. In order to do that, the Government must come clean, with this House and with the country, about our involvement to date and the actions they have taken to put things right. Then, the Government can begin to play their part in consigning this forgotten conflict to history, where it belongs.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Let me start by echoing everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and Members from both sides of the House have said today about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. I congratulate him on securing this important debate. Let me also make it clear at the outset that we agree with the principles behind UN resolution 2216. We all want to see Yemen restored to the control of a legitimate, stable and democratic Government, capable of peacefully leading the whole country, and we all want to see the Houthi rebels held to account, both for their illegal coup and for the atrocities they have committed during this war. But with all due respect to those on the Government Benches and to some Members on my own Benches, may I say that it is possible to agree with the principles of the UN resolution while disagreeing profoundly, first, with the way in which this has been enforced and the way alleged violations of international law are being investigated and, secondly, with the abject failure of the British Government to bring this war to an end?
First, let me deal with the investigation of alleged war crimes. [Interruption.] If Government Members will give me a moment, I will be going into details, as I have 10 minutes. First, let me turn to the investigation of alleged war crimes committed by both sides, coalition and Houthi. Labour Members have said many times, just as the UN, all leading human rights groups and a number of Select Committees of this House have, that the only way to ensure the comprehensive, thorough and impartial investigation of those alleged crimes is to commission an independent UN inquiry. In response to our call, the Government have been consistent, saying that the Saudi-led coalition must be left to investigate themselves. Let us see how that is going, shall we?
In October, I revealed at this Dispatch Box that of the 3,158 documented airstrikes against civilian targets up to the end of August 2016, the coalition’s joint incidents assessment team had issued reports on just nine—a pathetic 0.002%. How many more reports has it completed since? It has completed just four. Of that total of 13 “investigations”—I use that word advisedly—there are just three in which the JIAT has found any culpability on behalf of the coalition. In the other 10 cases, comprising 241 civilian deaths and the bombing of four food trucks, three medical facilities, one school, one wedding, one cattle market, one food market and one food factory, the JIAT has found—surprise, surprise—that the coalition has done nothing wrong. This is the investigatory body into which the Government have put all their faith to ensure that the coalition is not violating international law.
Let us look at the man in charge of the JIAT, Colonel Mansour al-Mansour—or, as he is known by some in Bahrain, “The Butcher”. In 2011, while Bahrain’s popular uprising was being brutally supressed and martial law was being put in place, Colonel al-Mansour was the military lawyer who presided over the kangaroo court that was set up to jail and execute the protestors, activists, Opposition politicians, teachers, doctors, religious clerics, journalists and human rights campaigners—in fact, anyone seen as a threat to the Bahrain regime. Hundreds were jailed or sentenced to death under his orders, yet this is the man in whom the Government have put all their faith to investigate alleged war crimes in Yemen. What are we to make of that? The Government are being either extremely naive or extremely negligent, but either way it is not good enough.
I thought it very telling when on Tuesday the Minister said of the Saudi coalition:
“It is having to provide reports when it makes mistakes, and it has never done that before. It has no experience of even writing reports.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 145.]
That much is obvious, given that it has produced only 13 reports in eight months. What is more telling is the Minister’s implication that the JIAT’s role is just to identify mistakes.
Emily Thornberry
The Minister shouts from a sedentary position that that is not its role, but he said on Tuesday—I am simply quoting him—that it is having to provide reports when it has made mistakes. If it has only to identify mistakes, contrary to everything the Government have claimed, the JIAT is not investigating whether international law has been breached; it is just being taken on trust. All the JIAT is doing is looking at a handful of high-profile incidents and in one or two cases saying that a mistake has been made. Again, that is not good enough—[Interruption.] If the Minister wants to intervene on me, he is welcome to, but if he is just going to sit there and heckle, I am afraid he is not doing his cause any good. What I have described is not good enough as an investigation and it is certainly not good enough as the basis for confidence that our arms laws are not being breached. It is not good enough for this to be investigated by al-Mansour in the way that it is being investigated. Thirteen reports in eight months is not good enough.
I turn to the role that Britain must play in bringing an end to the conflict and, again, I go back to what the Minister said on Tuesday. The House may remember that I asked why the UK had not presented its resolution to the Security Council, and the Minister explained that
“we will not get a Security Council resolution passed until we get the cessation of hostilities in place.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 142.]
If that is the case, why does clause 1 of the UK’s draft resolution demand an immediate cessation of hostilities? Why would the very first line of the resolution demand something that is already in place?
Back in October, the UK’s ambassador to the UN said:
“We have decided to put forward a draft security council resolution on Yemen calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a resumption of the political process”.
In other words, the resolution was designed to be the driving force behind a ceasefire and peace talks, just as one was with resolution 1860 on Gaza, resolution 2174 on Libya, and resolution 2254 on Syria. For the Minister to claim now that we must have the ceasefire before we can have the resolution makes no sense. So what is the real explanation for the delay?
Mr Ellwood
I do not know where to start with this. Perhaps I should begin by saying that when a draft resolution is put together—when the words are formed and so on—we do not air it in public because it is very likely that the details will change. The hon. Lady needs to hold on until the actual UN resolution comes about, and then we can absolutely debate it. I pose a question to her, as I am supposed to in an intervention: has she read UN Security Council resolution 2216? I ask because it calls for exactly the same thing. She is asking for a ceasefire, but that is already inherent in UN Security Council resolution 2216.
Emily Thornberry
I am very interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and I will listen with some care to his speech. I know that the Government have said on many occasions that the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen is backed by the UN, and that they rely on the same resolution. I would be interested to hear where that is in the resolution, and how it can be claimed that Saudi intervention in Yemen is—[Interruption.]
Keith Vaz
I do not think that there is a huge gap between what my hon. Friend and the Minister are saying. When I was at the Security Council, what was in the draft resolution was certainly common knowledge, and every member of the Security Council spoke in favour of the ceasefire. Given that everyone knows what is in the draft resolution—it is in the public domain—there is no reason why this cannot be tabled.
Emily Thornberry
I respectfully agree. For 50 days, we have all known what is in the draft resolution, and we wait and wait for the British to put the resolution on the table. There is support for it, and it has a number of elements in it. During the rest of my speech, I wish to explain why the British are not putting it on the table. I will take interventions as necessary if the Minister wishes to explain.
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Lady tempts me. I ask her to join in with the spirit of the debate and try to look at the positives and at what we can actually do. She is focusing deeply on a draft resolution, which, having been involved in the Riyadh talks on 19 December, I can promise Members is now out of date. I will go into more detail in my response, but if she devotes another few minutes to this matter it will be superfluous to the wider debate—the good debate—that we have had in this Chamber.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Before the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) rises, may I remind everyone that we have another debate after this and that it is quite well subscribed? There are perhaps only one-and-a-half minutes remaining.
Emily Thornberry
I will not take any more interventions. I will just go straight through the rest of my speech, because I have some important points to make.
The truth is that Saudi Arabia does not want this resolution to be presented. When asked about the UK’s draft resolution in November by an Arab newspaper, the Saudi ambassador to the UN said.
“There is a continuous and joint agreement with Britain concerning the draft resolution, and whether there is a need for it or not.”
The newspaper goes on to say that the Saudi ambassador claimed that the UK draft resolution
“includes an unnecessary text, in addition to having a wrong timing.”
So there we have it in black and white.
Saudi Arabia does not sit on the UN Security Council, but it has been able to veto the UK’s draft resolution without so much as a discussion. Why has it done so? Is it because of clause 4, which calls for
“full, transparent and timely investigation”
of all alleged war crimes? We know that JIAT’s investigations have hardly been full, transparent or timely. Is it because of clause 5, which calls on all sides to negotiate a political solution on the basis of the UN road map? President Hadi has described the road map as
“the betrayal of the blood of martyrs.”
Is it because, just like Assad in Syria, Saudi Arabia sees no value in agreeing a ceasefire when it believes that the rebellion can still be crushed—no matter the civilian casualties, and no matter the humanitarian cost? No matter what Saudi Arabia does, it knows that this Tory Government will remain on its side.
The Foreign Secretary was right last month to call Yemen a “proxy war” and he was right to criticise Saudi Arabia’s “puppeteering”. Although I am happy to applaud his honesty, it is just his hypocrisy that is all the more disappointing. If he knows what Saudi Arabia is really doing in Yemen, he should follow America’s lead and stop selling it arms. If he is worried about the scale of civilian casualties, he should back a proper, independent, UN-led investigation to see whether international laws have been broken. If he wants to see an end to the conflict and get the children of Yemen the humanitarian aid that they need, he should have the guts to stand up to Saudi Arabia and present the UK’s resolution to the UN. It is time for the Government to stop the hypocrisy and the delaying tactics and start doing the decent thing: present the draft UN resolution, end the conflict, demand an independent investigation of war crimes, and send a signal of intent to the Saudis today by supporting this motion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
I am saddened to hear the comments made from the Opposition Front Bench. I am not sure that they are supported by those who sit behind the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). I am not going to react to anything that she said, other than her final statement: to say that Saudi Arabia is not wanting a ceasefire in the same way that Assad does not want a ceasefire in Syria is absolutely shameful and shows a misunderstanding of what is happening. Let us leave it at that.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—let me call him my hon. Friend, as we have known each other for a long time, since the days of being involved in student politics—and my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on securing the debate. The majority of speeches reflected a growing sense of understanding and expertise, and, without insulting anybody, I would say that we have moved on from the Thursday afternoon armchair generals, who often look at things through a particular prism, to understanding that this is a deeply complicated issue and conflict, and that the solutions are deeply complicated as well.
If I may, I shall start with the causes of the conflict, which many have touched on. In 2014, the Houthi forces and those loyal to former President Saleh overran the capital, Sana’a, and forced out the legitimate Government of President Hadi. Those forces have subsequently attacked Saudi Arabia, shelled border villages and killed Saudi civilians.
In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition of 10 countries started a military occupation to restore the Hadi Government, deter further Houthi aggression—which, otherwise, was likely to have reached the port of Aden—and defend the Saudi border. In April 2015, UN Security Council resolution 2216 condemned the Houthi actions. Paragraph 5 of the resolution called for a cessation of violence. In that context, the UK supports the coalition’s efforts.
UK diplomatic efforts also play an important role here. The Government believe that a political settlement is the only way to find lasting peace in Yemen, and we have been at the forefront of the international diplomatic effort to make progress towards that goal. In July last year, here in London, we brought together the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the US Secretary of State, to discuss a political way forward and to show support for the role of the UN in mediating a solution to the crisis.
Mr Ellwood
If there is time at the end of my speech, I will give way, but I am under pressure from Madam Deputy Speaker as there is another debate after this.
That informal group of key players is known as the Quad, and subsequent meetings have expanded to include the UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ahmed, and representatives from other Gulf countries.
The last Quad meeting I attended was in Riyadh on 18 December, and we agreed to urge all the Yemeni parties to engage with the UN process and put the needs of Yemen’s people first. We will continue to engage directly with the parties and with our partners in the region to support the UN’s proposals for peace. I spoke to President Hadi on 6 January—just a week ago—to emphasise the urgent need to find a way forward in the political process. We clearly have a transition, and in America, Rex Tillerson will take over from John Kerry. He is familiar with the area, having lived and worked in Yemen for about three years during his career.
Mr Ellwood
No. I will give way at the end, as I need to pay tribute and comment on other contributions.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby paid tribute to the humanitarian work that has been done, and I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for International Development, in his place. He has been very engaged with this matter, and the work that Britain does is recognised across the Floor of the House. The role that we play not only internationally, but in respect of this conflict, marks our place on the Security Council.
Mr Ellwood
I am afraid I will not as I am really under pressure. Like others, I wish we had more time. If there is time later, I shall be delighted to give way.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby touched on the history of the region, and it is worth underlining the fact that there are complex divisions in that country, not simply one between those supporting President Hadi and those supporting the Houthis or Saleh. There have been internal conflicts and power struggles since unification in 1990. There are super-tribes, tribes, militias, family clans, elites, secessionist groups and terrorist organisations—all this leads to instability on a grand scale. Loyalties are not firm. They move and come and go, along with the winds. That is the backdrop against which we are dealing with this matter.
The hon. Gentleman asked the key question as to when we will join calls for an independent inquiry. We have said we will support an independent inquiry, and I shall make the argument to say when that case might come to the fore.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) gave a powerful speech, reflecting his understanding and grasp of what is going on in the region. He paid tribute to the work that the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien, is doing at the UN in exposing what is actually happening and what further work needs to be done. I think the whole House would join my right hon. Friend in that tribute. He also talked about the remarkable visit, which I was pleased to be involved in, of the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir. Had we ever before heard of a Foreign Minister from any of the Gulf nations coming to this House, meeting parliamentarians and answering every question as best as he could? I hope that will happen again.
The Saudi Foreign Minister asked the clear question, “Why would we want to bomb farms and schools in Yemen?”, putting into context the fact that the two countries have a deep history with one another. There is no long-term interest in Saudi Arabia causing damage right across the piece to Yemen in the way in which some Opposition Front Benchers have described. It is not in the interests of Saudi Arabia, especially because of the international condemnation that that brings about. The Foreign Minister admitted that Saudi Arabia is slow in providing the reporting that everybody in this House has been calling for, and he was willing to ask whether we could help him to provide that.
Saudi Arabia is very much a culturally reserved country. It is unused to the limelight that it now has to adapt to live in, and to the sustained warfare in which it is now having to participate. It is also clearly unused to having to provide the reporting and scrutiny required when sustained warfare takes place, in the same way that we have had to learn to have those mechanisms in place to provide the transparency that is now expected on the battlefield.
Stephen Doughty
On the issue of transparency, the Minister says that Saudi Arabia should learn from us, so will he explain something? He said that his Department had immediately decided to correct the mistakes that it had given to this House in debate and in parliamentary questions, but he has just confirmed to me in a written answer at 3.11 pm that, in fact, the Foreign Secretary knew about it as early as 28 June. Why did it take nearly a month to come to this House with the correct information?
Mr Ellwood
The Defence Secretary made a point about that. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) knows me; I have done my best to be as transparent as possible. Those Opposition Members who have ever been Ministers will know that we have one of the best civil services in the world, dealing with thousands upon thousands of written answers.
Mr Ellwood
No, I will not. I will finish my point. Occasionally mistakes are made, and we put our hands up and say that they have been made. I am sorry that there was a delay. At the time, I think we were in the middle of the Brexit piece as well. As soon as we realised that one error was made, we did an investigation and found that, out of almost 100 parliamentary questions answered, there was one clerical error, which continued on; I think there was a handful of them.
Mr Ellwood
Six, yes. In six out of almost 100 the wording was incorrect. We then did an investigation that took some time. I tell the House now, as I did before, that I apologise for that. There is no conspiracy. It was an error that I take on my shoulders. Yet again, I apologise to the House. I will now move on.
Mr Ellwood
I will not because I want to mention the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who made some important points about the conflict being a forgotten war. Today’s debate is doing well to ensure that we have not forgotten about it here. He mentioned the urgency of a ceasefire, which gives me licence to talk about the pending UN Security Council resolution—it has not yet been completely written, but is in the process of being written. It is based on the road map, which was discussed on 19 December, and includes seven steps. I will elaborate a little on those steps so that hon. Members can see how complicated it is to get a consensus on them.
The measures include: the sequence of security steps for the withdrawal of equipment; the agreed roles and appointments of who is going to run a transition process; the resumption of consultations in accordance with the GCC negotiations, the partnership and peace agreement, and UN Security Council resolution 2216; the additional withdrawals; the signing of a detailed agreement; and a potential donor conference, which we need a commitment for. All that leads up to an electoral road map. That is complicated business, and that is why a UN Security Council resolution is not going to be a draft coming straight out, because that one is out of date.
Mr Ellwood
I will not give way to the hon. Lady—I have actually made that clear.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made an important point, which came up at Foreign Affairs—
Emily Thornberry
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In your absence, there has been a bit of backwards and forwards between the Front Benches, and I gave way on several occasions to the Minister. He is now making it clear that he will not allow me to intervene at all.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Let us just be clear about this. It is up to the Member, the Minister or the shadow Minister whether they give way or not—those are the rules of the House. The other point is that I understand this debate was meant to finish at 3.30 pm. We are now running over. The fact is the Minister does not wish to give way—that is his choice. It is no use getting uptight about it—that’s life.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I understand that, with the remaining two minutes—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. This is not a continuation, I hope. Let us get to the end of the debate. There are people who want to go on to the next debate. Please, I want to look after all Members of this House and all Members who wish to speak in the next debate, but they will not do so if we run on a lot longer over time. Please, let us get to the end, because I do want Mr Twigg to come in next.
Mr Ellwood
In the last two minutes I have, I wanted to make a point to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, who raised an issue that was mentioned at FCO questions on Tuesday. The fundamental backdrop to this issue is, in essence, a cold war that exists between the Sunni and Shi’ite leaderships. We need to solve that; we need to try to move forward from it. There is actually—technically, theologically—no doctrinal difference between the two faiths. They both believe in the centrality of the Prophet Mohammed; it all actually goes down to the difference in succession in 632—was the successor Ali, the son-in-law and cousin, or was it Abu Bakr, the father-in-law? Since then, there have been varying tensions throughout Islamic history, and peace and prosperity might improve if the two faiths could actually reconcile their political differences. That is at the core of a lot of the challenges we find in the middle east.
Time prevents me from being able to respond to other contributions, although I will do my best, as I have in the past, to write to Members. I will end by clarifying—
Mr Ellwood
I will give way, unless I can answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, as I think I am about to, by talking about when we feel it would be inappropriate to have faith any longer in the Saudi system.
The Government are not opposing calls for an international independent investigation, but, first and foremost, we want the Saudis to investigate allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law attributed to them, and we want their investigations to be thorough and conclusive. The Saudis have the best insight into their own military procedures, and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations. That will also allow the country really to understand what went wrong and to apply the lessons in the best possible way.
That is the standard we set ourselves and our allies. For example, when allegations were made against us in Afghanistan and Iraq, we investigated them. When, for example, the US was accused of bombing the Médecins Sans Frontières facility in Kunduz, it investigated that incident and applied the lessons learned to its military procedures to reduce the risk of such things happening again.
Saudi Arabia has publicly stated that it is investigating reports about allegations of violations of IHL and that any lessons learned will be acted on. It is absolutely right that, to date, only 13 have been reported. The machine is slow in putting these things together. The conduct of the investigations is absolutely new, and the Joint Incidents Assessment Team is learning its way. I keep putting pressure on those involved, and I will continue to do so.
To digress, we should remember how long it took for the Chilcot inquiry to come together, and the machine we have in this country is well versed in the legal parameters we have to deal with. For the moment, we need to have faith in Saudi Arabia to say, “Yes, these reports must be forthcoming.” For the moment, I remain with that and confident it can produce these reports.
In conclusion, this has been a very good debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee. This is not a forgotten crisis, and we remain fully engaged in securing a political solution. We will continue to lead the way in providing humanitarian support. Ultimately, it is for the Yemenis themselves to reach a compromise, and we stand ready to help them.
Stephen Twigg
I am very disappointed that the Minister, in his final remarks, gave us no further indication of when the Government would actually move to support a fully independent investigation. I am pleased that he responded to my point, but we have not been taken further on this issue, and I think that the House will return to it.
I agree with the Minister that we have had a very good debate. There are many areas of agreement. This is a complex country in terms of history and politics. The humanitarian crisis is appalling. We all want to work together to ensure access for humanitarian organisations. We welcome the positive leadership role that DFID has played in getting aid in. We need a ceasefire, we need a political settlement, and we need reconstruction.
This debate was co-sponsored by my friend, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), who chairs the Committees on Arms Export Controls. Those Committees play a crucial role in this House in monitoring arms exports. Some are arguing that that system should be abolished and that instead this should all fall under the remit of the International Trade Committee. This debate demonstrates again the importance of effective scrutiny of arms exports controls in terms of development, foreign affairs, and other aspects; it is not simply a question of international trade.
Evidence to my Select Committee from humanitarian organisations said:
“There is a paradox at the heart of the”
UK’s
“approach to Yemen.”
We are generous on aid but we are also contributing to the conflict through our arms sales. There are different views on arms among those on both sides of the House, and that has been reflected in the debate. However, I hope that we can all come together behind this motion, supported by three Committees of the House, which says that we should have this investigation, because, yes, we want peace, but alongside peace we want justice. A ceasefire is a necessary condition, but not sufficient. We will get justice only when we have a full, independent investigation into all alleged violations by all parties to this conflict.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the impact of the conflict on civilians; condemns any breach of international humanitarian law; and calls for an urgent independent investigation into reports of breaches of international humanitarian law on both sides of the conflict.
African Great Lakes Region
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the security and political situation in the African Great Lakes region.
This is the first opportunity that the House has had since the general election to discuss the great lakes region. I shall curtail my remarks somewhat to allow sufficient time for Back Benchers who wish to speak, as we have already lost 12 minutes or more of the debate.
The first three countries I am going to mention are countries where things have gone better in recent times. I start with Rwanda, which has a booming economy and has moved on from the genocide of 1994 in the most admirable ways. In November 2015, the White House put out a statement saying:
“President Kagame, who in many ways has strengthened and developed Rwanda, now has an historic opportunity to enshrine his legacy by honouring his commitments to respect the term limits set when he entered office...any move to prolong his hold on power would be to the detriment of Kagame’s legacy”.
On 1 December, Samantha Power called for Kagame to step down in 2017. What is the UK Government’s position on this?
Secondly, in relation to the UN rapporteur’s report on freedom of association and freedom of expression, has the UK been making representations—for example, in the Minister’s meeting with the Rwandans in December 2015 —to ensure that those in other political parties are not being labelled as enemies of the state and that the plurality of democracy becomes a key part, alongside a booming economy, of building this country as one of the great powerhouses of Africa?
The third issue is the function of non-governmental organisations, which is another big worry in Rwanda, not least in relation to appointments to the leadership of NGOs through the Rwanda Governance Board, whose role should be regulatory—it should not interfere and control. What is our Government’s position on that, and what representations are being made on those three issues?
I will move on from Rwanda. It would have been good to say more, but I am sure that others will do so. I suspect that less will be said about the Central African Republic, which is not mentioned or visited much by anyone. It has been too unsafe to visit, but the Pope has now demonstrated that it is moving on. The turnout at the last election in 2016 was an impressive 79%, and with democracy comes the possibility of stability, peace and development, but that is tempered by this week’s report by Amnesty International. What is the Government’s response to that report?
What assistance are the Government giving to help that country to move out of its dark years, or are we standing on the sidelines? The remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army are causing turmoil at every opportunity in the east of the country. What assistance are we giving to CAR to help it become a more normalised and stable country that can grow democratically and economically with a significant level of peace?
I wish to turn to the Congo, by which I mean not the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which I will come to and which I am sure will be the main issue of concern —it is a major country where we have a lot of relationships—but Congo-Brazzaville, which is also hardly mentioned. What are we doing there to ensure that its political stability is acknowledged and strengthened?
As an important aside, given the work of the World Wildlife Fund and Tusk with Prince William and others, it is a significant country in terms of the preservation of forest elephants and lowland gorillas. It seems to me that there is huge potential for boosting tourism; whether one welcomes or regrets that, it is a significant part of maintaining those critically endangered species. The issue is also relevant to CAR, whose national park borders Congo-Brazzaville. What practical assistance are we giving to help that develop? This country has a great interest in that area, not least through Prince William’s exertions. We will host a major conference in 2018. We have great expertise and there are opportunities do something hugely significant in a country that is rarely mentioned in this House.
The all-party parliamentary group on the African great lakes region intends to make a proposal relating to the delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly—Members may be interested in participating—and both CAR and Congo-Brazzaville may well be part of that. The Foreign Office in Kinshasa would certainly be keen on delegations visiting areas with which we need to build relationships and whose gains we can consolidate. Things have improved significantly in those countries in recent times, which is welcome. We should temper criticism and provide support for improving their democracy. We should continue to press them on that, while acknowledging their progress.
In Burundi, which I visited two years ago, there is a less happy state of affairs. The Department for International Development has pulled out and we do not have an embassy there. I pressed Ministers in the last Government on that issue. It was a mistake for us to withdraw from Burundi—and that has proven to be the case—because it is becoming increasingly anglicised in its approach to the world, as part of the east African community. It has followed many others by going its own way. Some Presidents seem to think that they ought to be there for life. In this case, there has been significant turmoil and a lot of violence, not least from the acolytes of President Nkurunziza and his entourage. There are huge dangers in the country, but what are we doing to assist and intervene? Do we support the use of chapter 7 of the UN charter to deploy a police force, in accordance with UN resolution 2303 of July 2016? What will it take for the UN Security Council to make that decision, and are we working to that end? What other leverage are we using on the President to ensure that the country moves on?
Burundi is hardly spoken about, but its genocide compares with the worst in Africa in recent and historic times. An extraordinary level of genocide was hidden away in the ’70s and ’80s. From 1972 onwards, the country experienced the biggest single proportionate dislocation of people anywhere in the world. The displaced population moved across the border to Tanzania in dramatically large numbers, and they have been reassimilated extraordinarily successfully. Yet we stand aside from all that, and from the needs of the country. Its democracy is under threat and violence has broken out repeatedly. The country carries the legacy of the hidden genocide, which has been highlighted by the discovery in the last 24 hours of 1,000 bodies in a mass grave in the Rusaka district. What are we doing, and why are we not properly engaging?
What about the NGO situation? The Iteka league was banned on 3 January. What about malaria? The country—the second-poorest country on the planet—is not really moving forward in tackling malaria. When it comes to human rights, what are we doing in Geneva with the Human Rights Council to ensure that Burundi is not given a soft option and that it is tackled about what it is doing, so that it can become a great success in Africa rather than regressing into dictatorship and the ensuing violence?
The final country I shall mention is the seventh poorest on the planet and the biggest—the DRC. It is a country of extraordinary size, with a population of 60 million, high levels of displacement and wars on its eastern side for a long time. Again, the opportunities are great, but what are we doing? An agreement was reached on 31 December on progression to enable the President to stand down. He has not yet signed the agreement, although most observers seem to think that he will. What are we doing to ensure that democracy prevails in that huge country? We have a significant aid programme in the country. What are we doing to ensure that the move on of Kabila is seen as a starting point for significant change, not a silver bullet?
What are we doing to ensure that our efforts are not concentrated entirely on the conflict areas of the east, but that they reach the whole mass of the country? The largest amount of—I am not sure that illegal is the right term—ad hoc land mining anywhere in the world has taken place across the western borders, and a huge chunk of the country has the most extraordinary health and safety conditions, deaths and lack of regulations. Our expertise could play a significant role.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I understand the plaintive cry of, “What are we doing?” This country can do a lot only through working with others, but we are doing a significant amount in our own right at Foreign Office level, through DFID, and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, even at party level. In my role as vice-chairman of international affairs in the Conservative party, we work, along with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, on democracy building in several of those states. The Conservative party has a project, and I suspect that the Scottish National party and the Labour party have projects too, in the great lakes region. There is one pivotal country to which the hon. Gentleman has not referred—Uganda. The security implications of what is happening in Uganda will be gravely important for the whole region in the years to come.
John Mann
The right hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently.
I have some practicalities for the Minister. The electoral commission in the DRC has no money and no capacity. Our expertise in elections is huge, so could we provide expertise and support? Are we considering how our aid programme can assist in trying to ameliorate some of the conflicts—for example, that in Katanga with the Bantu and the competition for land? How do we see the MONUSCO force developing? Many perceive it as highly ineffective in recent times. What is our approach to ensuring that that force is effective and that our expertise is brought to bear as part of it?
Alongside our aid programme, we have huge interests, such as mining companies, which are heavily involved in the DRC. The minerals are without question the reason for so much continuous war in the east and the south-east. People are battling for minerals, or groups are funded by minerals. What are we doing to ensure that we, with companies in this country, are not responsible? Indeed, when we consider the bribery and the payments to military groups, how do we know whether we are responsible?
Do the Government not see the importance of the proposals on beneficial ownership in places such as the British Virgin Islands? That directly connects to the conflict in the DRC through mineral companies that are based in offshore locations such as the British Virgin Islands. The New York Times recently revealed a series of suspicious bank transfers totalling around $100 million to Mr Kabila’s adopted brother. That is only one example. It is clear from the way in which the Serious Fraud Office has had to be involved that that is only skimming the surface. We could do a significant amount if we simply clarified and confirmed beneficial ownership of the moneys and the mining interests and held people to account. Some people believe that the various military forces battling illegally in the DRC are using mining money through bribery and direct extraction. We therefore have a huge responsibility to the region as well as to the DRC. What are we doing about that?
I pay tribute to Carole Velasquez and Noreen Kassam—two volunteers who have assisted the all-party group; in Carole’s case, for many years—for their support, and to CAFOD, which has been hugely influential in supporting and assisting the Catholic Church in getting the breakthrough in the DRC. There are many other great players in the aid world in this country, and they should be congratulated on their work. I could say much more but I will not; I hand over to others.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Marvellous. May I say to hon. Members that if they speak for up to seven minutes, everyone will have equal time? I know that Front Benchers do not like their time being squeezed, but they may get squeezed again.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for an extremely good and well-informed speech, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) who has also sponsored this debate.
The UK is increasingly engaged in the great lakes region and rightly so. It is vital that we continue to be so for the long term, and that we do not dip in and out but maintain our presence in a positive way in the many different respects I will come on to. I am more positive about the great lakes than I have been for some time. We have on many occasions in the past year raised huge concerns about the future of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, yet I hope the agreement reached on new year’s eve will be remembered in the same way as we remember the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland: as a time when differences were put aside in the interests of their people. As the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said, the agreement talks about elections this year, no third term for President Kabila, and no referendum or constitutional changes.
I pay great tribute to the Catholic Church, which has done so much; to the retiring US envoy Thomas Perriello, who has done a tremendous job; to our own Foreign and Commonwealth Office; to the EU; and to our own great lakes envoy, Danae Dholakia. I also want to pay tribute to the work done by DFID—colleagues and I saw its work on a visit in July—particularly on health in remote regions and access to water. They are some of the best projects I have ever seen. They are done at low cost by people who have been really committed to the DRC for decades. These are not consultants who come and go, but really committed people who put their life’s work into helping the poorest.
Burundi is another matter, but we must be as positive as possible. The years 2015 and 2016 have been a tragedy for that country. It is vital that 2017 is better. Every effort must be put into turning the country around, principally by those who have responsibility for it. One lesson we have to remember is to ensure that any agreements made are watertight. The Burundi problem arose from the lack of clarity over how many terms the current President would serve or in what way he would be re-elected. As a result, hundreds if not thousands of people have been killed. Any agreement must look forward to problems that may arise when they are signed.
The former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, is negotiating and has done a fine job. We must continue to support him in every way possible. It is disappointing that some organisations have withdrawn their support from the process. We can understand the reasons why, but I believe it is the only game in town and they need to be engaged with it. As President Mkapa said, they need to deal with the situation as it is: to work with President Nkurunziza; to try to persuade the Government of Burundi to turn away from an extremely dangerous path; to see extrajudicial killings stopped; to see paramilitaries and roaming gangs return to lawful activity; to restore law and order and human rights; and above all to not let the blight of ethnic hatred, to which the hon. Member for Bassetlaw referred, come back. Burundi has suffered as grievously from genocide as Rwanda, but it was a rolling genocide over decades and not a genocide in 100 days in 1994.
I will not say much about Rwanda, because other Members possibly will do so. It has been a success story, but with problems along the way. There is an election this year. This is a time for the country to come together. It is also a time to look to the future. If as seems likely President Kagame, who in many ways has been an outstanding if flawed leader, stands again, he needs to look beyond the next term as to who his successor will be. He has the interests of his country at heart. He will want it to prosper in the future. He knows that he will not be around forever—none of us are.
Tanzania is probably the country in this region that is closest to my heart, having lived there for so many years. It has generally managed the transition to free and fair elections extremely well, except, sadly, in the case of Zanzibar. There was progress in Zanzibar from 2010 to 2015, but the elections in that year were flawed and pulled in a way about which our Government made their view quite clear. The elections were re-held in 2016 without the presence of the main Opposition party. It is vital that the island of Zanzibar comes together with the Union Government and resolves this problem. The people of Zanzibar deserve nothing less. They are a peaceful and wonderful people.
At the same time, Tanzania has respected the two-term limit for presidents impeccably, for which we should give that country great credit. The CCM, the major ruling party, has achieved a great deal, but it needs to go further. The Government need to bring in an independent electoral commission in Tanzania. In my opinion, that is the biggest flaw in Tanzanian democracy at the moment. At the same time, the Opposition need to use Parliament and the parliamentary process to deal with the understandable questions it has for the Government, rather than just taking to the streets every time. I pay tribute to the Opposition for keeping calm and not going ahead with the major demonstrations proposed in September, which I believe would have resulted in unnecessary violence and possibly deaths.
On Uganda, the examples of former Presidents Benjamin Mkapa and Ali Hassan Mwinyi in Tanzania, as well John Kufuor in Ghana, show the benefit of presidents who recognise the importance of term limits. Those who stay on forever rarely go gracefully. That is surely a lesson for Uganda. The peace and stability since 1985 has been a huge relief for the people of Uganda, but proper open and democratic transition is also a sign of wisdom and maturity.
Finally, I wish to refer to development in all these countries. In our debate on the sustainable development goals last November in Westminster Hall, I referred to the five levers of development that I believe are crucial, including to all the countries of the great lakes region: jobs and livelihoods, health and health research, education, gender equality and infrastructure. DFID and the UK are involved in pretty much all these countries, including in Burundi—not directly but through multilateral means—and it is vital that this continues. As I said at the beginning, we must remain committed for the long term to ensuring the future prosperity of this wonderful and very important part of the world.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for securing this important debate.
I want to focus on eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, because it is an area that has been overlooked by this place, the west and the whole world. Obviously, stability and security in the great lakes region of Africa is too often overlooked by the international community. That applies particularly to the eastern DRC but throughout the region. Violence, rape and displacement have become normalised, while several of the region’s countries have become bywords for conflict and human rights abuses. Over 1,000 Congolese women are raped every day. It seems uniquely shocking when we talk about it, but then there seems to be a transformation in our minds, and we think, “Well, it is tragically commonplace”, and we just seem to accept it. That is a really sad reflection.
The result is a relative lack of awareness of and action against the political instability that has beset these countries for decades. Worse still, there is a tendency to regard the violence as perpetual and inevitable, in contrast to conflicts in other parts of the world, which seem more immediately redeemable and on which we seem to be more focused. The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe and the Mediterranean is testament to this trend, as is Syria. The Calais “Jungle”, for example, received a huge amount of coverage and activism, compared to the refugees of eastern DRC and Burundi, and yet the Calais refugees, as tragic as their plight was, numbered just 7,000, compared with the millions of internally displaced persons in Burundi, eastern DRC and DRC more widely who have been displaced for decades—not months or a year but decades. Worse still, millions of refugees torn from their families, homes and communities have been forced to live in east African refugee camps for about 20 years. It is a shame that so little attention is paid to this issue.
Having visited Rwanda twice in the past few years and spoken to Congolese refugees who have been accommodated there, I have some tentative reflections on the issue. Rwanda seems to be a developed country and a relatively stable and increasingly prosperous democracy, whereas the DRC continues to be plagued by anarchic and systemic violence. According to recent UN statistics, there are currently 2.7 million internally displaced people, as well as 430,000 refugees displaced from the eastern DRC, spread in camps across Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania—nearly half a million people whom we seem to ignore when we talk about human rights and helping people.
On my first visit to one of the camps at Byumba, I witnessed at first hand the conditions in which families, often spanning three generations—can Members believe that?—have had to live. Located at the very top of a lowly mountain range, isolated from the attention of the world, the Gihembe refugee camp houses some 15,000 people. It has been there since the 1990s. It is overcrowded, lacking in resources and cramped. The shacks and primitive accommodation are crowded together on the steep slopes, and inside the camp there is an inadequate supply of water, electricity and food. Children aged under 18 represent a staggering 51.2% of the camp’s population, and because they have grown up in these camps, they know nothing else. This is the world in which they live, which our world does not seem to understand or even care about. Poor education and insufficient public amenities abound.
The situation in the DRC makes it almost impossible for refugees to return home. More than 100 armed militia groups camped out in its impenetrable jungles continue to kill and terrorise families daily, and rape continues to be used as a weapon of war. I hope that the issue will be raised in the Chamber again and again in the future, because we should not turn our back on it. When the conflict worsens, more than 400,000 women can be raped in a year.
The eastern DRC is plagued by murderous militia groups, from the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which exploit the country’s mineral wealth and use its proceeds to terrorise communities into subordination. The state is at best ineffectual, and at worst complicit. Congolese politicians enable the groups to control and compete for vast swathes of the DRC in order to maintain their cut and their hold on power. They are allowed to descend into mindless violence in pursuit of an industry worth $27 trillion in untapped mineral resources in the DRC, fighting for control over coltan production and the DRC’s vast gold, tin and tungsten reserves. Fighting frequently breaks out to determine which groups control the lucrative mines in the eastern areas of the country, and the situation shows little sign of improving.
With little or no hope of return, Congolese refugees are trapped in the camps, as they have been for a long time. Unlike those in Calais, they are not provided with comprehensive rights in their new country. Tanzania and Uganda have restricted the legal right of refugees to work, while Burundi and Malawi have restricted access to citizenship. Zambia has even restricted access to education.
We in this place need to ask why this situation continues with no end in sight. The Minister will undoubtedly point to the efforts of the Catholic Church, the African Union and MONUSCO to broker a lasting peace, but we need to ask why the actions of MONUSCO, the largest UN peacekeeping force to be sent to the eastern DRC, have failed to stabilise the area—and now that force is being withdrawn. No inquiry seems to be taking place into the failure and the ongoing violence. Stabilisation would enable the refugees to return home and conduct their lives without the constant fear of violence and unending poverty.
An attitudes survey carried out by the South African Sonke Gender Justice Network in 2012 showed a shocking prevalence of the acceptance of rape among Congolese men. One in three men in the eastern DRC admitted to committing sexual assault, while 61% of interviewees stated that women sometimes deserved to be beaten. The DRC has been branded the “rape capital of the world”, and I hope that we will address that in future debates.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this debate and making a wide-ranging and comprehensive speech on the region.
There can be few areas of the world where the real legacy of colonialism remains so apparent as the great lakes region of Africa. Few areas have such outstanding resources—natural resources and resilient people—but few areas also have a greater burden to bear due to the horrific history of western greed and appropriation among other reasons.
I have a particular interest in, and many friends from, the DRC and I wish to focus on it today. This is a country that has never had a peaceful transition to democratic power, and that is tragic. The fact that the Church has brokered a deal at least puts the democratic transition back on the table in the coming year and that is to be welcomed, although only cautiously as it remains to be seen whether President Kabila will sign up to the transition; his record, as we know, is not a good one.
This is how Amnesty International summed up the last year in the DRC:
“Government repression of protests…intensified. Violations of the rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly increased. Human rights defenders, youth activists and politicians were threatened, harassed, arbitrarily arrested and in some cases convicted for peacefully exercising their rights…numerous armed groups perpetrating serious abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law…high civilian death toll and mass displacements.”
It is understandable, therefore, that people are cautious, but, as I said, a deal has been struck and right now the DRC is in a better place than before. I hope that this limited progress will be a call to action for other countries in the region, and those elsewhere with strong links to the DRC, to support the formation of a transitional Government as per the deal and ensure that Kabila does indeed step down and democratic elections do indeed take place later this year.
However, the key structural problems across the region remain and will continue to drive instability unless they are tackled. Many of these stem from the colonial period, as I mentioned at the start of my speech. Good governance of natural resources is a massive issue and is essential, but others have spoken, and will speak, about that.
Unequal distribution of land continues to impact on many of the countries in the region. Those who have been displaced because of internal conflict often return to find their land has been redistributed in their absence. While that is traumatic enough for an individual, it becomes far more destabilising if entire communities or ethnic groups are displaced and return to find their land has been seized or sold off in its entirety in their absence. Instability in one country can quickly spread across state boundaries, and there remain those who are more than willing to exploit this.
There are also very real political and financial difficulties placed on states hosting refugees from neighbouring countries. Some 100,000 displaced Burundians currently reside in Tanzania. We would do well to remember that it is the poorest countries who host the majority of the world’s refugees—and I think we will probably find they complain less because they do not see what they do as charity; they see it as their duty to humanity.
As the Scottish National party’s civil liberties spokesperson in Westminster, it would be remiss of me not to mention some of the very real dangers facing journalists, civil organisations and opposition leaders in the region. That is something that we in this Parliament can affect; by looking to build links with our parliamentary colleagues in the great lakes region, we can work to strengthen democracy and the rule of law.
I know that a great many colleagues are involved with projects and associations that work across Parliaments to help other countries develop their democratic institutions. In my role as vice-chair of the all-party group on Africa, I recently chaired a meeting here in Westminster looking at how the UK can support the participation of women and the rule of law in the DRC. It was attended by some very impressive and some very courageous women from the DRC—campaigners, activists, refugees, academics, and Eve Bazaiba, a Member of the DRC Parliament since 2006. If we need one reason above all others to do everything in our power to support the people of the DRC, it is these women and all the women and children currently living there, so many of whom have been, or will become, victims of sexual violence. Amnesty International described the rate of sexual violence in the past year as “rampant”. It is out of control. As we have heard, 1,000 women are raped a day—that is 48 per hour, which means that since this debate started not that long ago about 34 women have been raped in the DRC.
When I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I attended a meeting with campaigners against sexual violence in the DRC. What I heard from them haunted me for a long time. I rarely allow myself to think about it, far less speak about it, because it was so overwhelming. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for those women to experience it. Today I am choosing not to share those stories that haunted me, but I remain in awe of those women because, while they courageously told their personal stories, I cannot bear to repeat their words. The sexual violence that they experienced in the DRC was savage, and if it is something that I find unspeakable, it must be extreme. We cannot turn our backs on the people in that region, and in the DRC in particular. We cannot merely tick boxes; we must tell the people of the DRC that we in this House really do care. That means that the very least we will do is play our part in ensuring that the people of the DRC are able to participate in free and democratic elections later this year.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), and I particularly support what she said at the end of her speech about the horrors of sexual violence in the DRC and the importance of the elections there. I reiterate the point that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) made that it is often the poorest countries in the world that host the largest numbers of displaced people, including refugees. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this debate, and I echo all that he said in his opening remarks.
I congratulate the other Members who have taken part in the debate, particularly the members of the Select Committee who are here. They include my friend the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who is an expert on Tanzania and Burundi. He has been a real champion for Burundi. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who is unable to take part in the debate but is a great champion of these issues and an expert on the situation in Uganda. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn made a powerful speech. He talked about displacement and refugees in Africa, and the Select Committee will be addressing that important matter in an inquiry shortly.
I want to focus today on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The scale of the humanitarian challenge there is enormous, with at least 1.6 million people internally displaced. It is estimated that about 5% of the poorest people in the world live in the DRC, and projections suggest that, unless things change, that figure will more than double over the next 15 years, which is the period for the global goals. That is the challenge that we face. Water Aid tells us that fewer than 30% of the people in the DRC have access to basic sanitation.
As others have said, the humanitarian crisis has been shaped by conflict and political instability. I echo what has been said about the encouraging signs with regard to the political position, and I congratulate the Catholic Church and others on the role that they have played in mediating talks over the Christmas period. Let us hope that we will now see movement towards elections in the DRC this year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, the United Kingdom can and must play a proactive role, not least in supporting electoral registration and the other elements for which the electoral commission in the DRC has responsibility.
The International Development Committee is currently conducting an inquiry on fragility and development in the DRC. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said, we visited the country last July and saw some of the work that the Department for International Development was doing. I spoke in the debate on Tuesday about the support that the Commonwealth Development Corporation is giving to a very positive hydroelectric power programme in the Virunga region. We also saw some excellent peace-building work being done in the Goma region to bring together members of the community and the police to try to break down the barriers that have inevitably built up between them over the past 20 years. We visited a camp for internally displaced people in South Kivu and heard how cash transfer—an issue that has been in the news recently—is giving back control of their lives to people who have been powerless to do anything but flee from conflict. We also went to the Red Cross hospital in Goma, where a war surgery team run by the Red Cross treats a slow but steady stream of people who have suffered some of the most appalling gunshot and machete wounds. Those are positive examples of UK aid making a real difference to some of the poorest people in the world.
As everyone who addressed the subject of the DRC in this short debate has said, the recent history of that country has been violent and unstable, but there are now some reasons for cautious hope. Let us as a country play a positive and proactive role in supporting a peaceful solution that enables elections to happen, that enables those elections to be free and fair and that puts the focus on human rights, while seeking to bring peace to a country that has been savaged by war.
The humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will not disappear overnight, so it is important that, through DFID, non-governmental organisations and others, we continue the hard work to alleviate the worst aspects of poverty in that country. We who serve on the International Development Committee, on a cross-party basis, have seen at first hand the many good things that are being done to alleviate poverty in the DRC, and we look forward to releasing our report as a result of that inquiry shortly.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I welcome the fact that this debate is taking place in the Chamber, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing it. He said that this is the first debate in the Chamber on the great lakes since the general election, which might be true, but last January there was a debate on east and central Africa, secured by the former Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, that touched on a number of similar countries—there was a similar debate about the exact definition of the region. Sadly, very little has changed since then in the overall stability of the region, although we have heard about some glimmers of hope today.
Perhaps the most tragic and depressing aspect of the situation is that the people most affected by conflict, instability, poverty and food insecurity are usually the people who have done the least to cause those situations and who, almost by definition, are not in a position to do very much about them, at least without appropriate support and encouragement. At the heart of the debate should be basic questions about human dignity and our role in making sure that it is respected.
I will briefly address the various countries that have been mentioned, some of the broader regional issues and the role for the UK Government and international actors. The DRC has probably been the main focus of the debate. I have not yet had the privilege of visiting that country, but, like my hon. Friends, I have met many people visiting from the DRC, not least at the event organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and during my time with the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund. I have never failed to be moved by those people’s optimism and determination to work for a better future, despite the immense challenges—not least the terrible sexual violence that a number of hon. Members spoke about.
I often make the point that the DRC should be one of the richest countries in the world. We all carry around a little bit of the DRC in our pocket—in the coltan in our mobile phones—yet it is one of the poorest countries. I wonder whether, in a way, we are all slightly complicit, because we enjoy cheap access to technology and perhaps do not speak out enough about the instability that suits the extraction companies and the Governments of the countries in which they are based.
I join the tributes paid to the Catholic Church and the civil society organisations that brokered the new year’s eve deal. The deal will hopefully see fresh elections and President Kabila standing down, although, as we recently saw in Gambia, it is not beyond Presidents to go back on their word.
Burundi has also been mentioned, and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw made important points about the role of the UN Security Council. Of course, tensions continue with Rwanda, and the displacement has an effect across the whole region. There is displacement into Tanzania and down into Malawi, a country with which I am familiar—the Dzaleka camp has more than 25,000 refugees from Burundi and elsewhere in the region. Yes, there is some stability in Rwanda, but at what price? Kagame will be standing again in 2017, which is why support for civil society and governance is important. The points about the Central African Republic, which Pope Francis visited in 2015, and Congo-Brazzaville are also important.
Africa would have so much to gain from tourism if only there were a little more stability and infrastructure. Very few of the challenges we have heard about are caused by natural causes or force majeure. The behaviour of people and Governments in the region and across the world are responsible. That is particularly true of climate change, which is often more of a driving force than might be immediately obvious. We in the west have done the most to cause climate change through decades of pollution and industrialisation, and people in the great lakes region are among those feeling the effects first and hardest. Indeed, the great lakes themselves are affected by climate change and the increasing demand for water, which threaten biodiversity.
Climate change also has a major impact on food security and the ability of small-scale and subsistence farmers to produce enough food for themselves. Food security, in turn, affects health, educational attainment, gender equality and, ultimately, people’s ability to take part in society and the economy. That compounds the challenge of a weak civil society and the continuation of “big man” politics throughout the region, which we have heard about.
Investment in civil society and good governance programmes is vital, even if it can be slow-burn—long-term investment is perhaps not as attractive to DFID and other donors as it once was—and, without it, the cycle will continue. Weak governance of course makes it easier for multinational companies to run riot—whether food producers grabbing land or forcing the use of GM crops, or extractive companies dodging taxes and ignoring labour standards. Members who want to reduce our foreign aid budget—we have not heard from them today, but they exist—should be the first in the queue to demand that corporations pay their taxes in developing countries, so that domestic resources are available to invest in food and education. They should be demanding that this Government hold those companies to account, especially when they are based in the City of London or in offshore tax havens.
The African Union has a role to play in all this, and it would be interesting to hear from the Minister about any diplomatic, structural and financial support the UK is prepared to give, so that it can play a full role in promoting peace and stability and in the development of democracy and good governance across the continent. The point about 0.7% is also important, and it would be good to hear the Minister reaffirm the Government’s commitment to that in this and future spending periods. I hope he recognises that that commitment is even more important in the context of Brexit, as a signal that the UK intends to play a continued, positive leadership role in the world and wants to continue to engage.
What leadership are the Government showing in tackling the complex supply chain, tax and corporate governance issues that are also wreaking so much of the havoc we have heard about today? What progress is being made to improve the reporting of the beneficial ownership of companies operating from tax havens in UK overseas territories? Again, the impact of Brexit arises here: will the UK demand that the highest standards of country-by-country reporting and supply chain management continue once it is decoupled from existing EU regulations? How will the UK continue to promote efforts to tackle climate change? Will the Foreign and Commonwealth Office be using its trumpeted relationship with the incoming US Administration to ensure that they maintain their commitment to the Paris agreement? Are the UK Government prepared to provide adequate funding to help countries in the great lakes region and across Africa adapt to the impact of climate change, which is already taking place?
If there is a similar debate in a year’s time, when I hope this Minister will at least get a break from the Dispatch Box—he has been here all afternoon—I wonder what progress will have been made. Will there have been elections in the DRC? Will the elections in Rwanda take place peacefully? Will there have been any kind of resolution or progress in Burundi? This is about the human dignity of the people who live in those countries, and our dignity is in some way diminished if we do not play our part and step up to the plate to promote a resolution. All the issues and challenges we have heard about today have been created by people, so it stands to reason that people and political will can overcome them.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
First, let me thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for securing this important debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I acknowledge the excellent contributions made by Members on both sides of the House. My hon. Friend highlighted some of the less mentioned countries of Africa, including the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville, and the work done by Prince William. He then moved on to discuss the more commonly talked about countries in this debate, such as Burundi and the DRC.
I wish to thank the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who highlighted his positivity. I was pleased to hear him say that he felt more positive about the region than he has for a long time. That is encouraging, given his expertise, having lived in Tanzania—I was pleased to hear him share his expertise on that country. I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), who has moved place again, keeping us on our toes. He highlighted shocking violence, including the widespread acceptance of rape, and human rights abuses in the eastern DRC. He also highlighted the plight of Congolese refugees.
I wish to thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) for sharing her expertise on the DRC. It was my privilege to attend the all-party group meeting that she organised with women from the DRC. This was when I was still fairly new to this role and it was a great education for me, so I thank her for organising that meeting and inviting me along.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—like many of us, he has been in the Chamber all afternoon—for highlighting the humanitarian challenge in the DRC and the work done by the Department for International Development and non-governmental organisations. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) highlighted climate change and its effect on the great lakes region—an important aspect that we must not forget about.
As we all know, the African great lakes region is one of great significance, not only to stability in the African continent, but to the UK, because of the humanitarian and developmental aid that we contribute and our future trade and investment. We have heard that the region witnessed abuses of constitutional powers in 2015 and 2016, with the extension of presidential terms and numerous failures to hold fair and free elections, along with state crackdowns on political opposition and discourse.
Like most speakers, I shall focus on the DRC and Burundi. Both countries are at an acute political crossroads. Trouble in the region is no more so apparent than in Burundi, where President Pierre Nkurunziza successfully engineered for himself an illegal third term in office midway through 2015. He has also indicated that he will stand for re-election in 2020. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that situation.
Since President Nkurunziza’s decision to run again, political unrest has led to more than 1,000 dead and 8,000 people detained on political grounds, including the leader of the main Opposition party, Gervais Niyongabo, and many high-ranking army officials. Amnesty International has reported that torture by the Burundian national intelligence service has become systematic. It has shown that secret detention facilities have multiplied and served as torture centres, used for extracting information on all those who are believed to oppose the ruling party.
Sadly, Burundi took another major step backwards by officially withdrawing from the International Criminal Court in October last year. The decision was unprecedented and could lead to other countries in the region following suite. What have the UK Government done, and what can they do, to persuade Burundi to reconsider. On new year’s eve, the country awoke to the news that its Environment Minister had been assassinated, adding to further civil unrest. Will the Minister update the House on events following that tragedy?
In 2012, the Government set out their global review of DFID funding, which committed to phasing out the bilateral programme of funding to Burundi, with no plan or commitment from the Government to restart that programme. Is the Minister aware of any additional funding or assistance that could be used to help the people of Burundi?
As we have heard, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is in similar turmoil. During President Kabila’s two terms as leader, military forces have executed a widespread crackdown on political dissidents, including through a media blackout in which he has shut down media outlets close to the Opposition, at least six of which remain blocked. At least 40 Opposition leaders and supporters and pro-democracy youth activists remain in detention throughout Congo. Many have formed rebel groups and factions that have dispersed to borders, and insurgency killings have plagued civilians, mainly in the east of the country. What additional support are we giving the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC to help to implement Security Council resolution 2277?
President Kabila’s failure to hold elections has led to further violence and abuse in the country. Over the Christmas and new year period, DRC security forces killed 40 protestors who were peacefully demonstrating against the refusal of a peaceful and legal transition of power. In the last days of 2016, the Catholic Church managed to broker a deal between the ruling party and the Opposition. That agreement was signed between the political parties on new year’s eve, and it stated that President Kabila will step down at the end of 2017. It is clear that all parts of the House welcome that move, and it is hoped that President Kabila himself signs and upholds the agreement to which he has yet to commit.
Sadly, yesterday, we did see the first signs of backtracking on this agreement, as a group of senior MPs, alongside confidantes of President Kabila, outspokenly challenged the deal, calling for it to be scrapped. The signs are beginning to look ominous. Will the Minister outline to the House what will happen if President Kabila fails to sign the agreement or, worse, fails to comply and to leave political office? What changes would materialise between our two countries? Would the Government consider imposing sanctions on the DRC given that the Congo is one of our largest aid recipients, with the Department for International Development projected to grant £168 million in aid in the forthcoming year? If the President does not stand down in the agreed timeframe, will the UK Government consider imposing sanctions on his family business, which has benefited from his policy reforms, particularly in mining, energy and the banking industry, all of which have gained heavily from foreign investment into the DRC, including from the UK, the US and the EU.
The African great lakes region is seeing an upsurge in political repression, violence and militia recruitment, and heightened cross-border conflicts are on the rise. Much of that is derived from historical warfare, but the suppression of fair and democratic systems and the upholding of human rights are a grave cause for concern.
The world’s eyes are currently focused on the devastation of the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, which, of course, we have just debated in this Chamber, but we must not turn a blind eye to this region, which has seen its own horrors of civil war in the 20th and 21st centuries, most notably in Rwanda. I am sure that all of us here in this House will not forget the horrors of the genocide, which claimed the lives of around 800,000 people only 23 years ago.
Rwanda is now seen as an international success, and it has blossomed as an architectural model for rehabilitation and reconciliation. None the less, the political situation in all these regions is fragile, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) have highlighted current issues with Rwanda, particularly in relation to democracy. The great lakes region will be stable only if all the countries in the region are stable—their politics are integrally linked.
As we have seen only recently in the Gambia, the power of the ballot box is beginning to break the rule of the strongman in Africa, although, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) pointed out, progress is slow. Like the hon. Member for Stafford, I am hopeful that a new era is upon us in the region. We must show our strength and ensure that, where we can, measures can be implemented to support countries across the African continent and in the great lakes region.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. Although many of the same characters are here from the previous debate, I suspect that the tone will be slightly different. It is a pleasure to respond to a subject on which there is a lot of cross-party agreement. Many of today’s questions relate to our international aid commitments, but I will do my best to answer them. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this debate. He asked a series of pertinent questions, and I will endeavour to write to him and to other Members if I do not get the opportunity to answer them or to pay tribute to the work that is being done.
Many important points have been made. Let me begin by saying that the great lakes has long been a troubled region, and that remains the case today. It faces many challenges: challenges to democracy when those in power seek to hold on to it; challenges to livelihoods; challenges to human rights from armed groups and repressive Governments; and challenges to survival from violence and hunger.
It is also a region of great potential. The rapid development in Rwanda, which I have visited a number of times, is testimony to that. It also shows what can be achieved when regional Governments and the international community work together.
The UK is a major partner for the region, which is why it was part of my first visit to the continent, following my appointment in July as Minister for Africa. The UK is the second largest donor of humanitarian and development aid. We continue to play a key role in promoting sustainable peace and stability. The people of the great lakes region are resilient, and our aim is to work with Governments and the people of the great lakes countries to achieve a more peaceful, better governed, more democratic and more prosperous region.
Before going into the details of the main countries, I shall respond to some of the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw, who introduced the debate, talked about conflict minerals. I can assure him that we take the matter seriously. The Serious Fraud Office is looking into some investigations that are linked to British companies. Again, I can write to him with further details.
I think the hon. Gentleman was the only Member to refer to the illegal wildlife trade. We place importance on that matter and the Foreign Secretary takes it very seriously indeed. He is working with the Environment Secretary, who attended the illegal wildlife conference in Vietnam in November. We offered to host the next event, which will take place in London, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, in 2018. The Foreign Secretary’s father is very engaged in the matter as well.
Mention was also made of the power that the monarchy can bring to bear. Prince William is a huge driver in raising the profile of this matter and in increasing the understanding of the work that we have done. On a visit to Uganda, I was able to see some of the Department for International Development programmes that are in place, which are providing better intelligence to enable us to understand criminal gangs. Those gangs have no regard for borders. They are moving the ivory and so forth across those borders—looking for markets, getting through customs illegally—and on, predominantly, to the far east, which is the biggest market. That is why the hosting of the event in Vietnam was important in respect of people in the region acknowledging that more needs to be done in that neck of the woods.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the Republic of the Congo. I had the experience of crossing the mighty Congo river, in a very small boat, from Kinshasa to Brazzaville. I also had the opportunity to meet the President there, who is absolutely committed to the areas of work that we want to do.
Furthermore, there is more engagement and involvement in honouring the constitution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: with 80 million people, what happens there can have a spillover effect into Angola and elsewhere, so it is very important that we ensure that there is stability in that part of Africa.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whom I have long known, is an advocate and supporter of and expert on Africa. He made a powerful speech. He knows that my interest in Africa is personal, and we have a connection by way of the fact that my sister was headteacher of the international school at the base of Kilimanjaro, in Moshi. Through that, we recognised our mutual interest in Africa.
The fact that my hon. Friend says he is positive about the region, given the amount of knowledge he has, fills me with a sense of promise that we are going in the right direction. I join him in paying tribute to Tom Perriello, although I have no idea what the American envoy to the great lakes region will do next, as changes are taking place.
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work done by the Catholic Church to broker the deal, which is so important. I will come to that in a moment. I also pay tribute to the Tanzanians and Ugandans for the work that they have done in looking after so many refugees who have been caught up in the region.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones)—who, I am pleased to say, has remained stationary since he was last referred to—mentioned the refugee crisis. We should not forget that while we discuss refugee issues relating to Libya, the Mediterranean, the shores of Turkey and Greece, and countries right across Europe, the source of many of those problems is the instability in the heart of Africa. Get the source right and those people will not feel the need to make that terrible journey across Africa to seek a life in Europe.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) made a powerful contribution, as she does on such matters. She reminded us, perhaps less delicately than I would have put it, about our historical colonial links to the country. We cannot deny our history. We have to recognise the role that we have played in the vast continent, but we can use that to our advantage by saying that there is a desire for us to continue our engagement, now working with the countries in the region in a positive way to meet some of the challenges faced today.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned the challenges of the DRC and the number of people that are displaced there. I pay tribute to the work that he and his Committee, which others have mentioned, are doing to focus on the issue. He spoke about the humanitarian crisis there that is shaping the wider conflict. He also touched on something that is so important and that was not yet apparent to me when I visited the DRC. There is vast criminality, particularly in the east of the country, but extremism has yet to set foot there. However, that is exactly where it could go to next, in the same way in which we have seen Boko Haram take advantage of the absence of government in Nigeria and al-Shabaab take advantage of the absence of governance in the southern neck of Somalia. That is why it is so important that we get it right in the east of the DRC.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) made an important point that the many millions of people affected by conflict are those who have not caused it at all. They are in a limited position to influence what is going on, yet they are the ones harmed by the conflict. However, the conflicts and problems are man-made, so they should be solvable. He was the only Member to touch on the issue of climate change. We should not forget that climate change is affecting the ability to grow crops. If it becomes too hot to be able to do so, people will have to move, so migration will be a consequence. He asked me to reiterate our 0.7% international aid commitment. I absolutely stand by it. I would hate to see a Government of any hue challenging our 0.7% commitment, which allows us to stand up with some authority at the United Nations and to call on other countries to do things, act and follow us. I hope that all parties will continue in that vein. The more we make noises about it, the less anybody at the Treasury can sneak anything through on the quiet. We are all in agreement on that.
The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), the Labour spokesperson, mentioned the challenge and failure to honour constitutions across Africa. I am afraid this is something that we all need to work on. As the mother of all Parliament and a country that supports the idea of democracy, the programmes that we support with that 0.7% must not simply be about infrastructure, or working with NGOs and groups that need support, although that is important. It is also about improving governance, decision making and democratic processes so that when the terms of people such as President Kabila end, they stand down. There is nothing to stop President Kabila in the DRC from standing again in five years’ time, if he wishes to. Such people should not be able to continue on or to tweak and play around with the constitution. We do not want to see that.
The hon. Lady talked about the role of the ICC. I am afraid that there is an issue with a number of African countries choosing to step away from it to protect those who may be up for charge. We are working with our colleagues in the ICC to prevent that from happening further.
I will talk about the countries in a little more detail in the time I have remaining. In the DRC, President Kabila’s mandate ended on 19 December, as hon. Members have reflected. No elections have taken place, yet he remains in power. When I visited last year, I made the point that the UK was deeply disappointed that elections did not take place in 2016 as planned. I do not know whether hon. Members are aware of what happened. The opposition in the DRC also did not want elections to take place because the electoral commission had not upgraded the electoral roll, meaning that many 18-year-olds were not on the roll. There was a disjoint in where things would go and who should be in charge. Thankfully, the new electoral roll is being mapped out—it requires a census—so we are finally moving forward.
The unexpected good news came on 31 December, when talks mediated by the Catholic bishops hon. Members have paid tribute to reached a deal between the opposition and the Government. I join others in paying tribute to the bishops’ work—the fact that they have done that work there means there may be demand for them in other parts of Africa as well. They have achieved what few thought possible: an inclusive deal that, if implemented, will secure the DRC’s first democratic transition of power since independence. I hope to visit the country in the near future to underline Britain’s commitment and to enforce the point that that process must continue.
The two key points in the deal were, first, that assurances were given by the Government that Kabila will step down and elections will be held by the end of this year and, secondly, that the current Prime Minister must be replaced by someone from the opposition majority.
As hon. Members have mentioned, armed groups in the eastern DRC are causing problems in terms of the security situation. We need to work with the United Nations to make sure that the commitment to stability in the east continues.
Graham Jones
I want to ask about the situation regarding MONUSCO. There seems to be a failure to resolve the violence. MONUSCO is the biggest UN peacekeeping operation that has ever been undertaken, yet it appears to be a failure.
Mr Ellwood
I raised the point of what more we could do from the international development perspective. Half the problem is actually getting access to remote areas. The roads are extremely poor. A journey from one community to another, which we would normally expect to take 20 minutes, takes seven or eight hours, which is a perfect situation for criminals and insurgents to operate in and perfect for the instability we are seeing. I suggested to the deputy head of the United Nations Development Programme that more effort—this is something the hon. Gentleman may wish to take up—should perhaps be placed within the DFID budget on improving the infrastructure as well, to allow the security forces to get deeper into these areas to provide the security we need. [Interruption.]
It looks like I have one minute left. I have made comments on the other countries, but I will write to hon. Members to clarify where we stand and to underline our commitment. However, let me go back to the beginning and say thank you to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw and, indeed, to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate to take place.
The Government share the grave concerns aired by hon. Members about the continuing violence, the human rights violations and the repression of civil and political rights across the various parts of the great lakes region. I wish to assure hon. Members of the UK’s unwavering commitment to the people of the region. They want and deserve peace, democracy and hope for the future, and we will continue to work hard with regional Governments and the wider international community to make those aspirations a reality.
John Mann
I thank the Minister for his response and his kind offer to write to hon. Members present to pick up the myriad detailed issues that were raised—clearly, no one could possibly answer them all within any rational time limit. His offer is appreciated, and it would be very helpful.
Mr Deputy Speaker, inspired by your firm but fair moving-on of the last debate to allow us to have this debate, let me say that this has been a most excellent debate. That is hardly a surprise, given the experience of those on the Back Benches and Front Benches who have participated. Nevertheless, the debate has been of superb quality. We have managed to cover—in important detail and knowledgeably—seven different countries in a short time. That perhaps shows the scale of the issues and the opportunities.
I hope the Minister will take away in particular from the debate the fact that we have huge leverage. We have different kinds of leverage: someone who is forced out of office in disgrace and who has a fortune in Swiss banks has been paid by somebody, and some of those people will certainly be British. Therefore, the more we have transparency, the more we can add to that leverage. However, there are many other kinds of leverage—not least from excellent Departments. The Minister has excellent civil servants in the region, as does DFID, and we stand with a competitive advantage if we use our leverage wisely. I trust that the Minister will take from the debate the importance that the House gives to using that leverage. I share with the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and my hon. Friend who represents Middleton—[Interruption.] Lancashire somewhere—the other side of the border—
Circle Housing and Orchard Village
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
This debate is about Circle Housing’s Orchard Village development in the South Hornchurch part of my constituency. Circle was a group of nine housing associations formed following a merger in 2005. It now no longer exists, having merged only last month with Affinity Sutton to form Clarion Housing Group, the country’s largest housing association with nearly 130,000 homes and half a million tenants, and with plans to build another 50,000 homes.
Orchard Village was formerly known as the Mardyke Estate. Back in 2007, the London Borough of Havering balloted residents to find out whether they agreed to a stock transfer. When more than 60% said yes, the site was taken over by Old Ford housing association—one of the Circle housing associations—in March 2008, and redevelopment work started in late 2009. When finished, over four phases it will contain 555 new homes available by mixed tenure, and all six of the original Mardyke tower blocks, of up to 13 floors, will have been pulled down.
Willmott Dixon was contracted for the first three phases on a design-and-build contract arrangement. This contract was terminated in August last year, as I will explain later. Hill Partnerships has been contracted for phase 4, the final phase. As an aside, the estate has been the setting for two recent award-winning British films—“Made in Dagenham” and “Fish Tank”. Unfortunately, the project has been dominated by questions of build quality, estate management, standards of repairs, the performance and costing of heating systems, fire safety, parking, exposure to various hazards, and many other issues.
Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I view housing associations as playing a vital role in any successful resolution of the escalating local and national housing crisis. Housing associations have a proud history of delivering for their tenants. More generally, they are part of a rich tradition of mutualism and co-operation in this country—part of a charitable and non-profit-making commitment to social housing stretching back well into the 19th century on behalf of working people. For decades, they have played a civilising role in our society, and I hope that will continue. Given our local experience, however, I fear that this historic legacy could be threatened if we are not careful, especially if housing associations and the Government increasingly see their role as housing developers rather than as organisations rooted within traditions devoted to the social and economic well-being of their residents.
I suggest that Orchard Village estate should be a test case for the sector and its future direction, given the urgent need for greater independent scrutiny and regulation on behalf of tenants and buyers. To be clear, I am not making a party political point; in fact, the opposite is true. The Orchard Village project began under a Conservative council and Labour Government. When problems have emerged, all political parties have raised concerns. For example, in February last year Roger Evans, a Conservative member of the Greater London Authority, raised concerns with the then Conservative Mayor of London in Mayor’s question time by highlighting the build quality on the estate. Unfortunately, the then Mayor simply said that the homes would be National House Building Council-certified and that Circle would rectify any plumbing defects—as if this reflected the scale of the problems on the estate. This intervention by Mr Evans followed a complaint to Havering Council by the local councillors for the South Hornchurch ward. None of these councillors represents my own party. Indeed, none represents any party represented in the Chamber at present. There is, in short, wide cross-party agreement concerning the quality of the build, and I trust that the Minister appreciates that.
I put on record my appreciation of the work of the three local councillors in South Hornchurch—Michael Deon Burton, Philip Martin and Graham Williamson—on behalf of their residents on the estate, and of the work of the newly formed Orchard Village residents association chaired by the tireless Colin Nickless.
There have been literally hundreds of complaints by residents. I have scores of resident complaints covering all aspects of building and repairs. In every instance there are multiple complaints about each property, and most of them involve long-term problems regarding resolution of the faults.
The main problems include failure to build homes to an adequate standard with regard to damp, mould, noise pollution, fireproofing and adaptions; failure of the maintenance service; unacceptable response times for repairs, with the treatment of vulnerable residents and tenants being of particular concern; homes without adequate insulation in all phases of the development; heating issues whereby homes with vulnerable residents are left for days without heat, as well as excessive heating bills and major concerns about the standing charges on district heating systems. In short, there are serious allegations that homes have been built in breach both of building regulations and of the funding conditions stipulated in grants from the Homes and Communities Agency and the GLA, and that has had a consequent effect on the wellbeing of my constituents.
On 10 November 2016, the newly formed residents association submitted a formal complaint to Havering Council about their treatment by Circle Housing and its agent Willmott Dixon. That is currently being investigated by the council under the corporate complaints procedure. As well as raising the issues with the council, I have been in contact with the Health and Safety Executive and the HCA, met the social housing regulator and the Mayor’s office, and corresponded with Public Health England. Residents have lodged their concerns with the relevant ombudsmen throughout.
The issue of the regulator and Circle Housing is particularly important. In 2015, the HCA downgraded Circle Housing from G1 to G3. The HCA increased the rating earlier last year, given the improvements in the repairs service, although that was challenged at the time by residents.
The Department for Communities and Local Government is well aware of all of the issues. On 16 August, I wrote to the Secretary of State about the problems. The Minister for Housing and Planning responded on 12 September, saying that
“the regulatory standards had not been breached in this case”
and that the Department was, therefore,
“unable to take regulatory action”,
not least because it does not have a statutory mandate to deal with individual cases. I accept that that is the ombudsman’s role. The Minister concluded:
“I appreciate that your constituents will feel disappointed by this decision”.
So disappointed were the residents by the Minister’s letter that they actively considered a legal response to the regulator’s decision, but that was ruled out when the regulator subsequently informed us that its investigations were ongoing, so it was not possible to make a legal challenge.
On 21 December, just before Christmas and just after the merger was completed, Circle Housing was criticised by the housing regulator for risking “serious harm” to its tenants, given the continuous concerns regarding the repairs service. The HCA issued a regulatory notice saying that Circle had breached the home standard, with a
“large number of outstanding complaints”
affecting vulnerable tenants. Obviously, that decision is welcome, but I have to tell the Minister that the view among residents is that the announcement was delayed until after the merger. They believe that if the announcement had been made earlier in the year, it may have had significant implications for Circle Housing, given its earlier downgrades, and, therefore, the merger.
The important point is that we were disappointed with the Minister’s response, particularly in the light of the regulator’s findings in December. It is especially disappointing if we compare the Minister’s response with that of the newly merged Clarion group since the takeover. In contrast to the Department, it has accepted the significance of all the issues. Arguably, that is the type of response that we might have anticipated from the Department and the regulator, which are supposed to act on behalf of the residents.
Clarion Housing Group has established a new project team to resolve the issues at Orchard Village. In turn, the project team has appointed Pellings to act as an analyst and sort out the full extent of the problems on the estate through internal and external surveys. Pellings has also been instructed to undertake a full survey of building quality compared with the original building specifications on the site. Aaron heating services has also been employed to review the heating systems. We shall see what they uncover over the next few months.
We are awaiting a report from the fire brigade on fireproofing and fire risk on the estate. I, as well as local councillors, now receive a weekly briefing on the progress of the casework. On 19 December I was forced to contact Public Health England about concerns regarding combustible gas exposures on the estate. Clarion has now appointed expert consultants to investigate, and tests began on air quality this week.
Interim compensation payments are being made available for phase 3 residents in particular.
This month’s meeting of the Circle housing board is also discussing the question of buying back the shared ownership and freehold properties. The contract with Willmott Dixon was terminated for non-performance in remedying serious defects, and Clarion is considering the legal consequences of that. Most significantly, the full building spec survey will tell us whether Willmott Dixon built the homes to the appropriate standards, and what the legal consequences are if it did not. That is all to be welcomed, and it is a tacit acknowledgement by Clarion of the reputational damage that might affect the new housing association if this is not sorted out, not least because of the major building programmes and opportunities that are likely to open up across Barking and Dagenham and Havering over the next few years.
The point is this: why was none of that fully taken on board by the Department? If there had been no merger, would we just be carrying on as we were with the Department and the regulator—and everyone else, apart from the residents—telling us that nothing was wrong? What recourse do residents have in such cases? Of course, it should be to the Department. The Minister is formally responsible for housing supply policy, home ownership policy, planning policy, planning casework oversight, estate regeneration, the HCA, the Thames Gateway, building regulations and so on. Is the system working? Is the only solution to wait for a merger and for the merged organisation to put its hands up?
Between 2010 and 2016, Circle Housing received more than £250 million of public money. Within the local community, people assume that there have been breaches of public grant compliance in the building standards—we shall wait and see whether that is the case—and we are talking about grants of £31.2 million over the three phases of the development. The outstanding investigations initiated by Clarion and the council will, we hope, get to the bottom of all this.
More generally, legal issues are ongoing, including exposure to mould and damp, which is leaving children hospitalised. Freeholders and shared ownership leaseholders are starting legal proceedings over misrepresentation of their properties and failure to repair, and seeking damages to cover their suffering. There are issues for the Department. Basically, do we need a review of the system of regulation? The HCA found against the residents even when the new merged organisation accepted the legitimacy of some of the residents’ concerns and decided to investigate other key parts of the case independently. Should it not have been the investigations of the regulatory system that secured that outcome, on behalf of the residents?
Overall, Orchard Village holds a light up to some of the changes occurring in the housing association sector, aided by Government strategy. The danger is that housing associations are, in effect, turning into housing developers. Consequently, they appear to be in danger of losing their historical role, and, indeed, their historical ethic. Yet the Government are actively committed to deregulating the sector further to ensure that housing associations are not treated as part of the public sector, so as to build more homes. I accept the logic behind their position on deregulation, but what is the cost in terms of oversight and accountability on behalf of residents, such as my constituents in Orchard Village? The Government argue that further deregulation will not change their strong regulatory framework. Well, the experience of Circle Housing and Orchard Village does not bode well in terms of whether that works at present.
More generally, the Government now appear to have redirected attention back toward housing associations to resolve the escalating housing crisis, rather than just relying on the market. That is obviously a good thing, because the private sector business model for housing supply has, for too long, been built around land banking and rationing. Yet the Government rethink poses dangers for the sector in reconciling housing associations’ role as developers with their historic purpose.
My real fear is this. I hope that we do not look back in a few years’ time and realise that we missed the warning signs—similar to the experiences of building societies in the financial services sector—as key non-market institutions are swept up in a dash for growth, with the collateral effect being the removal of their original ethical purpose. I hope that the experience of Orchard Village will act as a warning, and that, locally, Clarion can turn the situation around on behalf of residents. Nationally, we must preserve the integrity of housing associations as part of a genuine mixed economy across the housing sector.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) on securing this debate on Circle Housing and Orchard Village. It is an issue that I am familiar with, for two reasons. First, I am sure he is aware that the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) raised in an Adjournment debate at the end of last year issues relating to Old Ford and the impact on her constituents.
The hon. Gentleman referred to Colin Nickless and his role on behalf of residents of the Orchard Village estate. I can tell him that Colin Nickless communicates regularly with me on social media, raising concerns about the quality of development at Orchard Village. I am therefore familiar with the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised and I am grateful to him for doing so. He speaks powerfully on behalf of his constituents. There have been several developments since the previous Adjournment debate and I look forward to updating hon. Members about those as well as responding to the hon. Gentleman’s particular concerns.
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will start in general terms by setting out the Government’s vision for affordable housing and the important role that housing associations play in that. I do not need to remind hon. Members of the chronic housing shortage in this country. It is clear that we need to build more homes and that we have not been building enough homes for 30 or 40 years. The Government are determined to put that right and provide more homes for those who need them. Nowhere in this country is that need more acute than in London in constituencies such as mine and the hon. Gentleman’s. We are already making progress: housing supply rose by 11% in 2015-16; the highest level for eight years. However, I accept that much more needs to be done. As the hon. Gentleman said, housing associations have a crucial role to play in that. Let us not forget that, during the financial crisis, housing associations kept on building. The sector is responsible for about a third of all new housing in England each year. That is why we are increasing investment in the housing association sector. Just last week we invited bids to the expanded shared ownership and affordable homes programme. As well as the additional £1.4 billion that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement, we have introduced greater flexibility into the programme, which will allow housing associations better to respond to local needs and markets.
As I said, the situation is at its most acute in London. We need new homes of all tenures but in particular we need to ensure that there are affordable homes for sale and rent. In November, we announced a £3.15 billion funding package for London, with an ambitious aim to build significantly more affordable homes over this Parliament. The Mayor of London was generous enough to say that that was a record level of funding for City Hall for affordable housing. He has since opened registration to his own affordable housing programme using that money. Bidding will be open from the end of this month to mid-April. We look forward to housing associations building more homes so that more Londoners get a decent and secure place to live.
Before I come on to Circle Housing, I want to respond clearly but gently to the hon. Gentleman’s challenge about the changing role of housing associations. He is right to say that their role has changed over time. Many, particularly those that are engaged in large developments, have become increasingly commercial in their practice. Often, they are building market housing and using that to subsidise increased provision of affordable housing. However, I would like to challenge the hon. Gentleman in two regards. First, I have not yet come across a housing association that thinks of itself as equivalent to a private sector developer. All the people I had the privilege of meeting during my six months as Housing Minister are still very conscious of the original purpose behind housing associations.
Generally, housing associations come from three main routes. Some are the old Victorian philanthropic bodies—Peabody is a good example. Many emerged from the “Cathy Come Home” movement and others emerged through local authority stock transfers. At one point in his speech, the hon. Gentleman posited that perhaps there was a tension between the housing associations’ role in developing new homes and their historical purpose. I disagree. To me, their historical purpose was to meet housing need in our communities, and at this time, particularly in London, but all around the country, there is a desperate need for more affordable housing. In trying to meet that need, housing associations are fulfilling their historical purpose.
There is common ground between the hon. Gentleman and me on the point that as housing associations engage in increasingly commercial activity to help them provide more affordable housing, they must not lose sight of their historical purpose or their obligations to their existing tenants. I am completely with him on that. He was honest enough in his speech to recognise why the Government are deregulating. Historically, we have viewed the housing association sector as part of the private sector, and that remains the Government’s view, but the Office for National Statistics has reclassified them into the public sector. If we allow that situation to continue in the long term, it will have a damaging impact on housing associations’ ability to develop new housing, because not only the funding that the Government give them, but the money that they raise through private markets would be counted as Government spending and fall within the Treasury’s control. It is therefore very important—I hope there is a political consensus on this across the House—that they are returned to the private sector. That means we need to address the concerns raised by the ONS. Again, there is common ground between us. We need to ensure the funding we give to housing associations is used in the interests of public policy and for a clear purpose, and that we do not lose sight of that.
The hon. Gentleman raised a whole suite of serious concerns in relation to Circle Housing and Orchard Village. Many of his constituents have been seriously let down by their landlord. I congratulate him on championing their cause. I very much share the concerns he set out.
The regulator received a large number of complaints and referrals regarding Circle’s repairs service across east London, in particular the quality of new build properties at Orchard Village. The information provided by residents was part of the regulator’s wider investigation into Circle and it informed the notice issued in December. The regulator found that Circle had breached consumer standards and risked serious detriment to its tenants in its repairs service across east London. It is worth noting that I believe this is the first time the regulator has made such a finding in relation to an ordinary repairs service. The regulator also concluded that the specific issues at Orchard Village did not, of themselves, constitute a separate breach of standards, but it will continue to examine any new evidence provided by the residents of Orchard Village. This is still a live issue—the regulator is still looking at it.
As the hon. Gentleman said, Circle has merged with Affinity Sutton to form Clarion. It is the responsibility of Clarion to address the issues raised by the regulator. I met the chief executive of Clarion earlier this week, and I believe the hon. Gentleman met him, too. He is committed to resolving these problems quickly. Clarion has a responsibility to protect the needs and welfare of its tenants and leaseholders, and it needs to meet that responsibility. He is clear that Clarion needs to work with the regulator and provide assurance on how the issues are going to be fixed. I am encouraged, although I will continue to pursue to the issue, that Clarion is investigating what has led to the problems. It is making immediate improvements where it can, such as: improving call waiting times at the relevant call centre used by Orchard Village residents, and improving systems to ensure calls are properly logged and actioned. It is also trying to increase engagement with tenants.
Clarion has established a dedicated project team to manage and resolve the issues with Orchard Village specifically. It has put in place new contractors to develop the final phase of regeneration, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned in his speech, and repairs to properties. It has appointed a specialist property consultant to undertake a full survey of build quality. I also understand that Havering’s environmental health department is launching an investigation following reports of the presence of methane gas at Orchard Village. Clarion has appointed a specialist consultant to undertake its own investigation and is taking the potential risk to public health very seriously.
There has been some concern regarding the potential impact of Circle’s merger on tenants. Having spoken to Clarion’s chief executive, I see the merger as presenting an opportunity to sort these problems out—and to sort them out quickly. That is clearly what the hon. Gentleman, in raising these issues in this debate, wants to see. The new organisation should bring the skills and expertise to transform the service that tenants receive, putting matters right and ensuring they do not recur. I am sure that that is what the hon. Gentleman and his constituents want.
In a wider context, I welcome Clarion’s vision to build 50,000 new homes in the next 10 years. I think the hon. Gentleman and I agree that if the organisation wants the Greater London Authority and London boroughs to work with it, it will need to demonstrate progress on these issues before anyone will want it to be given funding to develop new housing. I welcome its ambition, but it will need to be seen to be putting this matter right before local authorities in this part of the country will want to work with them on further new supply.
The role of the regulator presents the real challenge in both this case and that raised by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, who wants to know whether the Government are satisfied that the arrangements are working properly. Through its framework, the regulator is meant to support and create the conditions for a flourishing housing association sector and ensure that housing associations are properly managed, provide good-quality homes and serve the needs of their tenants and communities. The Government are committed to upholding a strong and independent system of regulation for social housing, which is why before Christmas we announced we were establishing the regulator as a stand-alone public body, following the recommendation in the HCA’s tailored review.
At the moment, the regulator forms part of the HCA, which is also responsible for delivering many of my Department’s programmes, but the review recommended that it be set up as a wholly separate body, and we will take forward that recommendation. We are consulting on the legislative process to do that, but I want to make it clear that that change will not diminish the regulator’s powers or objectives. The regulator will continue to have a vital role in encouraging and challenging the sector to improve efficiency and asset management and to maintain robust governance so that the sector remains attractive to commercial lenders. If we want private organisations to lend money to housing associations to help them deliver affordable homes, they must have confidence in the quality of the governance.
Finally, and most importantly and relevantly to this case, the meeting of tenants’ needs is a vital aspect of housing associations’ purpose. While it is commendable that they explore different commercial models, their tenants’ needs must not be forgotten. Indeed, they must have a mechanism in place for tenants to have a say in how the organisation is run and deals with complaints when tenants think that the service they are receiving is not satisfactory.
Finally, I want to explore why the threshold for action was quite high, as the hon. Gentleman would see it. The regulator does not have an active role in monitoring compliance with consumer standards. The ombudsman is the starting point for such complaints. The regulator can intervene only where there is judged to be a risk, or there has been risk, of serious harm to tenants. That is the threshold at which the regulator takes action. As the regulator is independent, I cannot personally intervene in those decisions, but it is my role, when Members or others draw concerns to my attention, to make sure the regulator is aware of them. I am confident that the regulator takes all complaints it receives from tenants seriously and investigates where necessary. I have undertaken to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, however, to look at the interaction between the ombudsman and the regulator to make sure that those processes work well so that when the ombudsman spots a spike in complaints about a particular association or element of an association’s work, it is drawn to the regulator’s attention speedily so that these situations can be resolved as quickly as possible.
Tonight’s debate serves as a reminder of the importance of robust governance, accountability and transparency within the housing association sector. As the sector evolves and becomes more complex in its diversification and commercialisation, it is vital that housing associations continue to uphold their responsibilities to their existing tenants. The regulator has a crucial role in maintaining standards in the sector and upholding both financial viability and management. In the case of Orchard Village, there is a clear expectation from me, as the Minister, from the hon. Gentleman, as the constituency MP, and from residents that Clarion will follow through with its assurances and address the issues he has raised tonight. It will be held to account by him, me and its tenants if it does not do that. I thank him for securing this debate on such an important and timely issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Petition
Post Office Closure in Tonbridge
Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)
Thursday 12th January 2017
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children and Social Work Act 2017 View all Children and Social Work Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 January 2017 - (12 Jan 2017)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairship, Mrs Main. The new clause would place a duty on all public authorities to have due regard to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child when exercising all their functions. It would require public authorities to determine the impact of local service provision and decision making on the rights of children, and would provide a framework for public service delivery in relation to children.
Just last year, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in response to the fifth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, urged the UK to introduce a “statutory obligation” to consider children’s needs
“when developing laws and policies affecting children,”
because at present the Government have failed to give due consideration to the UNCRC when developing legislation. The UN committee found numerous examples of where children’s views were not systematically heard in policy making or by professionals, and where there was a lack of a statutory obligation systematically to conduct children’s rights impact assessments. It is little wonder, then, that we have ended up in a situation in which just under 4 million children in the UK live in poverty, or in which in England there are more than 70,000 homeless children, many of whom live in squalid temporary accommodation, or that we have seen reports of our children being among the most unhappy in the world.
The UK ratified the treaty in 1991, but has never gone so far as to enshrine it in domestic law. Instead, it has taken a sector-by-sector approach to implementing the convention. The UN committee has rightly said that the Government must do more. It has called on them to expedite
“bringing…domestic legislation, at the national and devolved levels…in line with the Convention in order to ensure that the principles and provisions of the Convention are directly applicable and justiciable under domestic law.”
Incorporation through a duty on public authorities should enable the provisions of the convention on the rights of the child to be directly invoked before the courts, and ensure that it will prevail where there is a conflict with domestic legislation or common practice.
This approach also has the approval of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which says that it would like the convention to be incorporated in UK law in the same way as the European convention on human rights has been incorporated by means of the Human Rights Act 1998—an Act that is under threat from this Government.
It is staggering that in Wales and Scotland a totally opposite approach has been taken. Instead of taking away children’s rights, Wales and Scotland have built on them, giving some statutory recognition to the convention. In Wales, Ministers are under a duty to consider or give due regard to children’s rights; and in Scotland, public authorities are required to report on steps that they have taken to secure children’s rights. It is clear that we lag behind our neighbours when it comes to legislative protections for children’s rights. It is wrong that they are becoming a postcode lottery. They should be offered universally, and we should be leading the way.
This topic was fastidiously debated in the other place at every stage of the Bill’s passage. The debates highlighted topics ranging from legal aid to deprivation of family environment to having a child’s best interests as the primary consideration. The topics covered every single right open to our children, and the Hansard transcripts show why that is so important. Although the Lords amendment was ultimately withdrawn after a commitment from Lord Nash to consider what further steps could be taken to embed consideration of children’s rights, UNICEF, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England and Labour Members feel that that falls far short of a robust and systematic approach to implementing the CRC.
The Minister will be aware that in 2010 a ministerial commitment was given that due consideration would be given to the UNCRC in all new legislation, that Cabinet Office guidance has been rolled out, and that recently the Department for Education’s permanent secretary has written to all other permanent secretaries regarding their obligations to the CRC. Last October, the Minister himself laid a statement urging all Departments simply to reflect on the committee’s concerns. However, the reality remains that a recent report by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England showed that only two of all the Government Departments were able to show how the UNCRC had developed policy or decision making.
The UNCRC is a groundbreaking treaty that acts as a creed of children’s rights. It is designed to promote the protection of our children worldwide. It is important to acknowledge those rights within the Bill, because they are too often overlooked or systematically violated in the UK. Children in our country are going without adequate food, clothing, housing and warmth—basic human rights.
In recent years, we have seen dramatic changes in the political landscape. The UK’s decision to leave the EU has cast doubt on the continued enjoyment of many rights and entitlements and created uncertainty. If we do not act now and accept this new clause, we are saying we are happy with the status quo. In other words, we are allowing legislation to continue to be made that does not adequately protect and promote children’s rights. In fact, we are often allowing legislation that does the exact opposite. I hope Committee members will agree to the new clause.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I want to add a few remarks in support of the new clause, to which I added my name.
The recent conclusions of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child identified where the UK has so far failed to put effective law, policy and resources in place to protect and promote children’s human rights. The report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Bill also concluded:
“the Government’s assertion that legislation is already assessed for compatibility with the UNCRC is not borne out by the evidence.”
I am aware of concessions made by the noble Lord Nash during the passage of the Bill in the House of Lords, including commitments to raise awareness of the convention through Civil Service Learning and to hold a roundtable with civil society organisations over the course of this year. However, those commitments do not go far enough. They will not have the impact of a due regard duty in strengthening compliance with the convention across the board.
What Opposition Members are asking for is very simple. In order to ensure that a systematic and robust accountability mechanism is in place to take account of and protect children’s rights now and in the future, we need to embed these rights within our own statutory body. We have these commitments under international law. We made them many years ago, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out. We profess to take them seriously in policy development, so I cannot see why we would not be prepared to reflect them in statute and to ensure accountability if the commitment is not borne out in practice.
Political commitments by this Minister and this Government will not be enough. Children cannot be put at risk by political cycles. Responsible Governments have to build on a framework of legislation that protects children for not only today but the future. Paying due regard to the UN convention sends a signal worldwide that we want to be better as a country at protecting children, and that means we are in a strong position to use our international influence with others while improving things at home.
A national approach to strengthening children’s rights is a crucial foundation for ensuring every child everywhere can have a better life, but equally important is ensuring that those agencies children encounter on a day-to-day basis are also driven by respect for children’s rights. Rights become most real for children at the local day-to-day level, in their homes, in their schools—I have seen some immensely impressive examples of rights-respecting schools—in their communities and through their contact with local services and practitioners.
A children’s rights framework such as the one created by the new clause would embed the convention in children’s services and other public authorities working with children and families, no matter where they are. It would enable public authorities to better safeguard, support, promote and plan for the rights and welfare of children in their area.
I would like to know what evidence the Government have that there would be difficulties with incorporating the convention into UK statute, that it would not be effective to do so or that it might turn out to be a box-ticking exercise. If the Minister has such evidence, perhaps he will put it before the Committee. My view is that the implementation of such a duty at a national level would rest with the Government and that ensuring that it is more than just ticking a box is therefore in their hands.
If the Government insist on pursuing a non-legislative approach to children’s rights, will the Minister commit to introducing a comprehensive child rights framework across Government to improve on the current commitments and set out how that framework could have the same effect as a due regard duty? We need to understand how and, importantly, when such a framework will be introduced to ensure that children’s rights are not forgotten once the opportunity presented by the Bill has passed.
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
I am grateful to Opposition Members for raising the important issue of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, to which the Government are fully committed. We have already taken and continue to take steps to raise awareness of and strengthen action to promote the rights that the convention contains, as well as the safety and welfare of children more generally. Implementing the UNCRC has been a continuous process by successive Governments since its ratification in 1991, and we must never cease to look for new and better ways of promoting the rights and interests of children. However, the question is what the best way to achieve that is and what will have the most impact on changing behaviours and improving the way in which we consider children’s rights in policy making.
The Government do not believe that introducing the duty set out in the new clause is the right way to achieve those goals. As has been mentioned, a UNCRC due regard duty was debated in the other place, where Lord Nash set out clearly the Government’s position and why we think that such a duty is not the best way forward.
Our commitment to the UNCRC is already reflected in legislation. For example, the Children Acts 1989 and 2004 set out a range of duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Section 11 of the 2004 Act places duties on a range of organisations, including local authorities, the police, health services and a variety of other agencies, to ensure that their functions and any services that they contract out to others
“are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children”,
which is one of the key rights set out in the convention. In 2013, we issued statutory guidance to directors of children’s services that requires them to
“have regard to the General Principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and ensure that children and young people are involved in the development and delivery of local services.”
Recent legislation in the area—particularly the Children and Families Act 2014, which I took through the Bill Committee, as well as many aspects of this Bill—provides further examples of how we constantly seek not only to protect children’s rights but to enhance them. Ofsted plays a role in assessing the experiences of children and young people and testing the quality of support through the single inspection framework. The Children’s Commissioner has a statutory function of promoting and protecting the rights of children, having particular regard to the UNCRC. Those responsibilities and powers were strengthened in the 2014 Act.
So there is a lot in place already, but I agree with Opposition Members that there is more we can do. There is no doubt that introducing a duty is one of those options. The hon. Member for South Shields spoke about Scotland and Wales. Although they have ratified the convention, they have not incorporated it into their domestic law, as is the case in England. Both have more recently gone down the route of a “having regard” duty, but they have chosen significantly different approaches and it is still too early to understand fully what the consequences of those different approaches will be. However, I will continue to look carefully at their emerging impact and, having assessed that, will remain open-minded about the right way forward in due course.
Although we are not persuaded that the duty is the right approach, we agree on the need to focus on changing the culture so that officials and practitioners think about children and their rights as an integral part of their everyday work. In many ways, that is the concept behind the corporate parenting principles set out in clause 1. I want those who work with children, particularly those who work with the most vulnerable children, to recognise that that concept is a moral imperative and see the benefits of better policy and delivery that it will bring. As was pointed out by the hon. Lady, we issued a written ministerial statement in October last year. It is about changing culture across Government at both the national and the local level. We also responded to the UN’s concluding recommendations through that WMS and a letter from the permanent secretary to his counterparts across government. We are determined to follow through with a number of other significant measures designed to embed children’s rights in Whitehall and beyond.
Kate Green
I am very encouraged by much of what the Minister is saying and by the additional work to embed a framework to protect children’s rights. If, having done that and evaluated its effectiveness, the Minister thinks it is a very short step to adopting fully a duty to have due regard in law, would he be willing to consider doing so?
Edward Timpson
I have said that the process is ongoing. It has developed over many years, with Governments taking different approaches but all trying to improve our ability to respond to the convention in how we carry out domestic law in this country. I do not see that that process will ever have an end, so of course we need to remain open-minded about where we go in future. As things stand, we have set out a comprehensive programme of work, which gets to the heart of what will make a difference: that those charged with the responsibility of making or delivering policy have, at heart, an understanding and appreciation of children’s rights and an ability to have them at the centre of their thinking. I hope that that gives the hon. Member for South Shields a sense of the strong commitment of the Government to the UNCRC. I also hope that she will withdraw her amendment.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister and am pleased that he has made some acknowledgement of the fact that the Government’s way is not working and that there is more work to be done. I am happy to withdraw the amendment on the basis that my hon. Friends and I will be monitoring what the Government are doing very carefully. We look forward to a formal response to the UN committee’s concluding observations, which I am sure the Minister will provide in due course. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 15
Sibling contact for looked after children
“(1) In section 34(1) of the Children Act 1989, after paragraph (d) insert—
“(e) his siblings (whether of the whole or half blood).”
(2) In paragraph 15(1) of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989, after paragraph (c) insert—
“(d) his siblings (whether of the whole or half blood).”’.—(Mrs Lewell-Buck.)
This new clause would ensure that children in care are allowed reasonable contact with their siblings.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause relates to improving sibling contact for children in care. The Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to allow a looked-after child reasonable contact with their parents, but there is no similar provision for a looked-after child’s contact with their siblings or half-siblings. Work by the Family Rights Group shows that half of all sibling groups in local authority care are split up and that those in residential care are even less likely to be living with their brothers or sisters.
The Children and Young Person’s Act 2008 includes a duty on local authorities to place siblings together as far as reasonably practicable as that is generally the best option for them. I accept that in some cases, such as when there has been inter-sibling abuse, separation may be deemed necessary. However, the main barrier to siblings being placed together is a dire shortage of foster placements able or equipped to take sibling groups. Research has shown that the average number of sibling foster carers is one per local authority, and some have none at all. Even when there are sibling carers, there are no figures for how many siblings they can take. It could be a group of two, three, four or five.
That is the backdrop against which sibling contract is so important. If siblings cannot be placed together, they should have the same rights defined in legislation to have contact with one another as they do with their parents.
Many siblings who come from neglectful or abusive backgrounds often state that their only constant, positive and reassuring relationship is with their siblings. After all, they have a shared experience—and no matter how horrific it is, it is something only they truly know about. For a younger sibling, the older one is the only person who kept them safe. It is never appropriate for an older sibling to take on that role, but it is a fact that they often do.
Separating siblings in such circumstances can have consequences on placement stability and create anxiety for both the younger and older one. The younger may be worried about their new environment with strangers in an unfamiliar environment without their older protector, and the older may be in a similar situation, as well as not knowing how their younger sibling is coping or who is looking after them. If siblings have known only adults who cause them harm, the initial days in placement until they feel safe with their new carers are the most precarious.
Efforts to increase the number of carers who will take sibling groups have not matched the scale of demand. As the number of children in care rises, it is unlikely that the number of carers will catch up any time soon. In this context, it is right that sibling contact is given the same prominence as parental contact. It cannot be right that our legislation gives more weight to a child’s contact with those who may have or have caused them significant harm than with their siblings who are totally blameless.
Removing a child from a family home is one of the most traumatic and heartbreaking experiences for any children’s social worker. It means that the relationship dynamics of working with a family to improve children’s lives and to make sure they are protected from harm have reached crisis level. This may be an emotional overload for professionals, let alone the family, and often involves the police, violence, tears and aggression. The list goes on.
I recall from my own practice many occasions when I was left with a child alone in a car after the initial trauma of removing them, and having to explain to them at some roadside that not only were they going to be living somewhere else for a period that no one was sure about, but that they were going to be separated from their siblings. That is the most painful of all. No matter how the situation is explained, children often feel that that is the end—of not only their family, but their relationships with their siblings. As each child in a sibling group is dropped off at their respective placement, there is muted relief that they are safe, but deep sadness that they are completely alone.
The wheels of social services then spring into action. Solicitors for parents demand in court to have contact, as enshrined in legislation for parents, and that is arranged with urgency. In a resource-poor environment, what has to be done is often what is done first. Other issues, such as guidance that recognises the importance of maintaining contact with siblings, take a back seat and are deemed a lesser priority.
Many siblings see each other at contact with their parents, which can be three or four times a week for one hour, but they rarely have sibling-only contact. When they do, it will be monthly or considerably less often. Worse still, if that sibling is a newborn or not a full sibling, contact with their parents is separate and plans for their future are made separately. That breaks that early attachment between newborns and their elder siblings before it has fully developed, leaving an unimaginable feeling of loss for the siblings. However, the parents’ contact with the newborn is upheld, even if all of the children could be reunited at home with their parents, or if they are placed for permanence together, which again brings more difficulties when settling into a new permanent home.
The sibling relationships of children from abusive homes are the most enduring. A recent Ofsted study found that 86% of all children in care thought it was important to keep siblings together in care, while more than three quarters thought councils should help to keep children in touch with their siblings. A recent Centre for Social Justice report stated:
“One of our greatest concerns is that the bonds between siblings in care, which can lead to greatly valued lifelong relationships, are being broken.”
We all know that guidance is no substitute for a clear duty. While not everything can be in the Bill, if we really value and understand sibling relationships we should absolutely allow their voices to be heard in the legislation.
Edward Timpson
Again, I thank the hon. Lady for her amendment. I have a lot of sympathy for what she said and welcome many of the points she raised. Like her, I have extensive experience of situations in which decisions are being made about brothers or sisters’ futures together. Those are often difficult decisions, not only because of the circumstances in which those children happen to be, but often because of their complex family relationships.
The hon. Lady raised practical points about finding placements for them that meet all those children’s needs. I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group on looked-after children and care leavers before becoming a Minister, and I heard at almost every meeting of the need to listen to children who value their relationship with their sibling. I hope that most of us know from our own lives that it is our brothers and sisters who provide us with the most enduring relationships throughout our whole lives. Sibling contact can provide continuity and stability for a child—particularly those who are vulnerable at a time of uncertainty and, possibly, great change. It can help a child to maintain their identity in what could be an unfamiliar environment for them, and it can help to promote their self-esteem and provide them with additional emotional support.
I do not disagree with much of what the hon. Lady said. It is a matter of making sure that we have the balance right in legislation, so that those who are making those difficult decisions are able to do so against a backdrop of understanding the importance of those relationships for those children, but always in those children’s best interests. The new clause seeks to add an express duty to the Children Act 1989 for local authorities to allow a looked-after child reasonable contact with his or her siblings, which is absolutely right when it is in the best interests of the child.
I reassure hon. Members that that is already provided for under existing legislation, and any reading of case law, in Family Law Reports or elsewhere, will reveal that, in contact cases, sibling contact arrangements are carefully considered by the courts before they make a decision. Section 34(2) of the Children Act 1989 states:
“On an application made by the authority or the child, the court may make such order as it considers appropriate with respect to the contact…between the child and any named person.”
“Any named person” includes, as is well established in law, half and full siblings. Similarly, schedule 2(15)(1) to that Act requires local authorities to endeavour to promote contact between the child and any relative, friend or other person connected with the child if that is consistent with the child’s welfare and is reasonably practical.
Matters relating to sibling contact are also spelt out in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. If a child has a sibling for whom the responsible authority or another authority are providing accommodation, and the children have not been placed together, arrangements must be made to promote contact between them, so far as is consistent with the child’s welfare. Also, matters relating to contact with parents and siblings must be included in a child’s placement plan.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that response. However, I am a little disappointed that although he says he has sympathy and understands what I am proposing, and he has quoted some provisions, he knows all too well—as well as I do—that in a resource-poor environment what is an absolute must is what is done, and that sibling contact, including half-sibling contact, is given lesser weight than other issues.
My new clause would allow case-by-case consideration, so I am really disappointed that the Minister does not support it. I want to have further discussions with him, but I also want to press the new clause to a vote, because it is a simple amendment that would remedy some big problems that children face right now. I am really disappointed that it is not being supported.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would ensure that effective work is undertaken with families so all safe family options are explored at an early stage of intervention. I know that some social workers already do that—I was one of them—but the introduction of a 26-week timetable for care proceedings and strict case management guidance for courts means that once care proceedings are under way, it can sometimes be too late for potentially suitable kinship carers to be considered and assessed.
I recall receiving a case where multiple family members had not been approached to care for a child who had been in foster care for two years and in multiple placements. The plan for that child, which the court had indicated it approved of and all parties in the proceedings bar the parents agreed upon, was adoption. I appeared before the court and pleaded with the judge for the proceedings to be halted to allow for proper family exploration. It turned out that there were suitable family members, and after intensive and complex work, that child was able to go and live with extended family and maintain contact with their wider family.
The new clause would make that kind of work standard, saving unnecessary heartache and pain and the disruption that can be caused by fostering and care proceedings, not to mention the staggering cost to the public purse. The absolute worst case scenario of a child being adopted when there are family members who are willing to love and care for them might also be avoided.
In answer to a recently parliamentary question, the Minister revealed that 73% of children in a kinship care foster placement had previously experienced a looked-after placement. Although we do not and cannot know the circumstances of every child in that cohort, that means that 73% of children in kinship care may have gone through being removed from their parents—their primary carers—and placed with strangers when there were family members out there who were willing to care for them.
If more extensive work had been done by children’s services, such as offering family group conferences or investigating wider families, such traumatic events for children could and would have been avoided. Leeds City Council is leading the way in demonstrating the benefits of family group conferences, but the Family Rights Group has found that 25% of local authorities neither run nor commission such conferences, and among the 75% that do, Leeds is unusual in routinely offering them.
Sir James Munby, the president of the family division, recently said that the care system was
“facing a crisis and, truth be told, we have no very clear strategy for meeting the crisis.”
Child protection inquiries are increasing, and the number of new care proceedings, which is at a record level, continues to rise. New care applications increased by 21% between April to November 2015 and the same period in 2016. As of March last year, there were more than 70,000 looked-after children in England—the most since 1985. Those numbers suggest that we are missing opportunities to safely avert the need for some children to come into care. Placing a child in care, even when it is for their own protection and completely the right thing to do, can have a profound impact on their mental and emotional wellbeing, not to mention their overall development. It always should be a last resort. If we agreed to the new clause, the premise that it is a last resort would only be strengthened.
Kate Green
I rise to add briefly to my hon. Friend’s remarks. The Minister will be aware of the rise in the number of care proceedings initiated—my hon. Friend alluded to that—and the disparity in outcomes for different ethnic groups. There are much higher instances of children from certain ethnic backgrounds being in care compared with the population as a whole.
I particularly draw the Minister’s attention to the appalling outcomes for Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children. I have been looking at the figures for March 2011 to March 2015. They show that the number of looked-after children from Irish Traveller backgrounds rose from 50 to 90. The number is small, but the increase is large. For Gypsy and Roma children, the number rose from 90 to 250 children over that period. That is an increase of 177% in the number of Gypsy and Roma children in care, which is shocking when compared with the overall rise in the number of children in care.
Gypsy and Traveller family networks are exceptionally strong. Family is very important to those communities, so it particularly concerns me that we are seeing such high numbers of those children being taken into care when it seems likely that family members could in many cases provide suitable care for those children. That would enable them to maintain links with their communities, heritage and families.
While I appreciate that we are talking about a small number of children in the grand scheme of things, it is a vulnerable group of children who suffer particularly poor outcomes. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the opportunities that exist for family care for those children and undertake to look with colleagues at what can be done to improve their chances of remaining in family care.
Edward Timpson
The new clause would insert a new subsection into section 47 of the Children Act 1989. My understanding from what the hon. Member for South Shields said is that the first part of the new clause would require local authorities to
“identify and consider the willingness and suitability of any relative, friend or other person connected with the child”
who may need to become looked after before starting formal care proceedings. I agree that children and young people should be supported to maintain relationships with relatives and friends where that is possible and in their best interests. Such relationships are often crucial in providing continuity and preserving the child’s sense of belonging to a wider family network.
The statutory guidance already requires local authorities to consider relatives and friends as carers at every stage of the decision-making process. Section 22C of the 1989 Act provides that where a child is looked after and not able to live with a parent or other person with parental responsibility, local authorities must give preference to a placement with an individual who is a relative, friend or other connected person. The individual must be a local authority foster carer in order to ensure that they can provide the high-quality care and support that the child needs.
The court orders and pre-proceedings statutory guidance and the care planning, placement and case review statutory guidance, which accompany the 1989 Act, reinforce that position. Local authorities must demonstrate that they have considered and, where appropriate, prioritised family members at each stage of the decision-making process and at the earliest opportunity. In addition, existing secondary legislation allows local authorities to place a looked-after child with a relative, friend or other person connected with the child for up to 16 weeks, even if that person is not a local authority foster parent. That allows the child to be placed with that relative, friend or other connected person until they become a local authority foster parent or other more permanent arrangements can be made. In such circumstances, the local authority must have assessed the suitability of the relative, friend or connected person and be sure that the arrangements will safeguard and promote the child’s welfare and meet the child’s needs as set out in the care plan.
The second part of the new clause would require local authorities to offer a family group conference to those with parental responsibility for the child before starting formal proceedings. The court orders and pre-proceedings statutory guidance is clear that local authorities should consider referring the family to a family group conference service if they believe there is a possibility that the child may not be able to return to their parents. Promoting the use of interventions at the pre-proceedings stage is important, and we are committed to doing so. For instance, we have previously funded the Family Rights Group to develop family group conference services, working with local authorities across the country, including North Yorkshire, Essex and Lancashire. We have also provided £4.85 million of funding to Leeds City Council, as the hon. Member for South Shields referred to, through the children’s social care innovation programme, to embed restorative practice across its children’s services, including by introducing an entitlement to family group conferences.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that response. I hope that when we next meet to discuss all the matters he has committed to discuss with myself and others on the Bill, he is open to exploring how often this situation occurs, because the example I gave is not isolated. If the Minister is prepared to explore further incidences such as I have raised, I would be happy to withdraw the new clause.
Edward Timpson
As I indicated, I always have an open-door policy, and this is no exception. Because it is an area that both of us, as Minister and shadow Minister, have cause to remain interested in, it makes perfect sense for us to continue that dialogue beyond this Committee.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 18
Assessment of physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing needs
‘(1) In section 22C of the Children Act 1989, after subsection 11 insert—
“(11A) Regulations made under subsection (11) must make arrangements for—
(a) the assessment of a looked after child’s mental and physical health and emotional wellbeing needs, and
(b) the assessment of the mental and physical health and emotional wellbeing needs of relevant and former relevant children.
(11B) Subsection (11A) shall come into force at the end of the financial year ending with 31 March 2019.”’—(Tulip Siddiq.)
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to make regulations for mental health assessments for looked after children. A time delay in commencement is included to allow time for the pilots to be completed before details of the regulations are decided.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 19—Duty to promote physical and mental health and emotional well-being—
‘(1) In section 22 of the Children Act 1989, in subsection (3)(a) at end insert—
“(3D) The duty of a local authority under subsection (3)(a) to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child looked after by them includes a particular a duty to promote the child’s physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing.
(3E) For the purpose of supporting a local authority in discharging its duty under subsection (3D), each clinical commissioning group must appoint—
(a) at least one registered medical practitioner, and
(b) at least one registered nurse,
for each local authority with which any part of the clinical commissioning group overlaps.”’
This new clause would improve the outcomes for looked after children through a clarification of duties of cross agency working between local authorities and health partners, by elevating the roles of designated doctors and nurses into primary legislation.
Tulip Siddiq
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, and to speak to new clauses 18 and 19. Following the Prime Minister’s announcement that she wants to employ the power of Government to deal with mental health problems across society, I hope that these new clauses will not prove contentious to the Minister and Government Members.
According to the Care Quality Commission’s report last year, “Not seen, not heard”, almost half of children in care have a mental health disorder. Worryingly, the Department for Education’s report on young people leaving care shows that they have five times the risk of a suicide attempt of their peers. We tabled new clause 18 because we believe that mental health assessments are important tools for identifying mental health conditions early. Barnardo’s has made the point over and over that mental health needs must be met early to avoid crisis points.
Last year, the Government argued that automatic mental health assessments for children in care and care leavers would be stigmatising, and that it would not be appropriate for them to have mental health assessments at a given time. We have taken that on board. Bearing in mind what the Government have said about stigma, our new clause does not propose automatic mental health assessment for all children in care and care leavers at a specific time. Instead, we simply seek to ensure that the changes to mental health provision are supported by primary legislation.
By agreeing to the new clause, the Minister could ensure that the Government give mental health priority at every level, and that the Bill covers children in care and care leavers. New clause 18 would allow the Government to incorporate the outcomes of the recently announced mental health assessment pilots into regulations, and I hope that he will support it.
The same goes for new clause 19, which would improve outcomes for looked-after children by clarifying the duties for cross-agency working between local authorities and health partners and elevating the roles of designated professionals into primary legislation. Children in care and care leavers need someone who can ensure that health and social care services meet their particular mental health and wellbeing needs. Children in care currently have a designated doctor and nurse tasked with assisting local commissioners in addressing the health needs of looked-after children in their area, but the problem is that their exact responsibilities are unclear. Many local areas struggle to fill posts, and where posts are filled, professionals report that they are unable to influence planning decisions.
The Alliance for Children in Care supports stronger requirements for the role of designated doctors and nurses for looked-after children, as they believe that would begin to address current shortcomings and enshrine the role of designated professionals in legislation. I hope that the Minister will listen to the experts and the views that I have outlined and support the new clause.
Edward Timpson
I thank the hon. Lady for raising the important issue of the mental health and emotional wellbeing of looked-after children and care leavers. Improving mental health services and support for all children and young people is a priority for the Government. As she reminded the Committee, on Monday 9 January, the Prime Minister announced that the Department for Education and the Department of Health would work together to produce a Green Paper on the mental health of children and young people. That Green Paper will consider specifically how to build on what has already been done since “Future in Mind” to bring together a practical strategy for improving specialist mental health services, as well as how to improve preventive activity to help and support children and young people from nought to 25 years.
The paper will cover all relevant parts of the system—not just health but the care system, schools, universities and families. I agree that looked-after children and care leavers should receive the best possible assessment of their needs and then the necessary mental health support, but unfortunately, we know that not all such young people experience the best possible response. I have seen at first hand, both in my constituency and in my previous practice, how transformative timely and high-quality mental health support can be. Sadly, I have also seen the consequences where that is not provided.
However, improvements to mental health assessments are unlikely to be delivered by additional legislation; it is better practice on the ground that will deliver a better response to children’s needs. There are already legal requirements for health assessments, covering both physical and mental health, for looked-after children on their entry into care. Under the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010, all local authorities must set out a care plan for looked-after children, which must include a health plan setting out what arrangements the authority will make to meet the child’s health needs. A child’s health is expressly defined as including emotional and mental health.
To help inform the health plan, local authorities are required to carry out a statutory health assessment for all looked-after children on entry into care. It must be carried out by a registered medical practitioner and must address physical, mental and emotional health. Guidance from the medical royal colleges sets out the knowledge, skills and competences needed to undertake the assessments. Department for Education and Department of Health statutory guidance on care planning and promoting the health of looked-after children emphasises the importance of mental health, developmental milestones and social and relationship skills, which form part of a statutory health assessment.
Although the law and statutory guidance are clear, I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn about the quality of the initial health assessments for looked-after children and about whether in practice enough importance is placed on mental health needs. We listened to the issues raised by the Select Committee on Education, organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and Baroness Tyler and other peers. As a consequence, we have announced that we will establish pilots to test new approaches to mental health assessments for looked-after children.
I am happy to reiterate that commitment today. Initial meetings have already taken place among DFE, Department of Health and NHS England colleagues, who will take forward that work with a view to beginning pilots in April or May. The pilots will give us an opportunity to test and explore a range of approaches, building on the findings of the Education Committee and other research in this area. We may, for example, look at the skills and training of those carrying out healthcare assessments, and particularly at assessment methods and identification tools, and models of multi-agency working. I am also keen that children and young people themselves help to shape the pilots and inform best practice in this area.
Alongside the pilots, the expert working group on the mental health of looked-after children provides a huge opportunity to improve the mental health support that children in care receive. How looked-after children’s mental health is assessed is a focus for the group, crucially alongside the services that are put in place to support those children. The expert group is looking not only at entry into care but at suitable assessment support as a continuum across the child’s life. That includes the support that they receive on leaving care, including through routes such as special guardianship or adoption.
It is important that we do not pre-empt the group’s findings. Legislating before the expert group’s report and the pilots would risk tying the Government to a legislative option that may not make the tangible improvements to services that young people need. At worst, it would stymie the ability to use the findings from the expert group and the pilots in the best way possible for children and young people. We are committed to acting on those findings. Should they recommend that further legislation is needed, the Government will of course consider introducing it at that point. I appreciate that the hon. Lady’s new clause would come into force after the pilots have finished, but it simply duplicates what is already set out in law. In our judgment, what is needed is a change in practice on the ground, not in legal requirements.
Turning to the needs of former relevant children, looked-after children should have a review of their care plan, including their health plan, prior to leaving care. Consideration of their health needs, including mental and emotional health, should already be part of the review. We know from young people themselves that one of our priorities needs to be to get the transition between child and adolescent mental health services and adult services right. To improve practice regarding that transition, in December 2014 and January 2015, NHS England published new service specifications for commissioners, giving guidance and best practice on the transition from children and adolescent mental health services to adult services or elsewhere. Those specifications intentionally do not stipulate an age threshold for transition. They state that transition should be built around the needs of the individual, rather than their age.
I turn briefly to the proposed duty on local authorities to promote looked-after children’s physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing. There is an existing statutory duty under the Children Act 1989 to safeguard and promote the welfare of looked-after children. Promoting a child’s health is an integral part of promoting their welfare, and the regulations and statutory guidance on care planning are explicit that health includes mental and emotional health.
In addition to what I have already set out, we have further strengthened the legal position by making explicit reference to physical and mental health in the corporate parenting principles in clause 1. A Government amendment in the other place on the subject has been widely welcomed. It means that all local authorities in England will be required to have regard to the need to promote the physical and mental health and wellbeing of all looked-after children and care leavers. I hope that reassures the hon. Lady enough that she will be able to withdraw her new clause.
Tulip Siddiq
I thank the Minister for his response. The trials and pilots are a welcome step forward. With some reluctance I will withdraw the new clause, although it would clarify the exact positions of the designated professionals and put a little more practice into looking after a vulnerable group. Opposition Members will keep a close eye on this matter, because the Government’s record on mental health in all areas so far has been appalling. However, I will withdraw the new clause, because I appreciate the points about defining what the trials cover and the outcome of the pilots that he proposes and the Green Paper. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 21
Designated support for family and friends carers
“(1) In the Children Act 1989, after section 17ZI insert—
“17ZJ Designated support for family and friends carers
Each local authority must appoint at least one person as a designated lead for family and friends care, to co-ordinate the provision within their area of family and friends care support services.”” .—(Mrs Lewell-Buck.)
This new clause would provide kinship carers, council staff and other agencies with clarity as to who is the named senior manager with responsibility for family and friends care in the authority and who has responsibility for ensuring that the local authority complies with family and friends care guidance.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is me again, Mrs Main—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] The new clause provides that every local authority should designate a lead person who has responsibility for family and friends carers. As the Minister knows, there are a multitude of arrangements whereby a child may be cared for by extended family or friends. At times there will be no or limited involvement from children’s services in some of those arrangements. That can make it difficult for carers to know who to turn to should they need help or advice or if their situation changes. Having a senior lead manager within local authorities who can ensure that the authority is effectively meeting its responsibilities to all children in family and friends care and complying with statutory family and friends care guidance is important.
DFE statutory guidance on family and friends care states:
“The Director of Children’s Services should identify a senior manager who holds overall responsibility for the family and friends care policy. He or she will need to ensure that the policy meets the statutory requirements, and is responsive to the identified needs of children and carers.”
However, a 2015 study by the Family Rights Group examined 53 English local authorities’ family and friends care policies and found that one third made no reference to a senior manager with such responsibility. The new clause seeks for that to be a duty in primary legislation. It should not be an additional burden on local authorities as they should be complying already. In areas where that is not already common practice, the clause would provide family and friends carers and others clarity on who to contact. The duty already exists for adoption; adoption support services legislation states that an adoption support services adviser, whose role is to give advice both to adopters and to the local authority about adoption support and services, needs to be in place in each local authority. I can see no reason why other permanent carers of children under arrangements other than adoption should not be afforded the same support.
Edward Timpson
I am afraid it is also me again, Mrs Main—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I was not trying to tee that up, but I am grateful to my hon. Friends for their response. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for South Shields for the proposed new clause, which would introduce, as part of the Children Act 1989, a new requirement on local authorities to appoint a designated lead for family and friends care who would be responsible for co-ordinating the provision of family and friends care services within their area.
I am sure we all recognise and appreciate the valuable contribution made by family and friends across the country who care for children who, for whatever reason, cannot live with their parents. It is important that all family and friends carers are aware of and able to access support services so that they can provide the high quality care that children require. Our statutory guidance on family and friends care already requires local authorities to publish a policy setting out their approach to promoting and supporting the needs of all children living with family and friends carers. The policy must be updated regularly and made available widely.
Importantly, the statutory guidance clearly states that a senior manager must hold overall responsibility for family and friends care to ensure that the local authority’s policy meets the identified needs of children and carers. As such, I do not believe it is necessary to appoint a designated lead for family and friends care. Such a requirement would be over-prescriptive and would reduce the ability of local authorities to respond to local needs in the way they consider best.
To ensure that local authorities are fulfilling their duties properly, I wrote to all directors of children’s services in October last year. In my letter I reminded them of their duty to have an up-to-date and comprehensive family and friends care policy, as well as a senior manager with overall responsibility for the policy that others would be aware of. I asked them to send a web link to that policy, and the details of their named lead, to the Family Rights Group. I will ask officials for an update from the Family Rights Group to ascertain how the situation appears as regards the details we have requested.
In addition, we provided £150,000 of funding to Grandparents Plus and three partner organisations in 2015-16 to develop an early help model for family and friends carers, to ensure that they are aware of, and can get access to, the support they need. The model includes website materials and bespoke training for professionals. I believe that that is the approach that is required. I have had the opportunity to have several meetings with the Family Rights Group during the passage of the Bill, and remain open to further constructive discussion about what more we can do with the group to improve practice on the ground. I hope that the hon. Lady is reassured that in the circumstances she can withdraw her new clause.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I was pleased to hear about the Minister’s proactive engagement with the Family Rights Group on the issue, and beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 22
Extending Placement Orders to Special Guardianship Orders
“In the Adoption and Children Act 2002, after section 21, insert—
“21A Placement orders: special guardianship orders
(1) In this section a placement order is an order made by the court authorising a local authority to place a child, whom that local authority has decided should be placed under a special guardianship order, with any prospective special guardian who may be identified by the authority.
(2) A “prospective special guardian” is a person who is entitled to apply for a special guardianship order with respect to a child under section 14A(5) of the Children Act 1989.
(3) The court may not make a placement order in respect of a child unless—
(a) the child is subject to a care order,
(b) the court is satisfied that the conditions in section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989 (conditions for making a care order) are met, or
(c) the child has no parent or guardian.
(4) The court may only make a placement order if the court is satisfied—
(a) that no other permanence order is appropriate and that only a special guardianship order will meet the needs of the child, and
(b) in the case of each parent or guardian of the child—
(i) that the parent or guardian has consented to the child being placed under a special guardianship order with the prospective special guardian identified by the local authority and has not withdrawn consent, or
(ii) that the parent’s or guardian’s consent should be dispensed with.
This subsection is subject to section 52 (parental etc consent).
(5) When making a decision in any proceedings where the court might make a placement order, the court must apply the welfare checklist under section 1(4) of this Act and must consider the whole range of powers available to it in the child’s case (whether under this Act or the Children Act 1989), including making no order.
(6) On the making of a placement order and until such an order is revoked—
(a) any existing child arrangement or supervision order ceases to have effect,
(b) no other order may be applied for, and
(c) a care order is suspended.
(7) A placement order continues in force until—
(a) it is revoked under section 24,
(b) a special guardianship order is made in respect of the child, or
(c) the child marries, forms a civil partnership or attains the age of 18 years.””—(Mrs Lewell-Buck.)
This new clause would extend the provisions for placement orders under section 21 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to special guardianship orders.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would extend the provisions for placement orders under section 21 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to special guardianship orders. I have argued in discussion with the Minister at various times that there is a need for special guardianship to have the same status as adoption. Children who are placed with members of their wider family under SGOs have had the same difficulties as those placed for adoption. Often, they may never before have met the members of the wider or extended family with whom they are placed, and they may move to another part of the country, as is the case with adoption.
Unlike what happens with adoption, however, because there is no severance of parental rights many children under special guardianship maintain contact with their parents. The parents could have harmed them in some way—hence their removal from their care in the first place—so special guardians, in many instances, have even more difficulties than adopters. They must manage complex family relationships while attempting to build a relationship with the child in their care. I assure the Committee that that is far from easy.
That is why it is vital that when SGOs are made it is on the same robust terms as adoption, and there should be a requirement, as with adoption, for thorough and robust assessment, including placing the child with the new carers to assess the suitability of the placement. Only when those requirements are satisfied should the matter return to court, so that the applicants can be supported in the making of the SGO.
At present there is no comprehensive legal requirement for anyone to conduct a full, thorough assessment of a potential special guardian. The court can make the orders of its own volition. Statistics published by the Department for Education show that 3,830 special guardianship orders were made in the year ending 31 March 2016. The total number of SGOs granted has come close to doubling since 2010 when 1,780 were made. I have stated before in the House that because the process of applying for an SGO is less stringent and because an order can be made without any testing of the placement, meaning that that the process is less arduous and time-consuming than adoption, SGOs are being misused.
I know that the Department has already done some work to look at that, but I am not aware of any figures on SGO breakdown. However, I know anecdotally and from practice that it can be common, yet such an outcome can cause immeasurable harm to all those involved. A clear lesson learned from fostering and adoption is that the assessment process allows families the opportunity to conclude that it is not the right course of action for them. Under the current SGO arrangements family members are far too often hurried through an assessment process that allows insufficient time for proper assessment, and allows them no time to reflect on their commitment to a life-changing and lifelong decision.
In recent years the Government issued a statutory instrument requiring greater attention to be paid when reports on special guardians are prepared for the court to the needs of the child and to the potential of the special guardian to meet them in the short term and throughout the child’s life. However, that is clearly not enough. Courts are not allowed to make adoption orders easily, and they should not be allowed to make SGOs easily. That approach has widespread support from the family judiciary, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and many directors of children’s services. Knowing the Minister’s professional background prior to coming to this place, I would be very surprised if he was against this new clause.
Edward Timpson
I thank the hon. Lady for tabling the new clause, which seeks to improve decisions about whether to place a child under a special guardianship order. I recognise the problems that she is trying to address and agree that we need to improve decision making about permanence options for children who cannot live with their birth parents. Indeed, that is exactly what clause 8 seeks to do—to improve permanence decision making. Uncharacteristically, I not only agree with the synopsis of the hon. Lady but would say that in some ways, she has gone further than I would in trying to resolve the issue. Clause 8 is part of trying to do that. As Andy Elvin of the Adolescent and Children’s Trust—TACT—said:
“All of this is eminently sensible. In practical terms it will raise the evidential bar for all care planning. The biggest impact, rightly, will be on special guardianship order assessments.”
That needs to be addressed because, as the hon. Lady set out, we have seen an exponential rise in the use of special guardianship orders without confidence in the assessment process to establish whether the carer named in the order has sufficient ability to look after that child and meet its specific needs for the duration of its time in their care, up to the age of 18. Clause 8 seeks to look at the longer-term requirement.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am not entirely clear where clause 8 refers to special guardianship orders. If the Minister could clarify that, it would be helpful.
Edward Timpson
Under clause 8, when a court is making a decision about a child’s future permanence arrangements, whatever order that may be under, it has to consider the child’s long-term needs and the abilities of the carer. The carer may be a long-term foster carer or a special guardian, or the child may be returning home, but they have to demonstrate the qualities and abilities necessary to meet that child’s specific needs in not only the immediate but the long term. That is an important distinction.
As the hon. Lady said, one concern is that some assessments for special guardianship orders have been cursory at best. That has led, in some cases, to the breakdown of the placement. We all know that that is the worst possible outcome for the child involved. We carried out an important piece of work with those in the court system, in children’s services and in the charitable sector to understand what was driving those decisions and the breakdown of those placements. Our response was to tighten up and make more stringent the assessment process required before someone is approved as a potential long-term carer for a child under a special guardianship order.
The hon. Lady asked about evidence on breakdown rates. I recall that Professor Julie Selwyn from Bristol University carried out an extensive piece of research a couple of years ago, which showed that the breakdown rate for special guardianships was around 6%—double what it was for adoption. I know the figure for those returning to care was much higher, and I can share that with the hon. Lady once it is to hand.
There is cause to look at rectifying that and coming up with the right approach. We must ensure that in doing so, we give the court the tools it needs to make not only the right decision but a timely one. However, I am not convinced that the approach the hon. Lady proposes in the new clause is the right way forward. I want to take a few minutes to explain why so that she is fully aware of the reasons we do not support the amendment.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Does the Minister not agree that it is important that an SGO placement, as it is the same as an adoption, has an opportunity to be tested to avoid further breakdowns? The Minister quoted Andy Elvin from TACT; the new clause has the support of TACT.
Edward Timpson
I am aware of that. Mr Elvin is also very supportive of the changes we are making in clause 8. It is worth reminding the hon. Lady that I do not think there is the universal support for the new clause that she suggested. There are mixed views about what the right approach is and that is why we need to tread with some caution on the way forward.
The majority of special guardianship orders are given to carers with whom the child is living. They are cases where the child already has that relationship or is already in a caring situation. For the few who are not, the proposal would provide an opportunity, as the hon. Lady has said, to test the special guardianship placement in practice and allow the special guardian to reflect on the additional responsibilities they are taking on.
In some cases, that is very sensible. However, we believe that there is already sufficient flexibility to allow for that in the current system if a local authority and court believe that more time is needed to carry out a full assessment of a potential special guardian. Without boring the Committee too much about my previous life at the Bar, I recall a number of cases where there were adjournments of hearings in order for that to take place. Courts have the right to adjourn care proceedings to allow more time for an assessment to take place.
Although we have encouraged courts to complete care proceedings within 26 weeks, the rules are clear that this time can and should be extended where it would be in the interests of children to do so. In many cases, that happens where a potential special guardian has been identified late in care proceedings. We hope that the emphasis now on more pre-proceedings work will ensure that there are fewer cases where at the last minute a new potential carer comes forward.
Other courts have granted care orders to allow the local authority to place the child with a foster carer or kinship carer who is a potential special guardian—that is another route to test a placement—and the special guardianship order is then applied for after the child has lived with the carer for a few months and after a full assessment of their parenting capacity and skills has been carried out.
Although good decision-making is crucial, I am not persuaded that the introduction of a new special guardianship placement order is the best way forward. Indeed, there might be some risk that an order of that kind could encourage delay or instability, if courts and local authorities were to use it as an opportunity for a trial period for an arrangement that has little potential to succeed. That could cause harm for the child in the long term, if they move to a new placement.
In agreeing with the hon. Lady about the synopsis, we part ways somewhat when it comes to the solution. As she has acknowledged, we are already making changes through regulation and in the Bill to ensure that any assessment for a potential carer as a special guardian is as robust as it would be for any other placement. We know that we need to try to improve the long-term stability of those placements to avoid the unnecessary breakdown that we are seeing in some cases. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Lady will agree to withdraw the new clause.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The Minister is consistent in disappointing me today. He said that the majority of SGOs are where children are already living with their carers. What about the minority? Surely they deserve the new clause to be in place, because one placement that breaks down for any child is devastating and we should not be allowing it to happen. I will therefore press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause seeks to set out a minimum standard of allowances, support, training and terms and conditions for foster carers. The current crisis in foster care is the result not only of chronic underfunding but of a fatally broken system. The phrase “postcode lottery” is often overused, but in fostering it is all too true whether someone is a child in care or a foster parent giving that care. The levels of support, allowances, services and terms and conditions differ greatly from local authority to local authority and that is before we even factor independent agencies into the mix.
Too many foster carers receive no, or below the minimum, allowance. Some local authorities fail to offer any financial support through sickness. Entitlement to annual leave varies greatly between local authorities—some offer 28 days per year, some carers have less and others have no entitlement at all—and whatever currently exists is being ever eroded as local authorities face continued cuts to their budgets. Nobody in this room would accept employment terms that meant our pay, leave or levels of support depended solely on where in the country we worked. We should not expect that of foster carers who provide such a valuable contribution to society in caring for our most vulnerable children.
The new clause addresses the lottery for foster carers, while making the most of resources and providing a more stable system for looked-after children. If the Government seriously want to address the fostering crisis, they need to offer stability and consistency. If councils were able to offer standardised terms, foster carers could then move freely between councils, which would make the most of all spare beds available and therefore reduce the need for expensive independent agencies. If all council foster carers were treated the same, they would have the security to stay in the profession long-term, cutting recruitment costs and, more importantly, offering greater stability for children.
We all agree that foster carers truly are a great asset doing a very difficult job, but it is no good paying lip service to them—we need to recognise that officially. As one foster carer told the GMB trade union:
“We are always on duty, it is a profession in which we work 365 days, and 24 hours a day. It is nowhere near the government minimum wage in fact at my rate it is £1.65 per hour so no one can say we do it for the money.”
Foster carers are doing a job and should be classified as professionals. The first step towards that is access to standardised terms and conditions with pensions, sick pay, skills payments and access to trade union representation.
Edward Timpson
Again, I thank the hon. Member for South Shields. I agree with the new clause in its entirety that, where it is appropriate, safeguarding partners and relevant agencies should work together across more than one authority area. That is provided for in clause 21 of the Bill. I suspect that the fact the hon. Lady did not refer to elements of that in her speech suggests that she is not pushing that issue.
Cross-area working relationships can also be beneficial in respect to arrangements made to support foster carers. We recognise the challenging but valuable and rewarding role that foster carers have, and the positive impact that they make to the lives of many vulnerable children and young people. My own parents fostered for more than 30 years, so I am fully versed in not only the demands of foster care but the huge benefits that it can bring not only to the children being looked after but to the foster family themselves.
I have no doubt that all such foster carers, some of whom were recognised in the new year’s honours list only a few weeks ago, are among the most impressive people. They give up not only their time, but their homes and often their lives in order to look after children who have no blood connection to them. Whether through altruistic tendencies or a need to reach out, they feel a strong urge to be there for those children, often in difficult circumstances. We recognise the challenge, and it is important that all foster carers are seen as a key part of the team working with a child. They should receive the right support and training to meet the emotional and physical needs of the children in their care.
Regulations, statutory guidance and the national minimum standards apply across England. They make it clear that fostering service providers should make available the training, advice, information and support that foster carers need to look after the children placed with them. That includes practical, financial and emotional support. Fostering services are, however, given some flexibility to deliver in a way to best meet local need. The Government also recommend a national minimum allowance for foster carers. It is for the fostering service to decide the payment systems, but we expect all foster carers to receive at least that allowance, and many receive more.
We recognise, however, the need to keep the fostering system under review. That is why we have committed to undertake a national fostering stocktake. As the hon. Member for South Shields is aware, the stocktake will be a fundamental review of the whole fostering system. It will consider, among other issues, the allowances, support and training that foster carers receive.
The stocktake will be an opportunity to examine many of the issues that the hon. Lady has raised, as well as local variations in practice, and to identify good practice—for example, in how local authorities work with other agencies to recruit and support foster carers. The movement is national and needs a national response. Crucially, the stocktake will help us better understand what changes are needed, and identify practical next steps to bring about sustained improvement to the foster care system. We will work closely with all partners to understand how best to improve outcomes for children in foster care.
We have already begun work on the stocktake. We have started a thorough analysis of available data and statistics. Alongside that, we have commissioned a literature review of all the available evidence on foster care. Both those pieces of work will be completed in the first quarter of 2017. Further information, including the launch of a call for evidence, will also be published in the next few months.
I share the hon. Lady’s commitment to ensure that foster carers are valued, for both personal and professional reasons, and that the right support is in place. We now have an opportunity for her and other colleagues to contribute to the stocktake, to ensure that we continue to support what I think is one of the most precious roles in our society, and one that we should help to nurture for the future of vulnerable children in our care.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Given the Minister’s comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Syms.)
Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting)
Thursday 12th January 2017
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children and Social Work Act 2017 View all Children and Social Work Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 January 2017 - (12 Jan 2017)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 25—Legal aid for parents who are care leavers: children subject to a placement order application—
‘After regulation 5(1)(d) of the Civil Legal Aid (Financial Resources and Payment for Services) Regulations 2013, insert—
“(da) legal representation in proceedings for a placement order under Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the 2002 Act where the individual to whom legal representation may be provided is—
(i) the parent of a child or a person with parental responsibility for the child within the meaning of the Children Act 1989,
(ii) is themselves a looked after child or care leaver, and
(iii) would not otherwise be entitled to legal representation under paragraphs (c) or (d) of this regulation.”’
This new clause would ensure access to free, independent legal advice and representation for parents, who are themselves a looked after child or care leaver, and whose children are subject to a placement order application (permission to place a child for adoption).
Mrs Lewell-Buck
As we have discussed previously in Committee in relation to my proposed amendments to clause 3, care leavers are particularly vulnerable to early pregnancy and to losing a child to the care system or adoption. That, on top of the feelings that many new parents have, brings additional challenges.
Under the Children and Families Act 2014, babies and children who are looked after, either under a care order or by way of a voluntary agreement under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 with the child’s parents, can be placed under foster for adoption with potential adopters who are approved as foster carers. That was a welcome move, but as with many legislative changes, some of the consequences and pitfalls of the legislation were not known until it became embedded. We now have a situation whereby a child who is looked after under section 20 may be placed in a foster for adoption placement without their young parents having had a right to free independent legal advice and representation, and without any court scrutiny of the process or any court decision that the child should be permanently removed from their parents. Once a child is living with a potential adopter, it is much harder for the parent to persuade the court that the child should be returned to their care, because of the status quo argument, which is aimed at minimising disruption for the child.
New clause 24 would deal with that injustice. It would ensure that where a parent was in care themselves or a care leaver and a foster for adoption placement was proposed for their child who was voluntary accommodated, that parent would be entitled to non-means-tested and non-merits-tested public funding. That would be entirely consistent with what is available to persons with parental responsibility during the pre-proceedings process.
There are also a small number of cases in which parents are not entitled to non-means and merits-tested legal aid when the court is deciding, following an application from the local authority, whether to make a placement order for a child. A placement order permits the local authority to place the child for adoption. In such circumstances, the local authority and the child will have a legal representative at court, but the parents may not, because there have been no earlier care proceedings—for example, where a voluntarily accommodated child has been in a foster for adoption placement, because in that situation a young parent may have had no legal aid—or because care proceedings have concluded and a placement order application is subsequently made.
Young parents who are themselves in care or care leavers are at particular risk of that injustice. The Centre for Social Justice reported in 2015 that 22% of female care leavers become teenage mothers—that is three times the national average—and that one in 10 care leavers aged 16 to 21 have had a child taken into care.
Sir James Munby, president of the family division, has cited the observation of Mr Justice Baker:
“The justification for automatic public funding in care proceedings is the draconian nature of the order being claimed by the local authority.”
Given that a placement order is equally if not more draconian, the same rationale should apply.
New clause 25 would close the loophole and give parents legal advice and representation when the state is proposing to remove their child or children from their care. Surely the Minister can see that, as things stand, there is the potential for miscarriages of justice, and that miscarriages of justice are taking place.
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
I thank the hon. Lady for tabling new clauses 24 and 25. They seek to extend access to free legal aid to parents who are themselves looked-after children or care leavers and whose children have been voluntarily accommodated under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 and are to be placed in a foster for adoption placement or are subject to a placement order application. A long-established view enshrined in law is that children are best looked after within their family unless intervention in that family’s life is necessary. Indeed, that is one of the fundamental principles of the 1989 Act.
When children are looked after, provisions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 that came into force in April 2016 mean that legal aid is available to parents in specified public law family proceedings. That includes legal services relating to care orders, as well as placement and adoption orders, and incorporates advice in relation to orders that are contemplated.
A local authority cannot accommodate a child voluntarily under section 20 without parental consent, and in such circumstances the parents may remove them from the local authority accommodation at any time. However, when the local authority considers that the child is at risk and that it would be in their best interest to remain looked after, it may apply for a care order. When a local authority informs parents of the intention to initiate care proceedings, those parents, including those who are looked after or are care leavers, become eligible for civil legal services free of any means test in the usual way.
However, I understand the concerns that have been raised about the application of fostering for adoption to voluntarily accommodated children. When a local authority starts to consider adoption as an option for a child, the adoption agencies regulations already require the local authority to provide a counselling service for the child’s parent or guardian, including explaining to them the procedure and legal implications of adoption. They also require the local authority to notify the child’s birth parents in writing that it has decided to place the child in a fostering-for-adoption placement before the local authority’s nominated officer can approve the placement. Those provisions apply to all parents, including those who are looked after or are care leavers.
In relation to care leavers and placement order applications, we are not aware of any care leaver who has been refused free legal aid to challenge an application for a placement order. If the hon. Lady has examples or has been made aware of cases where that has happened, it would be helpful if she shared them with us to that we can investigate them.
When a local authority applies for a placement order outside care proceedings, the vast majority of care leavers will be entitled to free means-tested legal aid, as they are likely to meet the criteria. However, in the light of the points raised by the hon. Lady and, I believe, the Family Rights Group as part of this debate, I have asked my officials to talk to their counterparts at the Ministry of Justice, which holds responsibility for the legal aid budget, to see whether there are any gaps that need to be addressed. I hope that on that basis, the hon. Lady will withdraw the motion.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 27
Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain
“(1) Schedule (Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain) ends at the end of the period of two years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”—(Mrs Lewell-Buck.)
This new clause would revoke provisions in the Bill that enable local authorities in England and Wales to place children in secure accommodation in Scotland, and vice versa, two years after the Act comes into force.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Committee will be pleased to hear that this is the last new clause that I am proposing. It would place a duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance to all schools on how to handle allegations of child-to-child abuse. About a third of all child abuse is carried out by other children or peers; in 2013-14, more than 4,000 children and young people were reported as perpetrators of sexual abuse. Of course, we can never know the true incidence of such abuse, but we can look at the evidence before us and try to act on it. Even one child being harmed in this way is one too many.
Peer-to-peer abuse frequently goes unreported because although adult-perpetrated abuse has now sunk into the public psyche as something to report and look out for, peer-to-peer abuse has not. It often occurs outside adults’ direct supervision. Even if witnessed or known about by adults, it can often be dismissed as harmless by those who do not understand the implications. Children who are sexually victimised by other children show largely the same problems as children victimised by adults, including anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, suicide, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep disorders, difficulty trusting peers in the context of relationships and increased risk of victimisation in their life.
As with adult-perpetrated abuse, the victim often thinks that the act was normal, not knowing about healthy relationships or assuming that all children were being similarly abused, does not have the language to tell anybody about what is happening, fears they will get into trouble if they try to disclose it, and thinks sometimes that they were the initiator or that they went through the act voluntarily. They are left with unimaginable feelings of guilt, which no child or adult should ever suffer on top of the harm they have already suffered.
We all agree that we have a responsibility to keep children safe, yet the current iteration of the “Keeping children safe in education” guidance simply lacks the detail to support schools where incidents involve peer-to-peer abuse. Moreover, many schools do not have the appropriate processes in place to support children returning to school following a serious incident. Abuse is never the fault of the victim, yet in all too many cases children are left isolated, with no avenue for escape.
Imagine being a young girl in school and being raped by one of your classmates, but despite that allegation of rape being upheld, you have to go back into the classroom day after day, lesson after lesson, with the same boy who raped you. We would never force anyone in the workplace or in any other scenario to go through that, but that has happened in some of our schools.
Children contacting ChildLine have described being subjected in school to inappropriate sexual touching and verbal threats on the bus, in the playground, in toilets, in changing rooms and even in classrooms during lessons. Many young girls have reported feeling vulnerable, anxious and confused through being pressurised for sex by boys at school. Some feel they should consent, as their peers all talk about being sexually active. Others are threatened with physical violence if they refuse and have rumours and lies spread about them.
Part 4 of “Keeping children safe in education” is devoted entirely to how schools should handle allegations of abuse against teachers or other adults in a school setting. Any teacher accused of a sexual offence would be suspended while police investigations continued. Why on earth is that not considered necessary when the alleged perpetrator of sexual abuse being investigated by police is a pupil?
Our schools should be safe havens for children. Often, for children who are suffering abuse at home, school is the one place they feel safe and have some sense of stability. That is why the new clause is needed. At present, while statutory guidance for schools in England under “Keeping children safe in education” states that peer-on-peer abuse needs to be recognised and addressed and that abuse is abuse, so peer-on-peer abuse should therefore be addressed with the same process as any action against abuse, it also leaves it up to schools to formulate their own policies and procedures. That is where the problem lies. We cannot just leave the response to a potentially serious, life-ruining criminal act to the discretion of individual schools.
Research done by the NSPCC found that guidance is variable across the country and can be inconsistent. Any single child who is abused by one of their peers in the same class or school deserves the same protection, no matter where in the country they go to school. The new clause would ensure that. If the Minister is minded not to support my new clause, which is likely—that has been the theme throughout the Committee, despite our well-evidenced and well-meaning proposals—will he at least give a commitment to carry out urgent consultation, to understand the prevalence of peer-to-peer abuse between children who attend the same school? If he does that, I will withdraw the new clause.
Edward Timpson
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Lady for tabling the new clause, because she raises what is in some ways a very harrowing and real issue. If at all possible, and despite the many disappointments I have thrust upon her over the past few weeks, I will put her mind at rest and explain the current process with regards to child-to-child abuse as well as the work my Department has planned for the near future.
As the hon. Lady said, “Keeping children safe in education” is statutory guidance that all schools in England must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. That guidance sets out that all schools should have an effective child protection policy that includes procedures to minimise the risk of child-to-child abuse and sets out how allegations of such abuse will be investigated and dealt with. The policy should also be clear on how victims of child-to-child abuse will be supported and should reflect locally agreed inter-agency procedures put in place by the local safeguarding children board and, in future—as a consequence of the Bill—any arrangements by the safeguarding partners.
If a child has been abused by another child, the school should raise a referral with the relevant local authority’s children’s social care department, and possibly, depending on the circumstances, with the police. Local authority social workers will also be able to consider conducting inquiries under either sections 17 or 47 of the Children Act 1989; those inquiries will consider both the abused child and the abuser.
Schools should work in partnership with social workers throughout those processes. Schools are best placed to handle each case of child-to-child abuse because of the unique circumstances of each of those cases, but with the help and support of social workers, guidance from the local safeguarding children board—and, in future, from safeguarding partners—and with reference to “Keeping children safe in education”. New, separate guidance is not the answer; making the existing framework and suite of guidance documents work more efficiently and effectively is. “Keeping children safe in education” is under review and will be updated as appropriate to address, among other things, any changes introduced by the Bill.
I am sure the hon. Lady is aware of the recent inquiry by the Women and Equalities Committee into sexual harassment and sexual violence, which we discussed during an earlier Committee sitting. In its response to the Committee’s report, and noting the hon. Lady’s view that the guidance on child-to-child abuse needs to be clearer, we are committing to reviewing how child-to-child abuse is reflected in that statutory guidance. My officials are in the process of setting up working groups with sector experts to do just that.
Any additional guidance for schools on child-to-child abuse would be best placed in the section already dedicated to that in “Keeping children safe in education”, because that is the main statutory document that every school has to follow. I assure the hon. Lady that my officials will work closely with those working groups to consider the best way to reflect any further guidance on child-to-child abuse in the statutory guidance as appropriate. That guidance will also address the changes to the multi-agency working arrangements provided for in the Bill as soon as possible.
Before I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the new clause, I believe this is the last time I will be speaking at any length during the Committee stage of the Bill, and so I want to put on the record my thanks to you, Mrs Main, and to Mr Wilson for your purposeful and pragmatic chairing of the Committee. I also thank the Clerk and other Committee officials for their efficient and professional administration of proceedings; my Whip, for his exemplary stewardship; my Parliamentary Private Secretary and my hon. Friends for their considered attendance; Opposition Committee members for their engagement and constructive debate on these important issues; and finally, officials from my Department for the excellent support they have given me throughout the Bill’s Committee stage—I hope that that will continue on Report. With that ringing in their ears, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Without going through the same list as the Minister, I thank everyone. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Schedule 1
Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain
“Children Act 1989
1 The Children Act 1989 is amended as follows.
2 (1) Section 25 (use of accommodation in England for restricting liberty of children looked after by English and Welsh local authorities)—
(a) is to extend also to Scotland, and
(b) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)—
(a) for “or local authority in Wales” substitute “in England or Wales”;
(b) after “accommodation in England” insert “or Scotland”;
(3) In subsection (2)—
(a) in paragraphs (a)(i) and (ii) and (b), after “secure accommodation in England” insert “or Scotland”;
(b) in paragraph (c), for “or local authorities in Wales” substitute “in England or Wales”;
(4) After subsection (5) insert—
(5A) Where a local authority in England or Wales are authorised under this section to keep a child in secure accommodation in Scotland, the person in charge of the accommodation may restrict the child’s liberty to the extent that the person considers appropriate, having regard to the terms of any order made by a court under this section.”
(5) In subsection (7)—
(a) in paragraph (c), after “secure accommodation in England” insert “or Scotland”;
(b) after that paragraph, insert—
“(d) a child may only be placed in secure accommodation that is of a description specified in the regulations (and the description may in particular be framed by reference to whether the accommodation, or the person providing it, has been approved by the Secretary of State or the Scottish Ministers).”
(6) After subsection (8) insert—
(8A) Sections 168 and 169(1) to (4) of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (asp 1) (enforcement and absconding) apply in relation to an order under subsection (4) above as they apply in relation to the orders mentioned in section 168(3) or 169(1)(a) of that Act.”
3 In paragraph 19(9) of Schedule 2 (restrictions on arrangements for children to live abroad), after “does not apply” insert “—
(a) to a local authority placing a child in secure accommodation in Scotland under section 25, or
(b) ”.
Children (Secure Accommodation) Regulations 1991 (S.I. 1991/1505)
4 The Children (Secure Accommodation) Regulations 1991 (S.I. 1991/1505) are amended as follows.
5 In regulation 1—
(a) in the heading, for “and commencement” substitute “, commencement and extent;
(b) the existing text becomes paragraph (1);
(c) after that paragraph insert—
(2) This Regulation and Regulations 10 to 13 extend to England and Wales and Scotland.
(3) Except as provided by paragraph (2), these Regulations extend to England and Wales.”
6 In regulation 2(1) (interpretation), in the definition of “children’s home”, for the words from “means” to the end, substitute “means—
(a) a private children’s home, a community home or a voluntary home in England, or
(b) an establishment in Scotland (whether managed by a local authority, a voluntary organisation or any other person) which provides residential accommodation for children for the purposes of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 or the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968”.
7 For regulation 3 substitute—
“3 Approval by Secretary of State of secure accommodation in a children’s home
(1) Accommodation in a children’s home shall not be used as secure accommodation unless —
(a) in the case of accommodation in England, it has been approved by the Secretary of State for that use;
(b) in the case of accommodation in Scotland, it is provided by a service which has been approved by the Scottish Ministers under paragraph 6(b) of Schedule 12 to the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.
(2) Approval by the Secretary of State under paragraph (1) may be given subject to any terms and conditions that the Secretary of State thinks fit.”
8 In regulation 17 (records), in the words before paragraph (a), after “children’s home” insert “in England”.
Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Regulations 2013 (S.S.I. 2013 No. 205)
9 The Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Regulations 2013 (S.S.I. 2013 No. 205) are amended as follows.
10 In regulation 5 (maximum period in secure accommodation), after paragraph (2) insert—
(3) This regulation does not apply in relation to a child placed in secure accommodation in Scotland under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 (which allows accommodation in Scotland to be used for restricting the liberty of children looked after by English and Welsh local authorities).”
11 In regulation 15 (records to be kept by managers of secure accommodation in Scotland), after paragraph (2) insert—
(3) The managers must provide the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers, on request, with copies of any records kept under this regulation that relate to a child placed in secure accommodation under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 (which allows local authorities in England or Wales to place children in secure accommodation in Scotland).”
Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Consequential and Transitional Provisions and Savings) Order 2013 (S.I. 2013 No. 1465)
12 In Article 7 of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Consequential and Transitional Provisions and Savings) Order 2013 (S.I. 2013 No. 1465) (compulsory supervision orders and interim compulsory supervision orders), after paragraph (2) insert—
(3) Where—
(a) a compulsory supervision order or interim compulsory supervision order contains a requirement of the type mentioned in section 83(2)(a) of the 2011 Act and a secure accommodation authorisation (as defined in section 85 of that Act),
(b) the place at which the child is required to reside in accordance with the order is a place in England or Wales, and
(c) by virtue of a decision to consent to the placement of the child in secure accommodation made under article 16, the child is to be placed in secure accommodation within that place,
the order is authority for the child to be placed and kept in secure accommodation within that place.”
Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (anaw 4)
13 In section 124(9) of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (anaw 4) (restrictions on arrangements for children to live outside England and Wales), after “does not apply” insert “—
(a) to a local authority placing a child in secure accommodation in Scotland under section 25 of the Children Act 1989, or
(b) ”.
Saving for existing powers
14 The amendments made by this Schedule to provisions of subordinate legislation do not affect the power to make further subordinate legislation amending or revoking the amended provisions.”.—(Edward Timpson.)
See the explanatory statement for NC1.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Clauses 58 to 61 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 62
Extent
Amendments made: 9, in clause 62, page 33, line 12, at end insert—
“(A1) Section (Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain) and paragraphs 2, 4, 5 and 14 of Schedule (Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain) extend to England and Wales and Scotland.”
This amendment would ensure that, where paragraphs of NS1 provide for legislation to extend to England and Wales and Scotland, the paragraphs themselves have the same extent.
Amendment 10, in clause 62, page 33, line 13, leave out subsection (1).
The subsection left out by this amendment is replaced by amendment 13.
Amendment 11, in clause 62, page 33, line 14, at beginning insert “Except as mentioned in subsection (A1),”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 9.
Amendment 12, in clause 62, page 33, line 15, leave out “enactment” and insert “provision”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 9.
Amendment 13, in clause 62, page 33, line 16, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
“( ) Subject to subsections (A1) and (2), Parts 1 and 2 extend to England and Wales only.
( ) This Part extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”.—(Edward Timpson.)
This would ensure that the final Part of the Bill extends throughout the United Kingdom, as well as making changes consequential on amendment 9.
Clause 62, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 63
Commencement
Amendments made: 14, in clause 63, page 33, line 19, leave out “This Part comes” and insert “The following come”.
This amendment and amendment 15 would provide for NC1 and NS1 (placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain) to come into force on the passing of the Bill.
Amendment 15, in clause 63, page 33, line 19, at end insert “—
(a) section (Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain) and Schedule (Placing children in secure accommodation elsewhere in Great Britain);
(b) this Part.”.—(Edward Timpson.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 14.
Clause 63, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 64
Short title
The Chair
Exceptionally, I have used my discretion to select the starred amendment, as it is only a technical amendment removing the privilege disclaimer inserted by the Lords. It is common practice to remove this disclaimer at this stage of the Bill’s passage through the House.
Amendment made: 44, in clause 64, page 33, line 25, leave out subsection (2).—(Edward Timpson.)
This amendment removes the “privilege amendment” inserted by the Lords.
Clause 64, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Westminster Hall
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Restorative Justice
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Justice Committee, Restorative justice, HC 164, and the Government response, Cm 9343.
It is a particular pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and to move the motion on behalf of the Justice Committee. I am grateful to my Committee colleagues who are here to take part in the debate. We believe that this topic is important and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the issues we raised.
Restorative justice is defined by the Ministry of Justice as
“the process that brings those harmed by crime, and those responsible for the harm, into communication, enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward.”
We heard evidence during our inquiry that restorative justice had been largely offender-led, aimed at the tangible measure of reducing reoffending, but that everyone involved recognised that it was crucial for restorative justice to be initiated by victims and focused on their needs, even if increased victim satisfaction does not have an easily measurable financial benefit. We are now much more alert to issues affecting victims. It is particularly sad that Jill Saward, who did so much to highlight the plight of victims, died only recently; I am sure that every one of us would want to pay tribute to her courage and bravery in this area.
The Committee thinks that refocusing restorative justice to put victims at the heart of the process has been a welcome development. Any reduction in reoffending is of benefit to society and achieving that is a good thing, in any event. Restorative justice can be delivered in various ways, the most well known of which is through a conference or meeting between the victim of a crime, and any of their supporters, and the offender. That can be directly—face-to-face—or sometimes by telephone or video conferencing.
It is worth stressing that victims and offenders are not simply brought together and left to get on with it. A lot of people do not understand how the process works. In reality, expert facilitation and preparation are essential parts of the restorative justice process. That can often involve a lot of work and discussion with victims and offenders in advance of their actual contact with one another in order to explain the process, manage expectations and set out objectives and ground rules. Facilitators are also present during the conference to set the scene and guide the conversation.
According to the Restorative Justice Council, whose work we recognise and pay tribute to, victim and offender conferences can be beneficial both for offenders and victims. The RJC said that for offenders the experience can be incredibly challenging, because it confronts them with the personal impact of their crime. For victims, meeting the person who has harmed them can be a huge step in moving forward and recovering from the crime. I say in parenthesis that my experience of practising for 30 years at the criminal Bar led me to recognise the truth of both those aspects. Frequently offenders—even repeat offenders—had no concept of the human cost of their offending. It is a powerful means of bringing them up sharp and causing them to think differently, and it is part of a cathartic process for victims as well.
The Ministry of Justice is currently working to its third action plan on restorative justice, which was published in November 2014 and has objectives and information going up to 2018. We were advised during our inquiry that the Government were preparing a progress report on the action plan, but that report appears not to have seen the light of day. We have also heard suggestions informally that the Government have been thinking about producing a new action plan to replace the final year of the current action plan. With just over a year left, not much time is left to report on progress or revise the plan for the rest of its lifetime. I hope that the Minister—I welcome him to the debate—will explain what the Government’s intentions are in that respect when he responds.
In the action plan as it stands, the Ministry’s vision is for
“good quality, victim-focused restorative justice…to be available at all stages of the criminal justice system…in England and Wales.”
Within that vision the Ministry has set itself three broad objectives: first, equal access to restorative justice for victims of crime, wherever they are in England and Wales, whatever the age of the offender, and whatever the offence committed; secondly, raising awareness of restorative justice and its potential benefits among victims, offenders, criminal justice practitioners, the media and the general public; and thirdly, ensuring that restorative justice is of good quality, safe, in line with the European Union directive on victims’ rights, focused on the needs of the victim and delivered by a trained facilitator. I hope that even after this country leaves the European Union, we will maintain awareness of that particular directive, which sets out sensible good practice. I am sure that any sensible Government would wish to maintain that, whatever our future relationship with our European neighbours.
We clearly state in our report that we support the aims and objectives of the action plan, welcoming in particular the Ministry’s focus on ensuring that restorative justice services are high quality and focused on victims. During the inquiry we discovered that evidence on the effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness, of restorative justice is not as well developed as it might be. We recommend further work by the Ministry, together with stakeholders, to establish criteria for judging the success of restorative justice in relation both to offenders and to victims.
The Government’s response to our report states that
“work is already underway to develop an evidence base for the effective delivery of restorative justice services and the outcomes achieved by those services.”
I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us a little more about that work, where it is leading and the progress so far.
On restorative justice in general, there is much agreement between the Ministry, other authorities and stakeholders about its use within the criminal justice system. That may mean that there is a higher degree of consensus in this debate than in some other debates we have had on our reports in Westminster Hall—I hope so, because this is an important topic and perhaps an often under-appreciated part of the criminal justice system.
I am conscious that other Members wish to contribute to the debate, so I will briefly touch on four important topics arising from our report, including the restorative justice landscape and funding, and the recent Victims’ Commissioner report on victims’ experiences and perceptions—I am delighted to see the Victims’ Commissioner and the chief executive of her office in the Public Gallery today; they were helpful in their evidence to the Committee. I will touch briefly on restorative justice in domestic abuse and violence cases—my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) will also refer to those matters—and on the potential role of legislation.
I say to the Minister—not simply because he is an old friend and it is still post-Christmas—that we are grateful for, and commend him and the Government for, the comprehensiveness and quality of their response to our report. That is appreciated, and we accept that they have taken the report seriously. However, we still have a number of concerns and might want to push him to be a bit bolder and go a bit further and faster, but we recognise the spirit in which the response was delivered.
Let me touch on the landscape of restorative justice and funding. A range of bodies within the criminal justice system are responsible for the funding and delivery of restorative justice at various points in the system. The primary responsibility for provision lies with police and crime commissioners, within their overall remit for delivering victims’ services. Some £29 million was made available to police and crime commissioners over the past three years for restorative justice, although it was not ring-fenced; it was within an overall provision for victims, which stands at £63 million in 2016-17. The Ministry of Justice has provided other funding to the Youth Justice Board to build restorative justice capacity within youth offending teams, and the National Offender Management Service has also spent money to build restorative justice capacity.
We were pleased that the Government accepted the thrust of our recommendation that annual collation and publication of information on spending by police and crime commissioners on restorative justice would be helpful in assessing progress on the action plan and supporting an evidence base to test the effectiveness of restorative justice. However, they did not make a firm commitment to do so. I press the Minister again to make that firm commitment, following what seems to be the spirit and tenor of the Government’s response to our recommendations. The Government response states that the overall victim services budget has been protected over the spending review period to 2020-21. Can he confirm how much funding will be provided within that envelope to police and crime commissioners for restorative justice capacity building?
Let me turn to the Victims’ Commissioner’s report. Shortly after the Government responded to our report, another important report was published, fittingly enough during International Restorative Justice Week last November. The second part of the commissioner’s report on restorative justice examined victims’ experiences and perceptions of restorative justice, on the basis of 35 interviews with victims. It is worth saying that the first part of the review examined the subject from the perspective of providers. The second part of the report raised several issues of concern, on which it would be helpful to hear the Minister’s views.
First, as I said, the Government allocated £23 million to build capacity for restorative justice between 2013 and 2016, but the crime survey for England and Wales shows that only 4.2% of all victims of crime were offered restorative justice in the year to March 2016, the lowest percentage since 2010. What will be done to ensure that restorative justice is offered to victims in accordance with their entitlement under the victims’ code? What do the Government intend to do, or encourage others to do, to raise awareness of restorative justice to meet those objectives?
Our report recommended that the main means of raising awareness should be through criminal justice: effectively, it should be mainstreamed into the system through various agencies. What we discovered, though, was that when restorative justice is offered, it is often during the later stages of the criminal justice process. Nearly half of victims in the Victims’ Commissioner’s review said that they were informed of restorative justice only after the offender had been sentenced. That is not in line with the vision in the Government’s action plan to make restorative justice available at all stages in the criminal justice process, including pre-sentencing or as part of the conditions for an out-of-court disposal. Does the Minister recognise that point, and do the Government plan to address it?
What plans do the Government have to increase the use of restorative justice as part of the conditions attached to community orders or suspended sentences? When we visited north America as part of our inquiry, we were struck by the amount of use made of restorative justice as part of a robust set of out-of-court disposals or, in our language, community types of disposal. We think that more could be done here in the UK as well.
Let me turn to domestic abuse and violence cases. One of the most difficult and sensitive questions to address is the suitability of restorative justice processes in cases of domestic abuse and violence. In our report we set out the concern, expressed to us in evidence by Women’s Aid and others, that restorative justice was potentially harmful. It was put to us that it could be
“another way for a perpetrator to continue their control and abuse.”
Again, it is timely to review the topic, because that point is not dissimilar to the one made about cross-examination by litigants in person in family courts, and I am delighted to see the Government taking steps to prevent such abuse. There is a concern that the same sort of risk could arise in the restorative justice process.
Of particular concern to us, and I think to Ministers too, was evidence that restorative justice was being used at level 1—at street level, to put it in everyday language—by police officers in domestic abuse cases, contrary to police guidance. We are pleased that the Government’s response stated that they were considering with the police how to reinforce the message that such unsophisticated level 1 restorative justice is not appropriate in such cases.
More generally, our report expressed the view that, in principle, restorative justice should be available for every type of offence. However, given the clear risks in the use of restorative justice for certain types of offence, we recommended that the Ministry should work with the Restorative Justice Council to create and fund training and promote best practice guidance for restorative justice facilitators. It is an area where care and discretion are needed, particularly in domestic abuse cases. We were pleased that the Government response stated that they were producing a paper setting out the issues that need to be addressed, including any guidance or training, before restorative justice is taken forward in domestic abuse cases. When he replies, will the Minister let us know what progress is being made on that paper and when it is likely to see the light of day?
Finally, I turn to the victims’ code and what is sometimes referred to as a potential victim’s law. One of the starkest anomalies in relation to restorative justice is that victims’ rights are stronger for victims of offenders under the age of 18 than others. In cases where the offender is under 18, victims are entitled to be offered restorative justice by the relevant youth offending team where it is appropriate and available. Victims of adult offenders have a rather weaker right to receive information about restorative justice, including about how they can take part. That anomaly seems to have arisen for historical reasons rather than any other, particularly logic, so we recommended that the code should be strengthened to bring the rights of victims of adult offenders into line with those of victims of young offenders.
On that recommendation, we found the Minister’s response disappointing. The Ministry said:
“We continue to keep the Victims’ Code under review and will consider the Committee’s recommendations the next time we consult on changes.”
I urge the Minister to be a bit more specific. I would never accuse my right hon. and learned Friend of sitting on the fence, but the Government need to be more specific about where they stand on the issue. It seems to us that the evidence makes a clear case that that anomaly should not exist. It would not be difficult to rectify, although I grant that it might require legislation. Do the Government acknowledge that in a victim-focused restorative justice system, which is the Government’s objective and one that we agree with, there can be no good reason for victims’ rights to differ, purely arbitrarily, depending on the age of the offender? I hope that he will give us more detail on that point.
Things have gone quiet since the undertaking in the 2015 Queen’s Speech to put key entitlements under the victims’ code into a victims’ law. A Green Paper on the victims’ law was expected before the summer recess last year, but it has not appeared. We noted that a number of amendments concerning victims’ rights have been made in the House of Lords to the Policing and Crime Bill. On the question of victims’ right to restorative justice, we made what we thought was a nuanced recommendation on introducing a statutory right. We said that due to questions about the capacity to provide restorative justice services, it was probably too soon to bring a statutory right into effect—there is not much point having a statutory right if it cannot be delivered and used—but we felt that the power to introduce such a right, when appropriate, should be conferred by legislation on Ministers. We know that a significant Ministry of Justice Bill is forthcoming. Without risking overloading it even more, it might be an opportunity to consider that. I would be interested to know what the Minister feels about that.
In their response, the Government were equally guarded, saying merely:
“Careful consideration is being given to suggestions made by the Victims’ Commissioner and others about key rights and entitlements that might be set out in a Victims’ Law.”
Given the wider debate about the desirability of a victims’ law and about what it might contain, I must press the Minister to be more forthcoming about the Government’s intentions for such a law, which has long been heralded, and what provisions for restorative justice rights it might make.
Those are the issues I wanted to address in opening the debate and the key issues that our report raised. I know that other hon. Members wish to participate, so I will leave my observations there.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am grateful for the opportunity to follow my friend—in this context—the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who as Chair of the Justice Committee has ably steered our report and brought our conclusions to the House. He covered a number of the report’s points and I do not wish to go over the same ground; I just want to focus on a couple of issues and perhaps focus the Minister’s mind on a couple of the report’s key points and recommendations.
It is clear to all members of the Committee—and, in fairness, I think to the Government, too—that restorative justice has a value. It is a useful tool for helping people who have committed crimes to understand the impact on the victims and, through that process, for helping to prevent reoffending. There is general agreement from the Justice Committee, the Opposition—I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) in due course—and the Government that there is a valuable role for restorative justice. Indeed, when I held ministerial roles, I propagated restorative justice both in Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom as a whole. There is a genuine understanding of it.
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
The right hon. Gentleman may recall that when he and I served on the Crime and Courts Bill Committee, we both made common cause for the restorative justice condition for deferred sentences, so that it had a stronger footing.
Mr Hanson
Indeed. As I say, there is common ground across the House, the various parties, the Justice Committee, this Government and, I believe, the previous Government to ensure that we can facilitate restorative justice. There is evidence—it is anecdotal, so we might not give it too much weight—that every £1 spent on restorative justice can save £8 in further costs down the line. That is important.
The Government’s commitment of £29 million, in their November 2013 plan, to help the development of restorative justice is supportive and indicative of the progress that needs to be made. However, I want to press the Minister on a couple of points, if I may. First, I would welcome some clarity from him on what the £29 million, which we have discussed in the Justice Committee, has been spent on. Has it been spent on restorative justice? I ask because it was not ring-fenced, but was part of a general grant. Has he produced a list of projects that benefit from that £29 million investment? If it is being spent on restorative justice, is it for local decision making? What is the Government’s assessment of what works best for restorative justice? Simply pouring £29 million centrally to police and crime commissioners without a ring fence and hoping that it will develop the seedcorn of good, positive, evaluated, determined restorative justice may not be enough; it may need a little more central direction from Government.
That point leads me to recommendation 66 of the Committee’s report:
“The Ministry of Justice is well placed to take a leadership role in restorative justice and set out a clear overall vision for how it expects restorative justice services to be delivered.”
The Ministry responded to our recommendation—I would be grateful for the Minister’s concentration on this—in paragraph 17 of the Government’s response:
“The Government agrees it is important that all relevant parties have a common understanding of how restorative justice works within the criminal justice system in England and Wales. We will consider the points raised by the Committee before publishing a progress report.”
With due respect, that is civil-service speak for: “We don’t know what we’re doing at the moment and we’d like to come back to it later.”
The test for the Minister is whether he can give some indication today of how he envisages a viable restorative justice scheme that avoids the postcode lottery that our report referred to. That might be through effective use of the £29 million; it might be by picking from operational schemes that the Ministry of Justice thinks are working well, have an output and have proved successful in reducing offending and giving victim satisfaction; or it might be from both those things. It is important that he focuses in his reply on how he envisages ensuring that people in north Wales get the same services and opportunities as people in south Wales, in Hertfordshire, in Bromley and Chislehurst and in every other part of the United Kingdom—perhaps even in Ribble Valley, Mr Evans.
We need a collective understanding of what is available, so that people do not feel left out because they cannot access a service. I recognise that we cannot deliver everything or concentrate on everything. The Minister’s response to paragraph 66 therefore needs to look at the key issues: what works, what is good value for money, what gives best victim satisfaction, what most reduces reoffending and how individuals become aware of the offer in the first place.
Our report refers to the understanding of restorative justice. I have to go back to a point that I know Members will be aware of: someone minding their own business who suddenly becomes a victim of crime may not necessarily know what the courts and the police service do, what restorative justice is, how it is available, what benefit it might bring to them or what it might do to prevent future victims from going through the same experience. Until the day someone is a victim, they are not focused on the criminal justice system. I therefore ask the Minister not only what is available, whether it is a postcode lottery and how the funding is used, but how victims become aware of the facilities and support available in their local area. If the Government’s direction of travel is towards localism, how does someone in north Wales who is minding their own business today, living their life peacefully and not expecting to be a victim of crime, but who wakes up as a victim tomorrow, know that such services are available? How do they know how to access them? How are they helped through at a local level?
Those questions take us back to the postcode lottery. I have no problems with devolving funding to police and crime commissioners or local services through community rehabilitation companies, the voluntary sector or other means, but my test for the Minister on his responsibilities is how he assesses what works, who is doing it and whether it is happening. If he is putting a pot of money in, how does he know that it has been delivered at a local level? I would welcome it if the progress report promised in paragraph 17 of the Government response considered those points.
Finally, I would welcome some information from the Minister on what progress has been made on the victims’ law. As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned, it was promised in the Conservative manifesto and there was promise of a Green Paper and of legislation. However, we will have a Gracious Speech in May and there is still no Green Paper on a victims’ law. There may be reasons for that. I understand that this is a five-year Parliament—I believe it is—and if that is the case, it might be helpful to people who are interested in this topic for the Minister to say, without breaching any confidentialities, at what stage in this five-year Parliament he expects to bring forward the Green Paper and at what stage he expects the legislation to be in place, to give some support to the principle of the victims’ law, on which, again, I would expect general cross-party co-operation.
With those comments, I hope I can encourage the Minister to respond in a positive way to what is a positive report.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)
Order. Just for hon. Members’ guidance, I shall be calling the wind-ups at 2.27 pm, which will allow 10 minutes each for the Minister and the Front-Bench spokespeople, and then three minutes for Mr Neill to speak at the end. I am sure that hon. Members can divvy up the remaining time among themselves.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans.
The difficulty of coming after the previous two speakers is that they have said everything about the report, and I am scrabbling around to find things to say. However, I will concentrate on two issues. The first is domestic abuse and the second is the youth area. On the one hand, domestic abuse is an area where restorative justice perhaps needs to be restricted—or done very well—as opposed to the youth area, where we should use it more and where it should be firmly embedded in the system.
I turn first to the domestic abuse situation. I fully accept the conclusion that we reached as a Committee: that restorative justice should not be excluded from particular types of offence. I do not think that domestic abuse should be outside of the restorative justice area. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) will say, in the Thames valley, for example, restorative justice is done very, very well, which is a good example of how things can be brought together. Although some police and crime commissioners do not seem to offer restorative justice in domestic abuse cases, I do not see that as justified, for the reasons I have given.
During the Committee’s inquiry, we heard evidence on this point from both sides. We were told about one victim of abuse who talked about how they were “empowered” by restorative justice in a domestic abuse situation. They said:
“When I walked out of that meeting, I felt as if I could knock out Mike Tyson. I could have taken on anything or anyone.”
That is a very powerful statement about the liberating effects that restorative justice has for some people.
On the other hand, we heard from organisations such as Refuge, which argued that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has said, restorative justice simply provided offenders with a means of exerting more control over their victims. That point needs to be taken into consideration and examined very carefully; I will say something about it later, when I consider the context of how the police operate in this area.
It was interesting to hear from the then Justice Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who said that
“it is absolutely wrong for anybody, whether it be the police or any other part of the criminal justice system, to push and cajole someone into restorative justice.”
I completely agree with that sentiment. It is fine to have restorative justice as part of the domestic abuse landscape, but it is wrong to force people to use it.
However, whichever side one comes down on regarding restorative justice, what we cannot have is restorative justice being applied differently in different areas across the country. That goes back to what the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said about the postcode lottery, or, as I have said, the possibility of people being pressurised to take part. Again, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has already mentioned, this comes down to how restorative justice is applied in domestic abuse cases and whether it occurs at the street level—the so-called level 1 area. Whatever the Ministry may think about how things are operating, the evidence we heard was that level 1 was still being used by the police. That is something we completely disagree with. I accept that the Government are going to talk to the police about this, but the Government need to emphasise that that should not take place. Street level is the wrong location for restorative justice and using it there takes away all the subtlety and all the benefits that can come out of it.
A tremendous amount of guidance can be provided by the Ministry of Justice for the police. Also, a greater degree of training on restorative justice can be provided by the Ministry right across the board, but particularly in the domestic abuse area, to take this issue forward. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed exactly what the Ministry is doing to achieve that.
The second area I want to touch on is the youth system, where I think restorative justice could be used more. We were heartened by how extensively it seems to be used in the youth justice system. I think it is already embedded, but more can be done to ensure that it is firmly part of the youth justice system. Restorative justice helps both victims and offenders to understand what has occurred, what the implications are and why the offence should not be committed again.
As we pointed out in our report, Northern Ireland has youth conferences, which can occur both before and after conviction. However, I understand from the ministerial response to our report that the Ministry is not looking at restoring those for the rest of the country outside of Northern Ireland. I would ask the Minister to have another look at that and see whether there was not something in Northern Ireland that we could apply elsewhere in the UK.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I am not a member of the Justice Committee, but I thank its members for raising the issue of restorative justice and for calling for more support for it.
I am a long-standing prison volunteer, although in a very modest way, so I know about the benefits of restorative justice programmes from offenders and former offenders I have talked to. Consequently, I endorse the calls that we have heard today for greater support to be given to RJ programmes.
If Members will allow me, I will add to the debate the words of an offender who is still serving a sentence. I talked to him on Christmas day and he has given me permission to tell colleagues about his experience of the RJ course. He said to me on Christmas day, “People here think they’re here just out of bad luck, but considering the consequences of your action can make you think.” He went on to say, “I was really angry, but the RJ course gave me an opportunity to take responsibility for my actions”.
I asked this offender to write to me and he wrote a very long and thoughtful letter; he must have spent a lot of Christmas day writing it, and I thank him for it. He wrote that the RJ course he completed, which was the Sycamore Tree course, was a six-week course for 20 offenders that is staffed by volunteers who give up one afternoon weekly over that six-week period to come into the prison. The ratio of volunteers to offenders is 1:1.
I have attended part of that course myself, particularly the sixth week, when offenders summarise what they have learned and speak about the changes within themselves that have occurred, and it is very moving and quite profound. The young man wrote about
“the stand-out watershed moment when a victim of crime comes in to discuss her/his situation. The power of this…conversation cannot be over-emphasised. Our case dealt with ‘Lyn’”—
I do not think that is her real name, because he puts it in inverted commas—
“who recounted the tale of how her son was murdered in Liverpool. This tale struck a chord with all in the room. The first-hand experience and a media presentation of holiday photos and photos from this young man’s life rammed home the message of the consequences of crime. The subsequent letters to Lyn from prisoners is a testament to the lasting power of her presentation. All prisoners should be exposed to such raw emotion.”
The young man said that it was such a positive tool for him and others.
The young man’s perspective on restorative justice was that
“it is the mind of the offender we are seeking to change…Many prisoners believe they are only in prison due to bad luck.”
In other words, “I got caught and many others do not.” He said that he was really angry before he did the course, but that it was a way for him to take responsibility for his actions. Early in his letter he says that prisoners
“must accept their own culpability. This is the first step in an RJ approach.”
I remember one former offender who was a burglar. He used to burgle houses regularly in the middle of the night. He would go home and by 5 am he was fast asleep, never having a thought about the householder he had burgled. He never once thought about them as a victim.
The young man who wrote to me said that he had been “cynical” about the approach taken in the RJ course, particularly because it was somewhat repetitive and a little childish at times. He said there were
“sketches of a burglar saying, ‘She deserved to be burgled as she left the window open’”,
but, as he said,
“chaps really do think like that.”
By exposing them to their faulty thinking, they see that their actions are wrong. Powerfully, he said:
“The scales falling from my eyes with this method allowed me to release the anger that was dwelling in me.”
In another perceptive comment, the young man said,
“RJ allows the offender to recognise their culpability, accept their actions are directly responsible for their circumstances and realise their family are victims of their incarceration…individuals, especially young men, need to be supported…to stop the cycle of shame and rejection”.
He said that through an RJ discussion, the cycle and sense of hostility can be stopped and
“remorse and forgiveness comes into play.”
Profoundly, he said:
“The past cannot be changed, but correct actions in the future can atone for incorrect actions of the past.”
In the letter, he gave a quote—I think it is someone else’s words, but clearly they made great sense to him—which was that the RJ process could
“lift the fog of misunderstanding, intolerance and recrimination that can entirely obscure the offender and victim, but with an RJ meeting a richer perspective may be seen and in time, may even draw them closer.”
In other words, he said that such meetings can change both sides, as the one with “Lyn” obviously did for him.
The young man said that the RJ approach clearly helps to stop reoffending, but that to be as effective as possible, it needs to be linked with other forms of support, whether that is education, drug rehabilitation, employment, training, family contact and what he calls “engaging in the community”. He described the example of members of the Hallé orchestra, who come into the prison I volunteer in and help young people learn instruments. Indeed, on that Christmas day morning, one of the young men gave us a remarkable performance of six different tunes, including Christmas carols, on a brass instrument that he had been learning with the Hallé for only 20 weeks. The young man who wrote to me said that contact like that can
“act as a lifeline to save them from being drowned by reoffending.”
He very much sees RJ as effective, but said that it must sit with other forms of constructive activity. Finally, he said:
“The first step in getting society to change its opinion of prisoners is in getting prisoners to change their opinion of themselves.”
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
I am in an even worse position than my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) in following superb speeches from all those who have spoken in the debate. They leave me with very little to say, but it is worth summing up by saying that we all know that restorative justice saves money by breaking the cycle of reoffending, and we all know that it plays an important part in victim recovery. What we have to do now is ensure that all those who need to benefit from it can benefit from it. I will try to find a few crumbs that have not yet been touched on.
It is always a great pleasure to speak in Justice Committee debates and to take part in the Justice Committee. Our report was particularly positive, as was the Government’s response, and that has not always been the case with our reports. We welcome that as a Committee, particularly given the importance of the issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) spoke about the prisoner perspective, and I would like to touch on the issue of victims. I draw the attention of those present to an excellent website organised by Why me?, representatives of which are present here today. It is a fantastic website. If people have 10 minutes later today or in the near future, it is worth a look. I will not read out any of the case studies, because Why me? specifically asks that that is not done, but it has excellent studies from victims’ ambassadors on the website. I encourage anyone who is not yet convinced or knowledgeable about restorative justice to look them up. The case studies make it clear that restorative justice helps a wide range of people, all of whom have had their own very different experiences of the criminal justice system. Some lost loved ones, but found that meeting the perpetrator helped them to come to terms with that loss. Other victims have seen their confidence restored from an open dialogue with the offender. That is a plug that I would make again and again; the website is worth while.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said, the Victims’ Commissioner is with us today. She is a brave lady and an example of the many people in this field who have made something really positive out of their own tragedy. She brought out a report on victims’ perspectives in November. One statistic that I highlight—I do not think it has been mentioned—is that only 4.2% of all victims of crime are offered restorative justice. That is a very small percentage, and I know that everyone in this room is working hard to increase it. It is clear that much more needs to be done to raise awareness of the benefits of restorative justice. Only with raised awareness will the uptake increase.
Another concern expressed by the Victims’ Commissioner that I do not think has been touched on is that restorative justice is often offered far too late. Nearly half of the victims in her review said that they were informed about restorative justice only after the offender had been sentenced, and that brings me to one of the major barriers to the provision of restorative justice, which sadly is the considerable pressures facing our prison service at this time. It is clear that used properly, early and often, restorative justice can help us to reduce the prison population by helping to reduce reoffending. At the moment, with the considerable difficulties experienced with prisons, prison officers have limited time for supervision and building up the relationships that we know aid rehabilitation.
It is even difficult at the moment to find sufficient staff to move prisoners to the rooms they need to go to for restorative justice sessions. The NOMS capacity-building programme that was launched in January 2012 included training delivered by Restorative Solutions. It had limited success because of the organisational changes and difficulties in the Prison Service. It may be unrealistic to expect major advances in restorative justice in prisons until the bigger issues of staff shortages and safety are tackled. Nevertheless, governors should be instructed to facilitate meetings wherever possible and to view that as part of the wider picture in reducing reoffending and the number of people in our prisons.
We are currently half way through the pilot on restorative approaches to conflict resolution in prisons. Would today be a good moment for the Minister to comment on the data that have come in to date? Otherwise, we will not hear for probably another year; I believe that the pilot is ending in the autumn and then responses will have to be collated. If possible, it would be helpful if he could comment on the material that has come in and the response of the Ministry of Justice to it.
There is a widespread lack of understanding of the benefits of restorative justice. We need to ensure that other parts of the criminal justice system, including the police, the probation service and other charitable organisations, play an increasing role in delivering restorative justice. We need to provide consistent solutions across the country, as the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said.
At the moment, we find pockets of real success. I am glad to say that in my own area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley mentioned, the Thames Valley restorative justice service has been a leading light in the field. It recently celebrated its 15th anniversary and has worked closely with the Ministry of Justice throughout that time. It was one of the first organisations in the UK to be awarded the Restorative Justice Council’s restorative service quality mark and has, at its centre, a belief in a sense of fairness and inclusion. In its written evidence to our inquiry, which I found particularly helpful, it made it clear that a proportion of the service’s time is now rightly spent assisting other areas with restorative justice programmes, pointing out that,
“provision of RJ services is patchy and inconsistent across the country and different areas may be resourced to deal with different types and seriousness of crime. For example, some areas will work with sexual offences and some won’t, some prisons will support facilitation in such cases and some will not. Some areas appear not to be resourced to provide any RJ service provision whatsoever.”
Sharing best practice is essential. I welcome the Government’s commitment to work with police and crime commissioners, who will undoubtedly play a part in that, but I am not sure they can or should remedy the inequalities of provision all on their own. It has been helpful to have information on the spend of individual PCCs for the preparation of the report. I am glad that the Government are considering publishing those figures as we go forward, as well as, more generally, a progress report on the nationwide state of restorative justice. I would be grateful for anything the Minister can tell us about the frequency and detail of such publications.
Data sharing is a persistent problem, and I draw attention to the sections of the report that deal with that in some detail. We welcome the Government’s work in preparing a national data-sharing toolkit. That work cannot be done soon enough.
This is a positive report, with a positive response from the Government, but these are still very early days for restorative justice. I look forward to it becoming a fully integrated and properly used part of the criminal justice system.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
I see that I am starting four minutes late; with the snow gathering over the Ribble Valley and the west coast main line heading towards Dumfries and Galloway, you will no doubt be pleased, Mr Evans, that I will not be taking my allocated 10 minutes. There is no need for me to reiterate the comments that have been made, the extensive conclusions of the report or the positive response from the Government, but I will sum up, make some comments on the points that have been raised today and add a few brief points of my own.
I add my support to the praise from the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) for the Chair of the Justice Committee and my good friend, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). He steers the Committee very ably and I have been impressed with his work during my time in this place. He started the debate succinctly, describing this as an important issue, and he was right to say that this should always be victim-based, but that victims should never be forced to go through the process. He was also right to say—this was corroborated by other hon. Members—that awareness is absolutely crucial. I would add to his call for the Minister to explain how we can better improve the measure of the effectiveness of restorative justice.
The right hon. Member for Delyn, who brings a wealth of experience, made the point clearly that there is common ground and consensus. It is not often that the Justice Committee produces a report that has that consensus, and I think that the Government’s response corroborates that position. He also made the crucial point about awareness. He gave a very vivid description of somebody going about their life, having never been involved in the criminal justice system, who becomes a victim of crime. The prospect of that person being asked to meet the offender of the crime, without knowing anything about restorative justice or understanding what it is that they are going to be doing, could be counterproductive and might set things back rather than moving them forward—moving forward is the principle we are all striving towards.
The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) talked vividly about the effects and reiterated some of the vivid evidence that we heard in Committee, particularly the phrase used by one victim that they felt they could go and “knock out Mike Tyson.” Although that was clearly a liberating experience for the victim and had a tangible confidence-building effect, perhaps that course of action might be counterproductive to what we are trying to achieve, although I think we all understood what she was trying to say. The hon. Gentleman made a point about consistency of approach and the fact that it is more widely used in the youth justice system, which I suppose is for obvious and good reasons.
The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who is not a member of the Justice Committee, put us all to shame by explaining extensively all the constituency work she was doing on Christmas day. I did send a couple of messages but clearly did not work as hard as she did. I was very taken by the letter she received from her constituent who had been incarcerated, and I was struck by her point that the first step to rehabilitation is when an offender starts to understand the consequences of their crime, departs from the position of, “Well, they left their window open so they deserved it” and starts to understand how the victims feel. That is the first step in rehabilitation. It was a powerful point well made—but I urge the hon. Member to take some time off over the next festive season.
The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) said that, rather peculiarly, she was stuck for words, but clearly she never is. She was right to point out that the Government response was positive, and to criticise the fact that only 14% of victims are offered restorative justice.
Richard Arkless
Only 4.2%, which is a rather shocking figure, when Opposition parties, Government parties, Ministers, stakeholders and interested parties all agree that restorative justice has a crucial role to play. If we do not strive to increase that figure, we surely ought to feel a wee bit ashamed.
I am a progressive social democrat; I believe in rehabilitation and community justice, and I do not believe in short prison sentences. I believe that victims, wherever possible, should have the option of restorative justice across the criminal justice system, although it should never be compulsory. It can provide closure and can be the first step in the rehabilitation of offenders.
In Scotland, we use restorative justice across the criminal justice system. The procurator fiscal can even use it as an alternative to prosecution. It can be used from the point of arrest to the point of release from incarceration. Of course, it is not perfect and we still have much more to do, particularly on the point of raising awareness, and I think that point is the most powerful one to come out of today’s debate. It is all very well having a system of restorative justice, but if victims and offenders do not understand the principles and the process and embrace them with open arms and an open mind, it will fail to work. We have to increase the numbers, but we also have to dramatically increase awareness.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), for his customary eloquent delivery. I commend the work of his Committee, of which I used to be a member, and thank all the hon. Members who have given some tremendous contributions today. I will do my very best not to repeat anything that has been said. Overall, I strongly agree with the key issues highlighted in the report as being the most salient to progress restorative justice. It clearly identified the key blockers to restorative justice in England and Wales.
It is excellent that all offences and all points of the criminal justice system are to be treated the same, in terms of victims’ access to good-quality services, in line with many countries in mainland Europe and elsewhere, such as New Zealand, Canada and Australia. I am glad that there is the caveat that there needs to be scrutiny of properly trained staff, especially for specialised areas such as domestic abuse and sexual offences. We know that victims can and do benefit when restorative justice is offered and facilitated with supportive systems wide of restorative justice, but there is a danger that it can become a profit-making industry unless quality assurance is built in. I am concerned that, unless a clear timeline is set out soon for progressing local and national developments, with a clear cross-party, long-term action plan, tighter legislation, mandated resourcing and, ideally, milestones in place, there will be a major time gap between the initial pump-priming and the ring-fenced funding, which was introduced three years ago.
Current and emerging projects need to be sustained and grow; they cannot wait for more short-term planning or occasional one-off funds. New systems need three to five-year core budgets to flourish. Many new local services, initially resourced when police and crime commissioner funding began, were not sustained as funds were subsequently diverted when the ring-fencing of funding for restorative justice within the victims service funding was removed.
Restorative justice provision is not joined up, except in a few best-practice areas in England where provision was strong already and where there were restorative justice advocates in police and crime commissioner offices, and in service areas that persevered, so this has been personality-driven. A solution that would lead to more regional best practice would be to mandate the establishment of police and crime commissioner area restorative justice steering groups across sectors, which should definitely include the third sector, to join up knowledge and share and co-fund delivery capacity. That is evidenced in best-practice models such as Cambridgeshire, Avon and Somerset, and the already-mentioned Thames Valley. There needs to be a clear pathway from early intervention restorative approaches and diversionary activities to high-end restorative provision for victims, offenders and communities, with a well advertised and clearly signposted single point of contact for anyone to access on a local and regional basis.
Although the police have an important role to play in engaging with and advocating restorative justice, their core job does not give them the time or the expertise to deliver much more than level 1 or 2 restorative justice, except in specialised roles, so training everyone beyond that level is sometimes a false investment. The focus only on restorative justice conferences is limited for victims, offenders and families, as not everyone can safely meet their offender and many do not want to, although they may want to understand the other side’s perspective better to move forward.
We also need to teach restorative skills at an early stage in schools to all pupils and staff working with children, young people and families so that society can benefit from those principles and skills over time. That would empower individuals and communities to act restoratively themselves without depending on agencies, and it would prevent the escalation of problems and allow them to be resolved quickly.
In Wales, the Welsh Government recognise that, for their education reform, a restorative justice approach is best practice for preventing harm and responding in schools. Involving Families First and recognising the whole restorative team around the family and in social services is best practice. Often the same families are known to all agencies and have the greatest needs. They frequently cause the greatest harm to each other and others and are a drain on resources, so targeted and joined-up work is essential.
The Crime and Courts Act 2013, which was welcome, the antisocial behaviour powers, the Ministry of Justice restorative justice capacity building and the victims’ code all promised great things and were long-awaited, but they were introduced alongside an unprecedented rapid upheaval and huge cuts across the criminal justice system, so no wonder the situation today is patchy. Access to restorative justice is an inconsistent postcode lottery for victims and offenders, and there is no guarantee of quality. That meant that it was highly unlikely for the brand-new provision to be sustained beyond the initial flurry of political statements and activity. Only pre-existing, long-established restorative services and the larger private or third-sector restorative justice providers have been able to gain or maintain training or delivery contracts.
The report highlights that the third sector might be better placed to increase capacity, so the issue of the growth of local provision is a key point. Restorative justice is suffering in the same way that other innovations have suffered from the concurrent break-up of systems. Probation service and community rehabilitation company delivery of restorative justice is dependent on tendering from private providers. Police and crime commissioners have been introduced, and victims’ services have been retendered across several areas with different providers, so the courts and witness services sometimes have different providers from those of the victims’ support services.
Cuts to the Ministry of Justice’s budget were spread across NOMS and all community and police services, and prison staffing was cut at the same time. Prisons are full beyond capacity, so the capacity of prison offender managers to contribute to restorative justice has been pushed to the limit. Restorative justice is less of a priority when mandatory tasks are hard to complete.
Will the Minister provide details of the Government’s timelines? When will they be ready to introduce a legislative right for victims to access restorative justice services? Will he consider threading restorative justice through any new legislation and victims services across the criminal justice system, so that it is an embedded principle as systems change, rather than a separate, optional add-on, which it risks becoming? Does he agree that there needs to be a more radical rehabilitative and restorative justice mindset? The risk is that the UK will have the highest rate of imprisonment, cycles of family breakdown and inter-generational offending.
Restorative justice is about rehabilitation and relationship building, as well as repairing the harm for all. It is about social justice as well as criminal and community justice.
Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)
You have all been incredibly disciplined on time, so the Minister has plenty of time to respond.
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
As usual, it is a great pleasure to be in your charge, Mr Evans.
I will start by making some general remarks, and then I will come on to some of the points that have been made in the debate. We have had a good debate, opened by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), in his customary way. He drew on his experience and made a number of very important points, which I will come to as my speech unveils itself.
We were lucky to hear the wisdom of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who has a lot of experience in this area, both as a Minister and as a very constructive member of the Opposition during, for example, the passage of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which makes provision for restorative justice. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) made some excellent points about domestic abuse and the position of young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) came up with a very good way of illustrating the advantages of restorative justice by pointing to the experience of particular prisoners. I must say I am rather impressed by the fact that she was so busy on Christmas day, as I know what a special day of the year it is for her. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) mentioned the charity Why me?, which I intend to mention in a moment. The Front-Bench Members also made some very constructive comments.
It is critically important that victims get the support they need to help them cope with the trauma that crime can cause, and whenever possible to recover from it. I believe that restorative justice can be part of that. I pay tribute to all those involved in providing restorative justice and enabling it to happen, including the Restorative Justice Council. We need the council, which brings together the various bodies that provide such services and which has innovated to tremendous effect in the area, exactly because in restorative justice we have seen a lot of innovation by particular individuals, groups and bodies. In a way, we are on a journey, from the early days when restorative justice tended to be seen as a way of helping young offenders to realise the nature of their actions through to the existing position in which we see it as valuable for victims, so giving it a wider remit than previously. In the code of practice for victims of crime, for example, there is now a substantial section dealing with restorative justice, from page 34 of the document.
In 2013, as I mentioned, the right hon. Member for Delyn and I served on the Public Bill Committee considering what is now the Crime and Courts Act, which I was taking through as a Minister. With all-party support, we introduced the restorative justice condition in the context of deferred sentences. Restorative justice is the process that brings those harmed by crime into communication with those responsible for it. It allows everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in finding a more positive way forward. A fundamental element is dialogue between offender and victim, although that does not need to be face to face.
Where a person has committed a criminal offence and a criminal justice response is appropriate, it is not right that restorative justice activity should take place on its own; it should be alongside, not instead of a criminal justice response. We know from research in this country and abroad that restorative justice can be a positive experience and empowering for victims, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley—I would not necessarily suggest that they go in for a fight with Mike Tyson. The point that my hon. Friend made was quite right, however, that restorative justice can change the way in which individuals feel about what was a dreadful experience for them.
Restorative justice can also help offenders to reduce their reoffending. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, with his 30 years of experience at the bar—I can probably admit a fair amount myself—my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton and the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless), all made it clear that many people simply do not consider their actions—they have no insight into them. Restorative justice can do something about that, so it is important in that way.
As far as victims are concerned, some present may remember reading about Paul Kohler, the well-known law professor who suffered a most brutal attack during a burglary. Photographs published in the media showed the terrible injuries he sustained, in particular to his face. Paul has spoken powerfully about how he and his family accessed the restorative justice process and how it had been important for them. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is the victims Minister, recently met Paul through the restorative justice organisation Why me? to learn how his first-hand experience of restorative justice had helped him.
There are therefore reasons to be supportive of restorative justice. As the Justice Committee report makes clear, however, it is important that we develop our understanding of the area and what it can deliver, in particular with its effects on victims. We need to do that through proper research and effort. Our vision is for good-quality, victim-focused restorative justice to be available at all stages of the criminal justice system, which was a point made earlier. It is essential that victims who want restorative justice can access it at the stage that is right for them. Every victim participating should feel safe and in control. I know not every victim will want to participate. Restorative justice should remain voluntary. With domestic violence in particular, which was mentioned by a number of colleagues including my hon. Friend the Member for Henley, we must continue to ensure that no victim feels pressured into taking part. That is key to our approach.
As we highlighted in our response to the Justice Committee report, in recent years a lot of work has been done to make that vision a reality. Police and crime commissioners now receive funding to provide or commission restorative justice services for victims as part of a range of services to support victims of crime. The figure is about £23 million over three years, but it is of concern that the budget has not been spent in full—the money has been spent on victim services, but not all of it on restorative justice services. We need to look into why and at the effectiveness of the spending.
Measures such as the restorative service quality mark and the training provider quality mark, which were developed by the Restorative Justice Council with Government funding, offer assurance to those commissioning services and to victims that services are of a high standard. As is known, the national probation service is working closely with the council to produce guidance on that. We also funded the council to work with a range of criminal justice organisations to develop targeted information packs aimed at helping criminal justice practitioners better understand restorative justice and its benefits.
Robert Neill
The Minister is giving a comprehensive response, for which I am grateful. Does he accept that the need to ensure that the money is properly spent and well spent, as he referred to, is precisely the reason why it is important to press ahead firmly with the annual collation and publication of the spend by PCCs, so that we have genuine transparency and build the evidence base that he is seeking to achieve to make progress?
Sir Oliver Heald
My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell is looking at that at the moment. The other concern, however, is that although much is about gathering information—I fully accept that—this is an area with an absence of objective research. We need to grab the information about what is effective, why the spending is what it is, and the national picture showing the differences between areas.
Sir Oliver Heald
Twenty-three million pounds was allocated, and £11 million was spent on restorative justice, so the concern is the gap, which is where we need to gather and work through the information.
Sir Oliver Heald
Of course the money is not ring-fenced, so police and crime commissioners who receive it are able to spend it on other victim services. However, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the amount for restorative justice was £23 million, so questions need to be answered. He asked us to say something in our update report on the action plan, which I will mention in a moment, and I will certainly bring that point to the attention of those who are preparing the response.
As we build on those foundations, we will take account of the Justice Committee’s work and the recent review of the Victims’ Commissioner, as well as working closely with police and crime commissioners and their association. It is excellent that the Victims’ Commissioner has been able to be in the Public Gallery for our debate. On a personal note, having attended a Crown Prosecution Service conference at which she spoke a couple of years ago, I was very impressed with the personal commitment she made to this area after experiences in her own life. Her role is very important and the way in which she performs it is admirable.
The priority now is to be satisfied by the evidence that the restorative justice services being funded or delivered meet the needs of victims of crime throughout England and Wales. Victims’ needs must be met. There is good practice in delivery, which it is important to share. My Department will work with a number of police and crime commissioners and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to identify and share good practice and to obtain the data I mentioned that will not only help us but help areas to assess how well they are doing compared with other areas. In the long term, we want to introduce consistent outcome measures across all victim services, including restorative justice, which will allow us to take a more detailed and systematic approach to identifying and sharing good practice and driving up performance. It will also provide a firm evidence base on which we can make decisions about the future landscape of victim services. I should have said that we are also looking carefully at the range of proposals made by the Victims’ Commissioner and others.
I should perhaps say that if I do not finish dealing with all the points that have been made, we will go through them and write to the Committee.
I was asked about the action plan. The original plan for the period until March 2018 was published in November 2014. Ministers decided to publish a progress report covering that period. However, written evidence to the Committee highlighted the progress so far. We explained, for example, that we had the national conference in 2015, regional workshops to share best practice, and successful awareness-raising campaigns in both years during International Restorative Justice Week. Ministers have decided to continue with the action plan and refresh it. The victims Minister has been engaged in that detailed work since November, and we are not far away from publishing it.
Robert Neill
I am grateful to the Minister for that information. Can we therefore take it that, precisely as he says, the plan will be refreshed but there will not be a fresh plan, as has been suggested at some points?
Sir Oliver Heald
Yes, we aim to publish the update—if I can call it that—or refreshment of the plan as soon as possible. As I say, the victims Minister is working hard on that at the moment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury mentioned the national protocol for information sharing. The significant changes in the criminal justice landscape in the last few years—the introduction of community rehabilitation companies, the greater involvement of the private and voluntary sectors, and so on—have changed the information-sharing equation, so we have had to do further work on that. A national protocol may not necessarily be the final outcome from that, but it is certainly an important issue to address.
I have mentioned the position on victims’ participation in restorative justice and the need for undue influence not to be imposed. Someone asked about the paper on the use of restorative justice in domestic abuse cases that is mentioned in the ending violence against women and girls strategy for 2016 to 2020. We are working on that with stakeholders, and we certainly intend that paper to go ahead as previously announced.
I was asked about the police’s use of what is often described as first-tier restorative justice, among other such names. It is made clear in the victims code, which I referred to, that community resolutions by the police are not restorative justice, but it is clearly wrong that that sort of approach—saying, “There has been a discussion between the parties and therefore nothing else should happen”—should not be taken, particularly in domestic violence cases. It is contrary to guidance, it is not in the victims code, and we continue to press to ensure that that is not the way things happen on the ground. We are certainly not keen to encourage that street-level or level 1 RJ, and it should not really happen.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury asked about pre-sentence restorative justice. Police and crime commissioners are best placed to determine how to meet the needs of victims in their areas. Given that there are innovative bodies in this area that are prepared to try particular approaches to restorative justice, there are advantages in allowing several approaches to be tried, and it is important that we do not make things so restrictive that we lose those advantages. However, we moved to put restorative justice in a legislative context through the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which I have dealt with, and the national probation service is working with the Restorative Justice Council. Those measures, which are designed to ensure that there is a standard approach, but not so standard that there is no innovation, are all moves in the right direction. There is of course a lot of detail about exactly what is going on.
I was asked about the role of probation. I have mentioned the guidance that is being prepared. There has also been a big effort to raise awareness in prisons. The national probation service has positioned itself not so much as a direct provider of restorative justice—although the community rehabilitation companies provide a direct service—but as a referral agent that seeks to ensure that knowledge, experience, capacity and value are maximised and best practice is shared.
I was asked about the differences in the victims code in the availability of restorative justice for offenders of different ages. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, that is a historical matter. Because restorative justice was first provided for young people, it is in some ways more advanced for young people than it is for adults. We are certainly looking at the points that have been made about extending availability to victims on the basis of not so much the age of the offender but merit.
How do victims find out about restorative justice? Several things are happening here. The victims code requires victims to be informed about restorative justice, and PCCs have a duty to advertise it on their websites. We are also taking awareness-raising measures in prisons, which I think have been alluded to, and doing work to encourage professionals to understand the importance of restorative justice.
I probably have time to mention the ring-fencing of funding, which we used to do. Police and crime commissioners feel that flexibility is helpful, so we are keeping that under review, but it is certainly not acceptable that spending on restorative justice should fall too low. I conclude by saying that the Select Committee produced an extremely valuable report about an extremely important area, and I am glad that our response was acceptable.
Robert Neill
I thank the Minister for the care with which he has responded to this considered and constructive debate, and right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for their input. People have been kind enough to help me during my time as Chairman of the Select Committee. As we know, Select Committees work best when they work as teams. Fortunately, the Justice Committee is a good team.
I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who is not a member of the Committee, also made a contribution, which I thought was powerful and underlined the significant point about changes in thinking and behaviour. I suppose that Christmas day is not a bad time to think about redemption. The previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), of course was not afraid to refer to redemption as well as rehabilitation in our criminal justice system. Ultimately, part of our work on restorative justice is to try to change mindsets so that there can be redemption and rehabilitation as well as closure and comfort for victims.
As the person in the room whom the snow will probably reach last, I will not delay matters any longer, other than to say that I, too, was delighted to see Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner, here. Our Committee is always grateful for her co-operation and her remarkable personal efforts, to which we all pay tribute. I am grateful to all those who have contributed to this constructive and positive debate. I believe that there is a cross-party view on this issue. Progress is being made. There is more to do, but I hope that we will be able to work constructively with the Government to take this important agenda forward.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Justice Committee, Restorative justice, HC 164, and the Government response, Cm 9343.
UK Maritime Industry
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the UK maritime industry.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the opportunity to debate this most important industry today, and I am grateful to see so many colleagues from across the House present. We have probably gone beyond the point in the year where we should be wishing each other a happy new year, but given that today we are on the old new year, I can wish you, Mr Walker, and indeed those residents in parts of my constituency such as Foula, where they still keep the old new year, a happy old new year. I say that because the people of Foula—like, indeed, people in island communities throughout the country—can maintain their lifestyle because of the dedication, commitment and professionalism of seafarers. Without seafarers, we who live in island communities simply could not exist in the way we do. Of course, that is true of the nation as a whole because the United Kingdom is an island nation.
The UK maritime industry faces a number of fairly significant challenges. Those are not new. We have been on a track that has taken us mostly down—occasionally up—for some decades. I will start, however, with a rare piece of good news. Hon. Members will have heard me speak before about the situation pertaining to the arrangements involving Seatruck, which provides the freight ferry to the Northern Isles that serves Orkney and Shetland. It was announced yesterday that Serco, which holds the franchise for the service, and Seatruck, which provides the ferries, have been able to do a deal that guarantees that the ratings on the ferries will be paid the minimum wage at the very least. It remains to be seen whether the collective bargaining agreement between the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and NorthLink for the remainder of that franchised public service will be extended to those ferry services, but the guarantee is at least something to welcome.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that it would be helpful if the shipping Minister were to announce today that the national minimum wage would be paid to all seafarers across the United Kingdom?
Mr Carmichael
It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to hear that I will have a fair bit to say about national minimum wage and national living wage enforcement, because that is something that has come very much to the fore this year. It came to my attention in particular through the detention of the Malaviya Seven in Aberdeen and its sister ship, the Malaviya Twenty, in Great Yarmouth. Those ships have been detained by the International Transport Workers Federation as a result of non-payment of the crew’s wages. The ownership of the ships is being contested—the case is winding its way through the courts. I am afraid I have to say that the willingness of the shipowners in those cases to leave the seafarers they employ effectively destitute does them no credit. Sadly, it does not reflect particularly well on the wider industry, either.
Where we have seen some progress—the Seatruck case—is however perhaps the low-hanging fruit. As I see it, that is just the tip of the iceberg. As we speak here in London, there are non-domiciled seafarers, principally Filipinos, working out of Scottish ports, being paid significantly less than the national minimum wage but still having retained by their employment agents—also domiciled outside the EU and also principally Filipinos, I am told—some 32% of their wages in respect of UK tax and national insurance. In some ways, that illustrates the absurdity and inadequacy of the current enforcement arrangements. If these men are not here working as part of the UK, why are they paying UK taxes? If they are here working as part of the UK, why are they not given the protection offered to other UK employees and workers?
The more I find out, the more it seems that the situation facing many seafarers working on ships that in some cases have not left UK waters effectively for decades is just as bad as the situation that led the previous Labour Government to set up the gangmasters licensing system. It may be that at some point we will have to take a similar approach on the position of seafarers.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
I intervene because it is so often the case that there is not sufficient time at the end to answer all the points made in the debate. The right hon. Gentleman is striking a chord with me, with which I have considerable sympathy, as he will know from our work together in the past. We will do more on this—he can be assured of that—and I hope to say a little more about that at the end.
Mr Carmichael
I am immensely grateful to the Minister for that intervention. I know he has a personal and political commitment in this regard and I am delighted that he was able to offer us that assurance again.
This is not just about the treatment of Filipino seafarers; there is also an effect on UK seafarers. First, because of such employment practices, UK seafarers are excluded from employment opportunities that would otherwise be available to them. That also drives down wages for those who are employed. I am told that Stena Line, the largest UK employer of seafarers, cut the hourly rate of pay for ratings employed seasonally—from June to September—from £8.31 to £7.20, which is the minimum wage rate. That is a graphic illustration of the direct impact on UK seafarers.
The situation has a context. For the Government’s purposes, that context is the maritime growth strategy that they commissioned in 2014. That was a good, comprehensive piece of work, and it was welcomed. If anything, it was somewhat overdue, coming the best part of two decades after the previous piece of work had been done. It made a number of recommendations. The most important was that leadership was required from both Government and the industry, including though a more commercial and responsive UK maritime administration within Government and an industry-led promotional body, with more proactive action to replenish and develop the skills needed to maintain our position as a world-leading maritime sector and effective marketing by the industry and Government of what the UK maritime sector has to offer both domestically and internationally to be strengthened.
I could probably do 90 minutes on the maritime growth strategy alone, but in view of the number of others who wish to take part in the debate, I will concentrate on the one aspect that, to my mind, is probably the most significant: training of seafarers. The Minister will know that since the turn of the century, we have had the SMarT—support for maritime training—scheme, which currently holds something in the region of £15 million. The British Chamber of Shipping tells me that it is looking for a doubling of that. I hope the Minister will look at that, because in terms of Government expenditure that is of course a significant ask, but it could bring significant rewards. I hope, though, that when the Minister engages with the industry in respect of that ask, he will not be shy about attaching some strings to any increase in funding.
I am told that a year’s guaranteed employment is on offer for those who are trained as officers under the scheme. That of course would tackle one of the major difficulties that I hear about consistently from constituents who work in the industry: that officers in particular are trained under SMarT scheme funding, but there is no employment for them once they qualify. There has to be a little more detail. We have to do more than simply extend the cliff edge out by one year, so that a situation in which we currently have training followed by no employment does not then become training followed by one year’s employment followed by no employment.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I think the right hon. Gentleman is right about the officers being trained under the scheme—15, I think—but only one rating is required to be trained under the deal, and that does not happen either.
Mr Carmichael
Indeed, and the hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. Currently within SMarT training, a minuscule proportion of the fund is allocated to the training of ratings, and even that portion is not being taken up by the industry. When the Minister comes to look at the question of SMarT funding and the training scheme that comes under it, it should not be all about officers; it also needs to be about the training of ratings as well, otherwise we are again only seizing the low-hanging fruit.
My constituents have significant concerns not only about the lack of availability of jobs when the training is concluded, but very often about the quality of the training provided for them. I have been told of one constituent who in five months as a cadet officer was able to speak English on his ship only once. Given that we are talking about predominantly young men who are away from home for the first time, the significance of that as a living experience should not be overlooked.
The Minister and the Government really need to look at the roles of the Merchant Navy Training Board and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the lack of joined-up administration between them. We might then see people getting quality training that gets the taxpayer value for the money that they are putting into it. I do not believe there is any shortage of people looking for a career at sea, but there are obvious and significant obstacles being put in their way. The head of UK shipping for Maersk said that it had taken on 34 cadets selected from 936 applications, which illustrates the demand out there for careers in this vital sector.
I want to remind the House what the industry brings to the United Kingdom. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the maritime services sector directly contributes £4.4 billion and 10,000 jobs to the UK economy. Shipping in general produces £11 billion and 113,000 jobs. The Baltic and International Maritime Council’s latest five-yearly report to the International Maritime Organisation states that the worldwide shortage of officers is 16,500, which could rise to 92,000 by 2020. That is the scale of the opportunity ahead of us, as a highly respected maritime nation, if we take the right decisions now for the future of our industry.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Order. Since so many colleagues want to speak, I shall impose a limit of five minutes.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak, Mr Walker. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this Back-Bench debate. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I represent an island. It is well known that the UK is the world’s foremost country for shipping and freight. As some Members might know, the Solent is one of the major gateways for ships coming into the UK. The maritime sector is an issue that lies close to me and my constituents on the Isle of Wight.
Brexit means Brexit. I know that many in the port sector can see direct benefits from leaving the European Union. However, the port services regulation has once again reappeared from the deep, dark corners of the EU institutions. Anyone who has any knowledge about the proposed regulation knows what dangers it poses to our open, competitive and efficient ports sector. I know that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland secured this debate because he believes that the employees in the maritime sector are being exploited, but I think it is important to note the risk to the UK of being tied up in regulations that will substantially damage our thriving maritime industry.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
We dealt with this issue when I was a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, as the hon. Gentleman might know. The regulation has been unanimously opposed by all the port employers and all the port unions. Does he agree?
Mr Andrew Turner
I absolutely agree.
The port services regulation is threatening future investment in the sector as well as jobs. It has been opposed by British port owners, trade unions and Government and Opposition Members. It is unwanted, unworkable and, simply put, unacceptable for the UK. The large dark cloud in the sky relates to whether the UK will be affected by the regulation between now and when we leave the EU.
Today the Minister of State for Transport said at Transport questions:
“we are freed from the clutches of the European Union.”
Before Christmas, the European Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, held an evidence session with the Minister. It was then unclear whether the regulation would enter into force before the UK had formally left the EU. It was also unclear whether—heaven forbid—a transitional agreement between the UK and EU might mean that the regulation could apply to us, even though we had left. Is the Minister now saying that these uncertainties are settled, because that does not seem to be the view of the European Scrutiny Committee? Is it possible that the new regulations can commit us before we leave the European Union, and we will then have to change things back?
Mr Hayes
Disraeli said:
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
So let me utter a few new words. I have opposed the port services regulation since I first heard of it. We will vote against it. We will record our vote against it. When we do so, we will show why. It will take two years, as the hon. Gentleman knows, to come into effect. It is not for me to anticipate when we will leave the European Union, but I want nothing to do with the port services regulation, and I do not want our ports to have anything to do with it either.
Mr Andrew Turner
I absolutely agree. I am pleased to have that promise. Throughout the referendum I argued that there were many opportunities to be found in the uncertainties that leaving the EU could bring. However, I am not willing to accept the uncertainties that the port services regulation brings. It jeopardises our maritime industry on such a great scale that it must be avoided by all available means. I am fully aware that the Government do not intend to provide a running commentary on ongoing negotiations, but there is one thing we must fight for as we negotiate leaving the EU, which is for the UK to be wholly exempted from the EU’s port services regulation.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I was expecting to sum up as the Front-Bench spokesman.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
You are allowed to have 10 minutes, Mr Hendry.
Drew Hendry
That is fine. I am happy to speak now, so thank you very much, Mr Walker. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate. I agree with the praise that he has given to seafarers and to the contribution that they make not only to island communities, but to coastal communities in Scotland and around the UK.
The Minister said that the right hon. Gentleman’s comments struck a chord. I hope some of mine will strike a chord as well, and I hope my questions will be answered, although I must give warning that I have many questions, so perhaps saving them might be the best thing to do. This is about the future of the UK maritime industry, and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said it was about leadership. He is right: the future needs a vision and a plan—for employment, fair conditions, business and safety, as well as to attract young people and, especially, correct the lack of young women in the industry.
To begin with employment and fair conditions, I join the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in being delighted that there is now an agreement in principle to end the long-running issue about the freight vessel serving the Northern Isles. The new charter basis will allow the wage issue to be resolved and crew members will be paid the minimum wage. The new arrangements come into effect next month, which is to be welcomed. I shall not go through the details, which he covered.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the important question of the number of women employed in the industry, because there is a significant shortage. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) raised the matter of vacancies, training and how much more effort could go into bringing more women into the industry. I have seen in the Humber ports a number of women playing an important and valuable role in the portside industry.
Drew Hendry
I welcome that comment, and will talk some more about such opportunities.
The wage deal that has been struck adds to the CalMac public sector contractor deal that runs in Scotland; it was named the Living Wage Foundation’s Scottish champion in 2016. Let us be straight about it: fair pay and conditions attract people to the industry and we should support that. All seafarers should have the national minimum wage, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) mentioned. However, while the RMT and Nautilus International have welcomed the actions in Scotland, they have sounded a code blue over the health of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in the UK. They say that it is in crisis over current rates of recruitment and retention:
“In the view of the Maritime unions, it is no exaggeration to say that the MCA is in crisis. At current rates of recruitment and retention it will soon reach the stage where maritime safety is compromised because the regulator simply does not have sufficient number of qualified staff to discharge its core statutory duties, particularly vessel safety surveys and inspections.”
They also say that they are
“disappointed that the Government rejected the Transport Select Committee’s recommendation for ‘an independent review of how the Maritime and Coastguard Agency will successfully take on new responsibilities without a proportionate increase in its resources.’.”
I join them in that disappointment over those opportunities.
While I am talking about the MCA, I want to mention that at the moment it has the final say over ship-to-ship transfers in the Moray firth. I hope that the Minister will take on board the strength of feeling of the communities around the coast in my constituency and those of my colleagues about the order for ship-to-ship, and that he will consider that we have many times called—and still do—for power over that to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
The UK Government will need to get their act together on employment opportunities. According to their own transport figures—this relates to recruitment—more than half of UK seafarers are over 41 years old. Only 3% are women. Women make up only 28% to 30% of uncertified officers and ratings, and the bulk of those jobs are in catering. Men take up almost 100% of the engineering jobs. Brexit will no doubt pose challenges, but we should also consider that a high number of EU nationals are employed. For example, Polish people alone make up 16% of non-UK holders of certificates of equivalent competency for the UK shipping industry.
Things will not be helped, either, by the approach that is taken to looking after cadets. I was involved in trying to arrange the rescue of cadets from the Hanjin Louisiana, when the ship was moored offshore because the company had gone into administration. Four young cadets from Scotland were trapped on board for well over a month, with supplies scarce and not knowing what was going to happen. They were stuck there with limited communication, through email only. The UK Government were slow to get into action and attempt to look after them.
To move on to the maritime sector plan for business, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned, a great deal of the economy is affected by shipping. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) mentioned the complexities that we will face in the future. Peter Karlsen of Norbulk Shipping has said:
“The shipping industry in the UK will view the referendum result negatively, as does most business. It is a potential disruption to trade, movement of goods and labour. We are facing years of complex negotiations to divorce ourselves from the EU.”
He continues:
“Whether it remains as attractive to foreign investors or entrepreneurs, especially from the EU, to establish and conduct business here is uncertain.”
A lot needs to be done to put confidence into the UK maritime industry.
Of course, there are questions: what is to be done about freedom of movement, migrant workers, a customs union, and rights to operate in domestic trades of EU members who maintain flag-based cabotage restrictions? Will there be slower turnarounds that affect volume? I could go on and talk about employment law and contract. There are many questions but no answers yet and the clock is ticking. Of course in Scotland our preference is to stay in the single market and maintain a customs union. That is what we should do.
I want to conclude with some points about the MCA and safety. There is a long-running issue in the west of Scotland in particular as to emergency towing vessels. Two are required in the north of Scotland. One should be berthed in Stornaway to cover the west coast, the Northern Isles and, in particular, the Minches. We have had near things with the MV Parida, the oil rig the Transocean Winner famously coming to ground off the coast, and even HMS Astute, a nuclear submarine, running aground off Skye. We need to make sure that action will be taken, and there will not be another six years of ignoring communities and their representatives.
I want to finish with some questions. As to the towing vessels, when will the UK Government stop ignoring the needs of the people who work and live in, and know, the west of Scotland, and the many warning incidents that have been racked up, each edging closer to the possibility of a disaster? What lessons will they learn from the Hanjin Louisiana incident, and will they ensure cadets’ rights under the maritime labour convention the next time such an incident occurs? Would they take action or make representations to shipowners and flag states if there was evidence of seafarers being mistreated, or of the contravention of MLC-ILO measures? What plans do they have to tackle the recruitment and retention problem in the MCA? What initiatives are they taking or have they planned with respect to the incredible age and gender imbalance in UK shipping?
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I am very pleased to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Walker. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing the debate. I am pleased to follow the Scottish National party’s Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry).
I have a number of shipping connections, although none are required to be included in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. However, it would probably be worth noting that I am a member of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights and co-chair with Lord Greenway of the all-party maritime and ports group. I was Shipping Minister from 2007 to 2009 and am a younger brother at Trinity House, whose royal charter dates back 500 years and which has a statutory duty as the UK’s general lighthouse authority. It is ably led at present by the excellent Captain Ian McNaught, the deputy master.
I know that the Minister is visiting Harwich in February. Trinity House keenly anticipates his visit. The organisation is undertaking a fleet review process at the moment. The Minister knows how important it is to have proper assets around our shores to carry out not only the statutory work but the emergency work of the lighthouse authority, to mitigate the risk of disaster in our waters. The visit will be most welcome. I hope that it is locked into the Minister’s diary and that parliamentary business will not get in its way.
My final shipping connection—apart from having been born in the great shipbuilding city of Glasgow—is that my previous constituency of Poplar and Canning Town, as well as my present one of Poplar and Limehouse, contained the first purpose-built docks in London and were a key part of London’s docklands for centuries. Much of it is now occupied by the Canary Wharf estate, which is important to our modern economy as the docks used to be.
Apart from the importance of the role and wellbeing of the general lighthouse authority, I will make two points, neither of which will be of any surprise to the Minister. First, the UK Chamber of Shipping has set out in its “Blueprint for Growth” after Brexit—I am sure the Minister has read it—six key points that it believes are necessary to ensure a bright future for the UK’s shipping industry: preserving the existing ease of doing business—Dover is one port that has made representations about the problems and disruption that border controls and customs changes could have—ensuring business has access to the world’s brightest talent, as already mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland; reforming domestic maritime policy to put the UK on the best possible footing; promoting the red ensign, and hence the UK register; ensuing a visa regime that works; and tonnage tax flexibility.
Part of the blueprint is the Chamber of Shipping’s campaign to help create thousands of jobs in shipping through the SMarT Plus scheme that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, which is supported by Nautilus UK, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and others. The Minister knows that the industry trains around 800 cadets every year, although the Chamber estimates that that could be 1,200 if shipowners committed to employing cadets after training. Some, such as Shell and Carnival UK, have already done so.
The Chamber of Shipping’s figures make positive arguments. First, in the ‘90s SMarT money covered around 50% of training costs; it is now a third. Secondly, the economic value of a seafarer to the UK economy is about £58,000, which is up to £17,500 higher than the national average. Thirdly, it concludes that the Government’s £15 million investment delivers a £70 million annual yield that could be scaled up significantly; we have the candidates and the industry needs good-quality trainees. Increasing that investment would be a win-win for the UK and for shipping, both internationally and domestically.
Last year the former Lord Mayor of London, Lord Jeffrey Mountevans, championed all matters maritime, ports and shipping, given his personal and professional connection to the industry. I know the Minister attended many events with the Lord Mayor, so I need not remind him of those campaigns, but I would be grateful for his comments on them.
The Minister has a good standing within UK shipping. He was previously the Shipping Minister and knows the industry well—and the industry knows him. I know he is also aware of the various welfare organisations, such as Seafarers UK, the Mission to Seafarers, the Apostleship of the Sea and the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network, among others. I hope that he will commit to continuing to work with and support their efforts in looking after seafarers.
If he is still Shipping Minister in September—I certainly hope he will be—it will be great to welcome the Minister to attend the Merchant Navy Day memorial service on 3 September at Tower Hill; I am not an organiser, but it is taking place in my constituency. The national memorial commemorates the tens of thousands of merchant mariners who died in the first and second world wars and the Falklands war. For their families, there are no graves to visit; that is their loved one’s resting place.
In conclusion, shipping moves 95% of the country’s international trade and supports 250,000 jobs. It is a vital industry that, because it is now mostly conducted at huge container ports on our coastline, is invisible to the majority of the population. That does not mean it is less important, but the opposite. The lack of public awareness means that Government recognition is absolutely essential. I look forward to the Minister confirming that it will continue to receive that recognition.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate on such an important subject. I declare an interest as the honorary vice president of the Society of Maritime Industries.
It is not as widely recognised as it should be that maritime industries are a key sector in the United Kingdom. The maritime sector gets less attention and, arguably, less Government support than aerospace, despite being a bigger contributor to the UK economy and a sector that creates high-skilled jobs and employees. The right hon. Gentleman has already given us all of the figures.
I pay tribute to employers, such as BAE Systems in my constituency, whose trade union I meet regularly, and which is taking on a further 50 apprentices in 2017 in its maritime operations in Portsmouth, after taking on 82 last year. There are others nearby, such as Lockheed Martin, which is active in the naval defence sector and recruits from Portsmouth schools and colleges. A university technical college is opening in the area in September, which is heavily supported by leading local businesses and the Royal Navy, and will focus on maritime engineering. I hope that everyone in Portsmouth will back that great initiative and make it a big success.
I welcome the announcement to draw up the national shipbuilding strategy. I read Sir John Parker’s report with great interest and I am pleased with the amount of detail in it. He is right to recommend that we use the Type 31 programme to maintain capability away from the Clydeside, and so avoid putting all of our eggs in one basket. That will mean that the Type 31s can be built while the Type 26 programme is ongoing in Glasgow. I called for that in the House last year, and I hope that the Ministry of Defence will follow up on that suggestion. It is vital that we get this right when the Government respond to Sir John in the coming months.
Given the growing uncertainty in the world, it makes sense to get on now with the commitment in the 2015 strategic defence and security review to expand the basic number of ships available beyond the 19 at frigate and destroyer level, which is already a bare minimum. Of course, I would like some of the Type 31 work to come to Portsmouth, but whatever happens, I pay tribute to the staff in our naval base, who still carry out vital skilled work in ship repair. Minehunter refit work is going on in the ship hall, which HMS Quorn and HMS Atherstone have recently entered. Work is being completed on HMS Brocklesby before it returns to service later in the year. That work is less high profile than that which is being done to bring our new aircraft carriers into service, but it is no less important; every part of the Royal Navy, and the industrial sector that supports it, plays a vital role.
Portsmouth is a vital civilian port, too. We import 70% of the UK’s bananas, which is no joking matter as it is a trade worth millions to our port. The long and difficult history of banana tariffs ought to be a warning sign of the complexity of trade deals post-Brexit; it might make life easier, but it might not. As a ferry port, we are the second busiest cross-channel port after Dover. When I hear news about disputes causing delays to people getting into Dover, which seems to be frequently, I often think that Portsmouth is open as a port, and that travellers could avoid a lot of heartache by travelling with us. Anyone who wants an easy, reliable and friendly way to the continent should look no further than Portsmouth.
While I am pleased to see initiatives, such as the national shipbuilding strategy and the maritime growth study, we have to make sure that Government support is sustained. This vital, strategic industry must be protected in the coming uncertain years. I look forward to the Government’s committing to that.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I note what you said about my having five minutes to speak; I was rather hoping to have a minute for each year that I served as a merchant seafarer, which was 17—but that would be pushing it.
I do not have as illustrious a list as the former Shipping Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), but I want to declare an interest on the record as a vice president of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I pay tribute to the lifeboats, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and all of the volunteers who keep our seas and coastlines safe. I am also a former member of the National Union of Seamen. I think I am the only Member here who speaks as a former member of both NUSs; I was a member of the students’ union and the seafarers’ union, which then became part of the RMT. That was a pleasure.
I will concentrate my remarks on some of the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) who initiated the debate, of which I am proud to be a co-sponsor. He is right to talk about the pay discrimination that exists in the United Kingdom’s coastal waters. On the route to Ireland from my port community of Holyhead, there are Irish shipping companies—members of the European Union—that pay less than the minimum wage. I have an awful lot of respect for the Minister. I will come on to energy issues in a minute; we work together on a number of issues. He will be as disappointed as I am to know that people are paid below the minimum wage in British coastal waters.
I will move on to the value of port communities to United Kingdom plc and our economy. Some 120 commercial ports in the UK deal with 95% of the exports and imports of our island community of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is difficult to quantify the number of related jobs, but I wanted to talk about some joined-up thinking—and I know that the Minister will concentrate on this. We want a transport system in this country that is fully integrated for road, rail, sea and air. Ports provide a huge catalyst for jobs in their communities. They provide more than 100,000 jobs in the port communities of Britain.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
As a red duster man, my hon. Friend knows what it is to go down to the sea in ships. He has my respect for that. He mentioned Northern Ireland. I am keen to ensure that this debate does not exclude the reality of the situation in Northern Ireland, where in ports such as Kilkeel in South Down and Strangford we have a real recruitment problem. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be appropriate for the Minister to liaise with the Administration—which I hope pertains—in Northern Ireland over non-devolved matters relating to maritime training?
Albert Owen
Absolutely. I am sure that the Minister will pass that on to his colleague in the Northern Ireland Office.
My hon. Friend mentions Northern Ireland. Related to the issues I want to talk about is the potential for energy development in our country. The ports are key to that. In Belfast, for example, there is DONG Energy, which has a big operation with the offshore wind sector. I was pleased to hear the announcement today from the Government about the Swansea bay tidal project. We need to be training highly skilled seafarers to do the support vessel work that is needed around our country. Our coastal communities also depend on growing leisure and tourism, with millions of pounds of revenue and potential future revenue. We need safe training for people to go out in ships, whether on the coast or in the deep water sector.
I want to link ports with not only wind but the potential for tidal energy. We have an opportunity to be pioneers. As an island community, we have regular tides that come in very predictably, and we need to tap into that. When we talk about these projects, it is about not only the location they will be in but the whole maritime industry of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
This industry creates vital jobs in communities. My own port community of Holyhead is the busiest seafaring port on the western seaboard. I will stray slightly into Brexit. I am concerned, as people who live in the communities on the west coast and the gateways into Wales and the United Kingdom from Ireland are, that this issue has not had sufficient attention. We talk about the important land border, but there are sea borders as well. I do not want to see additional barriers on Welsh ports and British ports if we go for full Brexit.
We need a common travel arrangement. We need arrangements between the communities of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, so that we have a strong maritime industry and so that businesses that are dependent on our ports know there will be no additional costs. We need to continue to generate that revenue for the future.
I know we are short on time; I would have taken 17 minutes if you had allowed me, Mr Walker. British seafarers are the best seafarers in the world. They should have proper training facilities and proper wages that reflect our proud history and the potential for a proud future.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Walker. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this timely debate.
Wales exported £11.8 billion-worth of goods last year —an increase of £31 million from the previous year. As a net exporter, Wales’s economic, social and security interests depend on a resilient maritime industry. With 53.7 million tonnes of goods passing through Welsh ports annually, a thriving maritime industry is an essential mechanism for the workings of our economy.
A range of concerns need to be addressed to ensure that a healthy maritime industry is able to flourish, but I will focus my comments on two issues. As the proud mother of a female seafarer, I will discuss the current situation for women in the industry. I will then move on to discuss something that is equally important, given that I am the mother of a female seafarer, which is the safety issues faced by those working in the maritime sector.
Like other Members, I had quite a bit prepared about training. Women have been mentioned as an underused resource in the maritime industry. I will concentrate my comments on women. We need to look at barriers holding women back from entering this sector as a career prospect. I propose that we look at what is preventing them from not only looking at this area but gaining the certificates for higher salaried and higher status jobs. I propose that the Minister considers within that issues related to the facilities on board for female crew members; safety for women in seafaring, including internationally; attitudes towards women; and careers advice for women.
I will rush ahead, because time is of the essence, to the issue of safety. The £38 million of cuts faced by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency last year, coupled with pressure from shipowners who demand a more commercially friendly safety regime, risks jeopardising the lives of British seafarers. The International Transport Workers’ Federation estimates that 2,000 seafarers lose their lives working at sea every year. I estimate that the number is higher than that, but that is what is recorded.
I would like to highlight the case of six Russian crew members who lost their lives on 27 November 2011 when the 34-year-old general cargo ship the Swanland registered in the Cook Islands sank in the Irish sea, 12 miles off Pen Llyn. The 300-hour search and rescue operation demanded that the courageous RNLI volunteer crews of Porthdinllaen, Abersoch, Trearddur bay and Holyhead were called out in atrocious weather conditions. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch’s investigation into the wreck of the Swanland found that maintenance and repair had lacked focus and oversight, and that the cargo of limestone was loaded dangerously.
There is, of course, a great deal of good practice in the industry too. The RNLI has done excellent work in recent years with the man overboard guardian system for commercial fishermen.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I will give everyone five minutes, but Members have to be mindful of interventions—particularly those who have already spoken.
Albert Owen
The hon. Lady talked about women crew members on merchant ships. Will she join me in paying tribute to the RNLI for the increasing number of women who are on our lifeboats, saving lives?
Liz Saville Roberts
Forgive me, but my daughter is also one of the crew at Porthdinllaen, along with three others; they are an increasing number. I pay tribute to Mike Davis, the cox of Porthdinllaen, who has been outstanding in encouraging young women to join the RNLI.
The RNLI’s latest campaign, in partnership with the Welsh Fishing Safety Committee, will promote the general use of personal locator beacons on lifejackets, which alert rescue services within one minute of a seafarer going into the sea. That has potential for rescuing people and, of course, in tragic incidents where seafarers die, it enables families to recover the bodies of their loved ones. That is a very important initiative, and we should support it. That initiative and many like it increase crew safety and save lives, and the RNLI is to be congratulated for the wide-ranging work the charity does.
It is crucial for the safety of the thousands of men and women who dedicate their lives to work at sea that we do not allow UK shipping companies, or indeed others, to erode safety regulations once the UK leaves the European Union. We must ensure that safety standards are not only upheld but updated and strengthened, to ensure that the lives of seafarers are protected. I therefore call on the Minister to review the issues I have outlined and commit to making the UK shipping industry more diverse, safer and fairer for all those who work at sea.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, and to follow the excellent speech by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who led the debate. Much of what I was going to say has been said, but perhaps in different words.
I speak as a member of the RMT group of MPs. What I will say is largely informed by what the RMT thinks, with which I agree. I urge the Minister to ensure that he consults on all occasions and on all matters with the trade unions properly, including not only the RMT but Nautilus International—I have its excellent “Charter for Jobs” report with me.
There are serious concerns about the declining number of UK seafarers, which has fallen by 60% since 1982. The number of ratings has fallen by 25% in just the past five years, so there is undoubtedly a problem with not only the seafarers concerned but the young people who we should be recruiting and training to be the next generation of seafarers.
It is a matter of national security to have a substantial and sufficient body of seafarers who are UK nationals, home-grown and home-based, and whose personal loyalties are to the UK. That is not in any way to denigrate foreign workers; nevertheless, it is significant to have a majority and a large body of home-grown seafarers whose primary loyalty is, naturally, to their own country. The major factor in that decline has been the employment of foreign nationals from poorer areas of the world, who are often paid pitifully low wages, which has been driving down wages and terms and conditions across the maritime sector. Employers are effectively discriminating against and exploiting foreign workers, as well as undermining the jobs market for British seafarers.
These concerns were taken up in the independent Carter review, which concluded that such discrimination must be outlawed and that the then Government—the previous Labour Government—should commit to a timetable for achieving that. The RMT remains committed, and rightly so, to the enforcement of the minimum wage for all seafarers, which should be just what it says: a minimum, not the normal pay for all. Properly negotiated pay rights for UK seafarers would be higher than that, but the minimum wage would at least provide a basic wage for all seafarers. The unions are urging the Government to form a working group to look at reform of the visa and work permit system as it applies to the UK shipping industry.
Proper training is necessary for UK ratings, supported by public funding and with proper marine apprenticeships. The new Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ships should be designed and built in the UK to supply the UK market. Rebuilding a British shipbuilding industry would be a very good idea.
Employers will no doubt complain about the excessive cost of higher pay, safety, security, training and so on, but labour costs for shipping are a small proportion of the total cost and amount to between 2% and 3% of the total cost. Providing good and proper pay with proper training and security for all workers would not add massively to overall shipping costs. It is time to listen to seafarers and their representatives to make sure there are sufficient UK seafarers for our long-term shipping needs and for national security. They should all be properly paid, properly trained and kept safe in their work. Government action is necessary to ensure that happens.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate.
I thought I would take only a moment or two to discuss seafarers, but the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) goaded me with her interpretation of the national shipbuilding strategy, so I will say something about that, although I doubt whether I will take five minutes.
On the principal issue of seafarers and the national minimum wage, I welcome the Minister’s remark that a chord has been struck. I want to take this opportunity to applaud the actions of the Scottish Government, in particular the Minister for Transport and the Islands, Humza Yousaf, who shares a constituency office with me. He knows that I have been on at him about this issue for a while. It is good that a deal seems to have been secured, or at least an agreement in principle, that will ensure that the services operated by Seatruck, which is contracted by Serco Northlink, will now pay its employees the national minimum wage. Many of us in the House today have been concerned about the ill treatment of workers in the maritime industry.
Representatives from various agencies deserve great credit for working hard to find a solution to a complicated situation, including Transport Scotland. I have not been a fan of Transport Scotland for many years, because I was a trade union activist who had to deal with it when I was employed by Glasgow city council. This is a rare occasion when I applaud it for dealing with the matter.
It was manifestly disgraceful that seafarers were being paid as little as £4 an hour—I think the actual figure was £3.66 an hour. I hope the Minister will announce a legislative timetable for ending pay discrimination in the UK shipping industry, which the RMT union has called for and which the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) emphasised. It is not right that shipowners have been cutting the wage bill because they can discriminate against seafarers by paying them less than the statutory minimum wage.
If practices that we have heard about today took place on dry land, the enforcement agencies would be acting almost immediately. I hope the Minister will tell us what discussions are taking place with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to address the situation and ensure adequate enforcement, because the out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude must be replaced with action.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth South goaded me with her comments about the national shipbuilding strategy, which contrasted with the excellent remarks by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who, like me, is proud that he was born in the great city of Glasgow, the home of world shipbuilding.
Sir John Parker’s report does not say that shipbuilding should be moved from elsewhere; it caveats that position. There is a flaw in the report where it says that different ships and different Navy ships have been built concurrently on the Clyde. That was the case with the Irish shipbuilders, where my father worked when they were building ships for the Royal Navy and the Malaysian Navy at the same time.
There is shipbuilding on the Clyde because of the tenacious campaigning by the trade union movement over decades to ensure work on the Clyde. I hope we will continue to build ships there because we are the best shipbuilders in the world.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is always an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I declare an indirect interest, because if I did not, I suspect my father would be upset with me. For more than 30 years he was a full-time trade union officer for the National Union of Seamen, which is the maritime branch of the RMT. I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group and a very proud member at that.
It is scandalous that we have this problem. The number of UK seafarers has fallen by a whopping 60% since 1982. This is not an issue that has only just come about; it has been an historical issue. However, the number of UK ratings has fallen by a further 25% since 2011 and now stands at about 8,800.
Pay discrimination is outrageous, but before talking about that, I will talk about people coming into the industry without being trained. That is scandalous, especially when we have a deal under the tonnage tax, the SMarT scheme—the support for maritime training scheme—which makes it a requirement for companies to train ratings and officers, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned. It is scandalous that we are not doing anything about that.
Since coming to this place in 2010, I think I have met every Shipping Minister, along with Steve Todd, the senior assistant general secretary of the RMT, and on one occasion the then general secretary, Bob Crow. Shipping Ministers always say, “Yes, this is an issue. We’re going to deal with it,” but they do not deal with the problem. It is not even party political. Although the previous Labour Government at least commissioned the independent Carter review, I am ashamed to say that we did not do anything about a timetable to implement its recommendations. That was scandalous. I am not being party political, because we have to be honest. It is time for the Government to act.
The situation in my constituency is just grotesque. P&O North sea ferries run out of my constituency in east Hull, with a hugely declining number of UK ratings. The company is paying £4.70 an hour to Spanish and Portuguese seafarers, more than 300 of whom are employed on those routes, although the minimum wage is £7.20 an hour. That is scandalous. When I speak to the company about the situation, it tells me that it is not making much profit. Well, as my father always reminds me, we do not see many skint shipowners. [Interruption.] The Minister is wondering what I said: I said “skint”. I am told that shipowners do not have much money, but I think that the opposite is true. The reality is that there are an awful lot of unemployed seafarers in my constituency, people who are keen to be employed, but there are not many skint shipowners.
In the short time that I have left, I want to just mention that we are doing great things in Hull. Siemens is investing in offshore wind, and Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT, has written to the Health and Safety Executive to raise the issue that some employers are looking particularly for seafarers to go into the industry. We therefore have a real opportunity to do something about this now. We hope that a cruise terminal will be opened in 2022. We will need more seafarers to manage that terminal—I nearly said to “man” it, and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) would have been unimpressed if I had. Let us just get on with it and deal with the issue. The situation is scandalous. It needs sorting out.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for initiating the debate. I confess that before my election, I had little real knowledge of the modern industry, but I have been steadily learning from my contacts and visits to Forth Ports Grangemouth. I have also attended trips on to ships with the local seafarers mission, which I cannot praise enough for doing such a fantastic job in supporting workers, and I have had talks with and briefings from the RMT and Nautilus, as well as haulage contractors in my area. I am grateful to all those bodies for assisting me during the past 18 months.
Grangemouth is of course Scotland’s largest container port. It is also Scotland’s largest port, with the site covering 386 acres. Grangemouth lies at the centre of Scotland’s industrial heartland. It is situated midway between the main Scottish cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and is served by the M9 motorway, with links to the national motorway network, and is also well rail-linked.
Approximately 9 million tonnes of cargo are handled through the dock facilities each year. With about 150,000 containers and as much as 30% of Scotland’s GDP going through the port, it is the UK’s largest feeder port and the only one that exports more than it imports. Locally, Forth Ports employs some 200 people within the port and supports a further 1,000 jobs within the port estate. Therefore, the industry’s significance to my constituency cannot be overstated, although it may often be overlooked by those driving past the gates.
Almost no topic can be debated nowadays without some reference to the issues surrounding Brexit, and this debate is no exception. The maritime industry plays a major role in helping to facilitate the wider freedom of trade in goods. Given the volumes and patterns of freight, leaving the EU will have implications for the shipping sector. One specific concern is about UK flag ships losing their right to operate in the domestic trades of those EU member states that maintain flag-based cabotage restrictions. The economists Oxera have said that changes to the costs of trade with the EU are
“likely to affect the volumes and patterns of freight activity at ports, while the need for new customs checks on imports and exports is likely to cause considerable congestion at UK and mainland European ports.”
Given the nature of the work at Grangemouth, that is a real concern, although any negative impact could clearly be mitigated through European economic area membership or free trade agreements. The industry’s importance to our countries’ ability to trade worldwide and not just with Europe is key, especially with more than 90% of all trade being handled through our ports. Given that we are an island nation, that is not likely to change, but it leads to questions about how it is done and the role of seafarers, without whom that trade just would not be possible.
The role of seafarers is perhaps the most concerning aspect of the maritime industry. Since 2011, the number of UK ratings has declined by 25%, while the number of UK seafarers has decreased by some 13%. That portends a very serious risk of loss of skills and may even threaten the viability of our home-grown industry, unless training and employment rates improve significantly. That skills deficit is set to be compounded further by future retirals of an increasingly ageing workforce. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the work of the RMT and its SOS 2020 campaign to highlight that threat to the UK seafarers skills base.
While we face that decline in skilled seafarers, there is in fact a global surplus of ratings, with many of the ratings in the international shipping industry coming from cheaper-wage economies. That is compounded by exploitative practices by some operators, which abuse the complexities of the national minimum wage regulations and pay scandalous rates of pay to some seafarers. That has been much commented on today, so I will just add my disappointment that many seafarers are not receiving a fair wage. Confusion and complexity surrounding the NMW needs to be addressed by the Government. In particular, the meaning of the term “ordinarily working in the UK” needs to be made crystal clear. I would welcome hearing from the Minister how that can best be achieved and how the situation whereby there are current cases of two people working on the same ship and doing the same job but being paid different amounts based largely on nationality can be addressed.
My trade union contacts have flagged up with me the following issue, which highlights the point succinctly and demonstrates the international dimension. The Norwegian international flag register is the second register for Norway. It is not allowed to cabotage in Norway and does not pay tax there. I am told that these ships are among the worst offenders. The majority of these ships operating from Aberdeen stay in the UK permanently, with some not having left for more than 10 years. They have on board Norwegian nationals who receive Norwegian rates of pay, but non-Norwegians are employed on what has been described to me as “peanuts”. The fact that such issues can be so clearly identified must mean that solutions are not beyond conception. I look forward to the Minister’s summing-up.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Thank you very much, colleagues, for your conciseness and your co-operation. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) could have had two minutes, but she would prefer to ask the Minister a question. It will obviously be up to the Minister to decide whether to take that intervention, but I know that the hon. Lady would like to ask a question as opposed to making a speech. The Front Benchers will have 11 minutes each, which will allow the mover of the motion to have two minutes at the end.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. This has been a very full debate, with many important contributions. I pay particular tribute to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing the debate. I was going to say that Opposition Members welcome it, but judging by the tone of the debate as a whole, I think it is welcomed right across the House, and I look forward to what the Minister will have to say at the end.
I would like first to give credit where it is due. I very rarely give credit to the Scottish Government, but I will on this occasion. I welcome the announcement by the Scottish Government of changes to the charter agreement for the two Seatruck vessels operating between Aberdeen, Shetland and the Orkneys.
However, I have to be fair: we have heard a lot about maritime companies paying less than the national minimum wage. On Scotland’s only commercial maritime freight link to the continent, the hourly rate paid to Lithuanian seafarers can be as low as £1.64. Justifiably, we get angry when we hear about modern-day slavery on ships in the far east harvesting prawns, but we are prepared to see £1.64 an hour paid within our own waters, so I think that although a great job has been done, there is much more to do.
Drew Hendry
The hon. Lady will of course be aware that that shipping route is in international waters and the Scottish Government have no locus over the pay rates of that company.
Pat Glass
I am simply pointing out that the company is operating in our waters and that we need collectively to do something about it.
We are an island nation, a net importer, and we are now leaving the European Union. We have the largest port sector in Europe in terms of tonnage handled and, as has been said, we have millions of ferry passengers every year. Our economic, social and security interests will depend more than at any time since the second world war on seafarers and a resilient UK maritime skills base. It is probably worth putting this in context. At the time of the Falklands war in 1982, the UK had a strong merchant naval sector; we employed 58,000 UK seafarers. That figure has now shrunk by almost 60% to 23,000. That is the context in which we are working.
Sub-national minimum wages continue to blight the lives of seafarers working on UK domestic and short sea journeys. I have seen figures alleging that at least eight operators along 11 short sea routes to and from the UK are underpaying more than 800 crew. In my own area, on ships crossing from Newcastle to Amsterdam, DFDS pays its staff £2.93 an hour—less than £3. I took a recent weekend trip to Amsterdam, which I really enjoyed, but quite honestly, if I had known that—well, I feel really uncomfortable about it. As a result of this debate, I will be writing to DFDS and other companies to say that it is simply not acceptable.
At present, passengers and businesses are travelling on Condor Ferries to the Channel Islands on vessels crewed by seafarers earning as little as £2.40 an hour. On freight-only ships, the pay is as low as £1.64 an hour. That is not acceptable. Prior to the national living wage increase for over-24s last April, it was estimated that 8,300 ratings were working the UK shipping industry for rates of pay below the national minimum wage. That was in April last year; the figure is now considerably higher than 8,300. Increasingly, companies are recruiting outside the UK to crew their ships with non-UK seafarers, particularly ratings, in order to profit from these sub-national minimum wage rates.
This is not a new problem. It has to be said that this goes well beyond the current Government. Beyond the simple injustices, we can see the cost of not having acted in the past. This legalised exploitation has systematically undermined maritime jobs in the UK, damaged the skill base and driven up unemployment rates in seafarer communities across the UK. Since 2011 alone, the number of UK ratings has fallen by 25%. If we end the pay exploitation in shipping, we can help to reverse the decline of our merchant navy. This need not be a party political issue, but one of sense, fairness and humanity.
There are three points that I would like the Minister to take forward from this debate. First, he has already committed to review the application of pay legislation across the shipping industry imminently. However, as we have already heard, that has already happened—the Carter review did it—so this is just a case of setting a timeframe and getting it implemented. Secondly, can the Minister give a date for when we can expect publication of updated guidance to HMRC on enforcement of the national minimum wage for seafarers? Thirdly, when will he publish the outcomes of the review of the existing protections in part 5 of the Equality Act 2010 against nationality-based pay discrimination for seafarers? That work was completed in April last year, yet 10 months later it has still not been published.
However, as we have heard, pay is only part of the problem and part of the solution. More than 70% of deck and 74% of engine ratings are now aged over 40. We are heading for a shortfall in trained and skilled seafarers. If we take no action, that will be filled by non-UK staff. The Select Committee on Transport warned over two years ago that the Government needed to act on funding, on approved standards for maritime apprenticeships, on the take-up of apprenticeships in the industry, on setting annual statutory targets for seafarer training and on including the number of trainee ratings in annual seafarer statistics. We would like to know from the Minister when we will get some action on that.
One area of maritime growth where the Government have not dragged their feet is on the recommendations to make the UK shipping register more commercially responsive, in the form of a Government corporation. I would gently point out to the Minister some other areas where this and former Governments have rushed to privatise—the rail industry, the energy industry and the water industry come to mind. Recent attitude polls among the electorate now show that the majority of our constituents—in some cases over 90%—want to see those decisions reversed, because they see formerly Government-owned, privatised industries making massive profits, but customers paying massive bills and getting a poor service. I would gently ask the Minister whether he will properly and carefully consider the costs and benefits of transforming the UK shipping register, fully consider all the options and also promise that this House will be given time to scrutinise those options?
Before closing, I wish to press the Minister on leaving the EU. At the moment we know nothing about the Government’s wider maritime priorities, at a time when we need a clear direction on maritime issues that would inform the Brexit negotiations. How will any changes to the single market affect shipping and seafarers? Will there be customs checks? Will there be tariffs? Is his Department feeding into the Brexit negotiations on these matters? If it is, will he tell us how?
In closing, I hope the Minister can elaborate on his Government’s plans for Brexit, or at least recognise that maritime is an exceptional issue that needs to take precedence. He must also assure the House about the future of the shipping register, along with the timeframe and process for any reforms. Will he outline his priorities for seafarer training and skills, and say whether he will set targets for recruitment? Finally, I look forward to him addressing the key point to come out of this debate about seafarer pay and conditions.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
We have a lot to get through. Will the Minister be mindful to leave a minute or so at the end for Mr Carmichael to wind up?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
With great pleasure, Mr Walker. As I looked around the Chamber during this debate, I felt spoiled for choice because so many of my favourites are here. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) springs to mind, as does the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and, not least, yourself, Mr Walker.
Among those favourites stands proud today the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who introduced the debate. He worked with me in Government and I know that he cares as passionately as I do about this subject—unsurprisingly, given the people he represents. When he introduced the debate he was right to emphasise the significance of the maritime sector to our economy, as well as to his constituents. The sector contributes £13 billion to the United Kingdom. It supports more than 100,000 jobs in thousands of different businesses. Just as much as that, and perhaps more, it is an area in which Britain—indeed, the United Kingdom—stands proud, because the quality of what we do in the sector is world renowned and widely admired across a range of services.
As has been said repeatedly, this is not the first time that I have done this job; it is my second visit to the Department for Transport as Shipping Minister. By the way, all ministerial jobs are visits—no more than that—as it is very important to recognise. None the less, when I was there the first time I initiated the maritime growth study to which the right hon. Gentleman and others have referred. He was very generous about it too, if I might say so. The reason for the study is that it seemed really important that we had a stocktake of our maritime circumstances and our maritime future. However, since then we have had the debate on the European Union. I will not digress by saying that the result was, for me, a dream come true, but it certainly changes our maritime future. It is therefore important that we review that growth study. I have put into place a stocktake of the study itself, which is currently taking place, so that we can consider its very helpful recommendations in the context of Brexit.
Melanie Onn
I thank the right hon. Gentleman—my dueting partner on occasions—for giving way.
Melanie Onn
I just share it widely. On the point about embracing that opportunity, as he sees it, the Minister will be aware that the Humber is the UK’s busiest trading port. That is something that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) will be equally as proud of as I am. It really is critical to hundreds of directly employed jobs and thousands of indirectly employed jobs as well. There is a sense that ports and maritime have been somewhat left behind in the past. Is part of this opportunity about putting ports at the heart of industrial strategy for the UK going forward?
Mr Hayes
Yes, that is a very well made point. The hon. Lady is right to say that we perhaps understated the significance of the maritime sector. This is a point that the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for maritime and ports and former Shipping Minister, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, made in his contribution and has made previously. Part of the role of the Shipping Minister is to champion the sector; to speak loudly and repeatedly about its significance. The hon. Lady is right that it does not just affect the places where our ports are situated; it affects the whole of our economy. Some 95% of the goods that we purchase from abroad, and the things that we send to foreign countries, go through our ports. As the representative for Grimsby, she will know how important that is.
Albert Owen
I was a bit disappointed that I was not listed among the Minister’s friends earlier on. There is a serious point that I want him to answer. Now that we have talk of an industrial strategy, will the Minister, who is in the Department for Transport, liaise with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that both Departments know about this so that we have joined-up thinking when we talk about ports being the catalyst?
Mr Hayes
We are already doing that, but these debates must have a purpose, so I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I will personally meet Ministers on exactly the issue he has raised, and in the fashion that he has described. It is important that the industrial strategy takes full account of the significance of the maritime sector, as has been said. As he spoke earlier I thought to myself for a moment, given our great history, that he has forgotten more about energy than I have ever known, but then I thought, as a former Energy Minister, that was a tad too self-deprecating.
Let me highlight the key issues that have been raised, which fall into the following categories. First, there is the maritime growth study, which I have mentioned. That was a very important piece of work and I am immensely grateful to Lord Mountevans for leading it and to others who took part. It provided a series of recommendations that will inform future policy, but as he and others acknowledged, it must be a living document. The great risk with such exercises is that the document is published, the work is done, there is a great furore around its publication and then a year later people think, “What on earth was that study?” In order to give the document continuing relevance, it needs to be regularly updated, which is precisely what I am doing through the work I just described.
The points made about the flag—as highlighted by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass)—and tonnage tax should be pertinent to that review of the study. We can do more with tonnage tax, particularly on recruitment and training, and we need to do more, as has been acknowledged by the Government and those with whom we work, to make the flag more attractive. There has to be an offer in respect of the register that goes beyond simply raising the flag and includes a range of services that we can provide to make it more attractive. We are committed to that.
Secondly, the issue of ports was raised. We may have emphasised ports insufficiently. At the risk of adding contumely to our affairs, I disagreed to some degree with the Opposition spokesman on this issue; the ports are perhaps the best example of how private organisations investing heavily, being responsive to changing circumstances and being very efficient and competitive, compared with their European counterparts, can make a significant difference to the sector. The fact that we have private organisations—not wholly, but for the most part—running our ports is testament to what can be done when private and public interests coincide.
However, we should not be complacent. The shadow Minister is right that we need to look at the new challenges that our ports face, because they work in an extremely dynamic sector and more can be done to support them. We certainly should not have the port services regulation. As I made perfectly clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, we will not have it as we do not want it and will fight it at every opportunity.
The third issue that was raised was skills and recruitment. I share almost all the views that permeated—indeed coloured—this debate, begun by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. I think that we are doing too little on recruitment and that we need to do more on skills. As Members will know, I was the apprenticeships Minister when the coalition Government first came into office. I am proud of our work on revitalising apprenticeships, but I take the point that was made. More can be done, and in my discussions on the industrial strategy I will raise the continuing importance of training in this sector. We need to recruit and train more British seafarers. It is as simple as that. Throughout this short debate Members have made the point that there has to be a career path for those seafarers. It is not enough simply to recruit people at different levels; there has to be a career path so that people can build their life in seafaring. That is a good thing and something of which we should be proud.
Albert Owen
The Minister made two interventions on earlier speakers, and I am really pleased that he has now taken two interventions from me. Sea cadet units across the United Kingdom were a fertile breeding ground for people for both the merchant navy and the Royal Navy. Will he do more to train youngsters up in those facilities? He will also be aware of early-day motion 516, which has been suggested by the unions. Will he work with the unions and others to ensure that we have a proper campaign for skills and safety at sea?
Mr Hayes
Indeed I will. I recently held a roundtable meeting, which the unions attended, on precisely those matters. I have discussed recruitment with the trade unions, and I welcome the excellent briefing produced by my trade union friends. When I first became a Minister, I said to my officials, “I want to meet the unions regularly,” and they looked slightly nervous about it. During the course of those meetings, a union representative—I will not say who—said, “We never got this much out of Labour.” I can assure the hon. Gentleman—and particularly the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who called for this specifically in his contribution—that I will continue to work with the trade unions in exactly the way in which he has described. It is vital not only that we recruit people, but that we train them appropriately and allow them the kind of career opportunities that he called for.
Karl Turner
Will the Minister commit to meeting a group of cross-party MPs, along with the RMT representatives, very soon to see what progress he has made following this debate?
Mr Hayes
Yes, I am happy to do that, perhaps under the auspices of the all-party group, which I have already met, but I am happy to meet again. That would be a useful vehicle for precisely that kind of discussion.
The fourth area that the debate touched on—this was referred to by a number of hon. Members—was what might be called the welfare and conditions that prevail in the maritime sector. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that the conditions are appropriate. Some alarming claims have been made today, which I take very seriously indeed, particularly if people are not being paid the appropriate wage and if the circumstances and conditions in which they are working are not adequate. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) about the need to attract more women and getting the conditions right to allow us to do so. I hear what has been said about the importance of safety, and that is a fundamental concern for all of us who care about the sector. We will take this further. As a direct result of the debate—perhaps it will happen in the discussions that were just described—I am very happy to consider what more the Government must do. The work I am doing on the maritime growth study should fill some gaps and allow us to consider what more can be done on recruitment, as well as how we can approach skills in a fresh way and how the terms and conditions that apply across the industry can be improved.
The debate has served a useful purpose in allowing me not only to be the champion of the maritime sector, but, I hope, to be able to emulate the best of my predecessors, such as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, and leave some kind of legacy. I want to do that on behalf of our ports and the towns in which they are situated, our ship owners and our shipbuilders—we build ships and boats in this country, and shipbuilding is something of which we should be proud too—and fundamentally and most of all, what is dearest to my heart, on behalf of our seafarers.
Mr Carmichael
We have had a truly excellent debate. Although we have had contributions from 15 right hon. and hon. Members, including the Minister, we have managed to cover the full range of areas, instead of each of us standing up and piece by piece repeating what has already been said. I hope that we will see the debate as not just an event in itself, but the start of a process, and that the Minister will make good on his undertakings this afternoon, both on the prioritisation of policy work and on his continuing engagement with parliamentarians. It is clear that there is a common and shared interest in all parts of the House. For me, it is a matter of some satisfaction and relief that the debate has been as well attended and productive as it has been.
I confess that this is the first time I have sponsored a Back-Bench business debate. When I was last a Back Bencher, there was no such thing as the Backbench Business Committee. I got a bit of a telling-off from the Committee because apparently I did not fill in the form very well. Those things are important; I took its criticisms to heart. When the opportunity arises for a reprise of this debate, I will be able to pray in aid our excellent proceedings this afternoon to ensure that we can keep the issue on the Floor of the House and at the front of public attention, because that is where it belongs.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I thank all colleagues for their co-operation on time.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the future of the UK maritime industry.
Written Statements
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Hendry Review (Tidal Lagoons)
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Jesse Norman)
In February 2016, the Government commissioned an independent review into the feasibility and practicality of tidal lagoon energy in the UK. The review has been led by the right hon. Charles Hendry, who was appointed in May. The purpose of the review was to assess:
whether, and in what circumstances, tidal lagoons could play a cost-effective role as part of the UK energy mix;
the potential scale of opportunity in the UK and internationally, including supply chain opportunities;
a range of possible structures for financing tidal lagoons;
different sizes of projects as the first of a kind;
whether a competitive framework could be put in place for the delivery of tidal lagoon projects.
Charles Hendry will publish the report today. I am grateful to Charles and his team for the hard work that has gone into the review and for the time and care he has taken over this important commission.
The issues considered by the review are complex, as they relate to an untried technology in the marine environment. As the review notes, tidal lagoons face considerable challenges in relation to their role in the UK’s energy mix and their potential environmental impact. The Government will now require a period of time to assess the recommendations set out in the review, and to consider the issues which would arise from a broader lagoon programme. A Government response will be published in due course.
The Government’s energy planning is focused on ensuring secure, affordable, low-carbon energy. Any decisions arising from the review will, therefore, need to balance the priorities for security of supply, low-carbon generation and affordability. The Government will consider the review’s recommendations and determine what decision is in the best interests of the UK energy consumer in the long term.
It is this Government’s job to consider both the advantages and the disadvantages of tidal lagoons, to scrutinise the evidence carefully, and to take measured decisions where there are a wide range of issues to consider and significant uncertainties over what is, in the case of this technology, a long period of time.
The Hendry review report can be found at: https://hendryreview.wordpress.com/.
[HCWS404]
BBC Monitoring
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
Following the written statement by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, (HCWS358), on a Royal Charter for the continuance of the BBC, the Government and the BBC have agreed a new BBC monitoring agreement. The agreement took effect on 1 January 2017. BBC Monitoring will continue to be a publicly funded service under the licence fee arrangement.
I have placed a copy of the “BBC Monitoring Agreement” in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS406]
Foreign Affairs Council: 16 January
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will attend the Foreign Affairs Council on 16 January. The Foreign Affairs Council will be chaired by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. The meeting will be held in Brussels.
Foreign Affairs Council
The agenda for the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) is expected to include Syria, Egypt, Libya and the middle east peace process.
Syria
Ministers will discuss the announcement of a nationwide ceasefire for Syria agreed by Russia, Turkey and Iran on 29 December. The intention is that political talks will follow later this month. UN Special Envoy Staffan De Mistura has welcomed the planned talks, but stresses they should contribute to UN-led negotiations scheduled for 8 February.
Discussions will focus on the EU’s humanitarian aid response to the crisis in Syria. More than 700,000 people remain in besieged areas within Syria: humanitarian aid has yet to reach these areas as the Syrian regime and its backers have not allowed the UN immediate full and unhindered humanitarian access across all of Syria, as required by UN Security Council resolutions.
The 2016 UN joint investigative mechanism report concluded that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons—as has Daesh. The UK has been working with France and the rest of the Security Council to draft a resolution which makes clear that there can be no impunity for the use of chemical weapons. The resolution seeks to impose various sanctions designations and ban on exports of helicopters, helicopter parts and certain chemicals. The EU should stand firm should the UNSC vote fail. The UK will call for collective EU support to designate individuals linked to the use of chemical weapons in Syria who are not currently sanctioned by the EU.
Egypt
Ministers will discuss Egypt’s bilateral relationship with the EU and Egypt’s role in the region. We expect discussions will cover Egypt’s political and human rights situation, including the growing restrictions on civil society. Ministers are also likely to discuss how the EU can best help strengthen Egypt’s internal security, co-operate on bringing stability to Libya, and work together on combating illegal migration in the region.
Libya
Discussions will cover the latest developments in the Libyan political process. We will encourage the EU to consider how it can best continue to support the Presidency Council and Government of National Accord.
Middle east peace process
Ministers will discuss progress on the middle east peace process (MEPP) and may reflect on obstacles to peace including incitement, terrorism, demolitions and settlement expansion, as highlighted in the recent UN Security Council resolution 2334. Ministers may also consider the outcomes of the Paris conference on the MEPP which takes place on 15 January.
[HCWS405]
Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
The optional protocol to the convention against torture (OPCAT), which the UK ratified in December 2003, requires states parties to establish a national preventive mechanism (NPM) to carry out visits to places of detention in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Government established the UK NPM in March 2009 (Official Report, 31 March 2009, column 56WS).
I am informing the House that the following is formally designated as an additional member of the UK NPM:
The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation (IRTL)
[HCWS408]
Prison Service Pay Review Body
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I am pleased to announce that the Prime Minister has reappointed Peter Knight as the chair to the Prison Service Pay Review Body for 12 months, commencing March 2017. The reappointment has been conducted in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointments’ code of practice on appointments to public bodies.
[HCWS407]
Night Flights
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) has made the following ministerial statement.
In July 2014, the Government announced the current regime for night flight restrictions at the designated airports Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. These restrictions are due to expire in October this year.
Today this Government have launched a consultation on our proposals for the next night flight regime at these airports. We are proposing to set these restrictions for a period of five years to 2022, so this will not therefore cover the period in which a proposed new runway at Heathrow would be operational. Any ban on night flights at an expanded Heathrow would be consulted on seParately.
We will continue to balance the economic benefits night flights offer with the cost they have on communities. We therefore want the next night flights regime to maintain the status quo in terms of the number of flights, but also give the industry incentives to continue the improvements in noise performance that are already taking place. The Government therefore proposes an environmental objective to encourage the use of quieter aircraft to limit or reduce the number of people significantly affected by aircraft noise at night, while maintaining the existing benefits of night flights.
Our consultation includes proposals on how we intend to deliver this objective, including limits on the number of flights and new noise quotas for each airport and adjustments to the structure of the regime to ensure it keeps up with changes in aircraft technology. This consultation is seeking views and evidence relating to these proposals and is accompanied by an impact assessment exploring the costs and benefits of our proposals.
We will publish a final decision on night flights later this year after we have carefully reviewed the responses to this consultation.
[HCWS403]
Bereavement Support Payment Regulations
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
I am pleased to announce that today I intend to lay regulations to provide some of the detail of the new bereavement support payment. These are affirmative regulations which will be debated in Parliament shortly. It is intended that the changes detailed in these regulations will come into force on 6 April this year.
Bereavement support payment is a new benefit which replaces the current suite of bereavement benefits (bereavement payment, bereavement allowance and widowed parent’s allowance) for those whose spouse or civil partner dies on or after 6 April this year. These changes will not affect those already in receipt of bereavement benefits. These people will continue to receive their current benefit for the natural lifetime of the award.
The design of bereavement support payment reaffirms the Government’s commitment to provide financial support to people whose spouse or civil partner has died. The new benefit modernises and simplifies the current complex system of bereavement benefits.
It shifts the focus of bereavement benefits from replacing the deceased spouse or civil partner’s earnings to helping with the additional and more immediate costs of bereavement.
Bereavement support payment will not be taxable, will not be included in the assessment of benefit income which will be subject to the household benefit cap, and will also be subject to a disregard in the calculation of income-based benefits. Additionally, bereavement support payment will not affect the bereaved person’s concurrent entitlement to contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance or contributory employment and support allowance, where appropriate. Also, unlike the current bereavement benefits, a bereaved person who remarries or re-partners will be able to keep their bereavement support payment.
To allow people to better understand their entitlements and plan accordingly, the new benefit is simpler, introducing a uniform payment structure with a single national insurance contribution condition. There is a higher rate of payment for pregnant women and people with dependent children in recognition of the greater costs borne by these families.
Having considered representations from the Social Security Advisory Committee, the Work and Pensions Select Committee and groups supporting bereaved people, we have decided to extend the duration of the benefit from 12 months to 18 months.
Recipients with children can receive an initial larger payment of £3,500 and up to 18 subsequent monthly payments of £350, and those without children can receive an initial payment of £2,500 and up to 18 monthly instalments of £100.
[HCWS409]
Grand Committee
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill
Thursday 12th January 2017
(7 years, 3 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 83-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee (PDF, 154KB) - (10 Jan 2017)
Lord Berkeley
“Restrictions on lorries and road use
Within three months of the start of the scheduled works, the nominated undertaker must publish a plan setting out, for each construction site being used or to be used for the scheduled works, how the number of lorries delivering to or from the site will be limited in order to meet the following restrictions by weight of materials transported by road—(a) no more than 25% of excavated spoil and demolition material;(b) no more than 25% of concreting materials; and(c) no more than 50% of all other materials;and the remainder in each case must be carried by rail.”
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 17 is to do with the restriction of lorries and road use. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. The committee obviously spent a long time considering this, as it covers about 12 paragraphs in its report. Probably as a result of its questioning, HS2 has considerably improved its offer of the proportion of freight that will be taken by rail rather than by road, particularly in the Camden area.
My reason for putting this amendment down was to try to cover the whole of the route of phase 1 rather than just Camden. I point out that the reason we are in this situation is that HS2 did not start off the project by thinking, “It is clearly unacceptable to have 1,500 or 2,000 trucks a day going through Camden for several years, so how can we design a station and its approaches in such a way that you could use rail freight?”. In fact, Network Rail said that it did not want any rail freight into Euston, because it might delay the passenger trains. Since there are not any passenger trains at night, it is difficult to accept that that was a sensible argument. However, we are where we are.
HS2 has come some way at Euston. Given the pressure it has taken to get it this far, it would be a good idea if one could put some percentages in the Bill of what it would be required to do to move materials by means other than road. We are not just talking about spoil and demolition material; other materials can easily come in on rail and be trained off. Then there is the whole question of concrete, bringing in the aggregates and maybe the cement, and having a batching plant on-site. I remember saying to HS2, “Why don’t you put a batching plant there?”. I was told, “We’re going to put a generating station there”. I said, “But you could have thought of putting a batching plant there first”. “Well, we didn’t”. That was the kind of discussion that went on.
We can talk about this for a long period. HS2 is in discussions with the train operators now, and I hope that it has enough rolling stock to do it now. Again, we asked, “If you want to suddenly move all this material by rail, is there enough rolling stock in the country, or should somebody pre-order it?”. It did not want to pre-order it and influence what the contractors might say or do, and it will probably be all right. Outside London, it is unclear what could happen, so there is a strong argument for making sure that HS2 sticks to these percentages. We can debate whether they are the right ones, but we need to hold it to account. On Tuesday we heard about trucks in Wendover, and we heard about other places. We even heard, in the last amendment, that HS2 wanted to run trucks down the bus lanes in London because the trucks were more important than buses. It would be useful if some sort of legislative grip was taken on the provider as regards this serious and very important issue because otherwise we could still have 1,500 trucks a day going through Camden and a similar number going through other places that are equally congested and in need of protection. I beg to move.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by referring to the excellent committee report which refers to this issue in detail, and I am delighted to support the amendment. The committee notes that some areas of Camden, along with other urban areas, suffer levels of air pollution that are in serious breach of EU limits. It calls the haulage by road of materials to and from the construction sites,
“one of the gravest problems of the project”.
As the project has developed, the Government have made a commitment over time to more and more tunnelling in order to alleviate the problems of noise for residents in other areas, but that in itself creates another environmental problem because the excavated soil will have to be moved over long distances. Add to that the cement, aggregates and steel for tunnels and bridges and so on, plus building materials for several new stations, and we are talking about very significant amounts.
The committee’s comments on Euston concentrate on the level of disruption over a period of more than a decade which involves the demolition of a large office block as well as other homes. It is critical—I urge noble Lords to read paragraph 178—of the impact on local people and is particularly critical about the idea of rebuilding Euston station in two stages. I am using this opportunity to urge the Minister to press his colleagues in government and HS2 to ensure that a co-ordinated approach is taken, and I also urge the Government to bring forward the funding so that planning and rebuilding can be done together to limit the problems for local residents. Both Camden Council and the Regent’s Park Estate tenants gave evidence to the committee, as did the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It is noted that the shortest journey by road from Euston to the nearest landfill is 26 miles one way. In contrast, one train can move as much material as 124 HGVs, so to my mind there is absolutely no argument about the need to transport more materials by train—or indeed by river. Given the strong words of the committee, I was very disappointed that no clear recommendation was made about transporting the soil and that the committee simply resorted to exhorting HS2 to do better than the 28% of excavated soil and 17% of construction materials it guarantees to move by rail. Euston may, as has been stated, be a congested site, so I would argue that there is all the more reason to apply the highest standards.
It is also important to learn the lessons of the past. For both the Olympics and Crossrail, which in many respects were similarly congested sites, a political decision was taken to minimise transport by road and to set targets. As a result, some riverside wharves that would otherwise have been sold off for housing were retained to enable transport by river.
We need the Government to aim high. I believe that exhorting HS2 to do better will not maximise the use of rail for transport in this regard or, indeed, encourage it to consider river transport either. We need to set targets and there needs to be a political decision on this. This is all the more important because of the protracted nature of the plans for Euston. I take this opportunity to ask whether the Minister can confirm the rumours circulating in the Euston area that HS2 is considering moving the portals of the tunnel from which the proposed new HS2 line will emerge to the west of Euston station about one kilometre nearer to the station. Local residents would be very supportive of that because they believe that it would reduce the disruption caused by the removal of materials. Therefore, if that rumour is accurate, we will be pleased.
As regards whether it is appropriate to set targets for this issue, obviously some sites will be more difficult than others in terms of removing spoil by road. It is not practical to address this on a completely comprehensive basis but it is entirely reasonable to tell HS2 that it should have overall targets so that it achieves an overall picture.
As I said, from time to time the Government have acceded to requests for tunnelling and increased compensation, particularly in rural areas. That is laudable and we appreciate that responsiveness. However, the committee itself suggests that some aspects of the compensation schemes are unbalanced, favour rural areas and do not pay sufficient attention to the disruption caused by the construction process. Therefore, as well as addressing the issue of fairness in the compensation arrangements, I urge the Government to take a much more fundamental approach by reducing the disruption altogether. Transporting as much material as possible by rail would reduce that disruption.
In conclusion, although I have emphasised Camden and Euston, this issue applies throughout the length of the project, particularly in other urban areas as well.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their contributions. I say at the outset that I fully appreciate the intent behind their amendment in terms of maximising the use of rail for the transportation of material in relation to HS2. Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness rightly focused on the concerns that have been raised, particularly in the London Borough of Camden and in Euston. However, the majority of construction sites for HS2 phase 1 are in rural areas and, practically speaking, do not have ready access to an existing rail network. Put simply, imposing the limits proposed in the amendment would mean that it would not be possible to construct HS2. However, it is important to take on board some of the points that have been made and answer them directly.
I of course share the concerns about the impacts of HS2 construction on the road network, as do the Government. As noble Lords may be aware, the Government have already made commitments with similar intentions. We have committed to maximise the volume of excavated and construction material to be brought in and removed by rail. This will need to be done while balancing the wider environmental impacts on the local community and on passenger services.
Specifically on the point of spoil by rail, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness talked about targets, and the Lords Select Committee was mentioned in the noble Baroness’s remarks. I am sure that noble Lords have also reflected on the committee’s note. Again, I thank the committee once again for its exhaustive work in this respect. Paragraph 411 of its report says:
“We are satisfied that HS2 is taking this responsibility seriously”,
and the report goes on to say that it saw,
“no useful purpose to be served by attempting to set fixed targets. It would be little more than plucking aspirational figures out of the air”.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for supporting the amendment and for the Minister’s response, which goes a little further than we have heard before. Of course, I accept that in some places you have to take everything away by road. Similarly, in other places you can probably take it all by rail. It is clearly something that people want to keep an eye on, which is reasonable—that is what the whole process is about. The last amendment that we discussed on Tuesday was to do with traffic management plans and who had priority on them. I hope it will not be used as a stick to beat the local authorities into taking more trucks because the rail system has not been made to work.
The Minister will be aware that the Government are responsible for Network Rail and for many of the passenger train operators, as well as for HS2. Therefore, it is in their gift to get it right. The last big one was, as the noble Baroness said, the Stratford Olympics, and even on that we caught the contractors chucking something like 10,000 tonnes of contaminated waste, all the way to Teesport, even though there was a rail freight siding at both ends. This will need very careful watching, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Establishment of Regional Integrated Command Centre
(1) Within three months of the passing of this Act, the nominated undertaker must establish a Regional Integrated Command Centre to include representatives of Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services, Transport for the West Midlands, Transport for London, transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors.(2) The role of the Regional Integrated Command Centre shall be to ensure that the works authorised by this Act are co-ordinated so as to minimise the adverse effects of the works on other rail or road operations.”
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, could I have an explanation on a point from Tuesday’s meeting of this Committee? I want clarification on a point that arose when I asked a question about the workings of this Committee. The Minister responded by saying that:
“In general terms, a Select Committee in consideration of such a hybrid Bill normally looks specifically and primarily at private interests raised by petitioners, which gives it a very exhaustive opportunity to look at the different options. The role of the Grand Committee is what it traditionally is: to consider the public law clauses of a Bill, not the specific details of a private petition”.—[Official Report, 10/1/17; col. GC 95.]
Will the Minister define for us what a “public law clause” is? Presumably the amendments before us have been accepted and put down in the right order and can be discussed and decided upon later, but I would particularly like to know what a public law clause is and how it applies to the workings of this Committee.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As I said on the previous Committee day, looking at public law clauses is what a Committee and a Grand Committee do; that is, it looks at the implications overall of any Bill that is presented. The difference with a Select Committee is that it provides an opportunity specifically for petitioners who have an issue to raise that requires more detailed scrutiny to present their case in detail to Members of your Lordships’ House. The specifics of their particular petition are given an exhaustive review, and that is the difference. It allows for a much more detailed analysis of the private interests behind a petition. This is a normal and standard procedure used for Bills that are of an infrastructure nature. It is not new or novel but something that has been used previously. I trust that that provides further clarification but, in the interest of moving forward on the Bill, I am quite happy to provide a more detailed response in writing.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, Amendment 18, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is to do with traffic and transport issues during the construction of phase 1. It came from a conversation I had with people at the West Midlands transport authority—I think that is the right name; it has just been changed—who expressed concern that the Bill could allow HS2 to restrict the flows on motorways or national rail services as it felt necessary without any consideration for the needs of other rail travellers or drivers on the motorway and local roads. They felt that the consultation had been not that comprehensive to start off with and they were really quite worried about this issue, which they say could cause major trouble and problems for traffic on rail and road during the construction. It seems that Camden Council has similar worries and I think that TfL probably does, too. Their solution was to propose this idea of a regional integrated command centre. I do not know whether that is the right term. It is not a sort of Army command centre but a co-ordination body to bring all the bodies which I have listed, including,
“Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services”—
the transport authorities local and regional—
“transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors”,
and probably a few more, together on a regular basis to plan what is going on and minimise the adverse effect of traffic and transport on the users.
We can debate whether there should be one centre covering the whole route or several. The amendment I have tabled says that there should be one but that is for discussion. This is one of those things which, if it does not happen, probably would happen several years on when there had been a crisis or disaster. My suggestion is that it should be set up from the beginning, whether that takes three months or six months or whatever. I hope that it would be funded by HS2; after all, they are the people causing the problem. I think this would be welcomed by all the different users and could be a major benefit to the communities along the route and the longer-distance travellers, who would see all the obvious problems which come with construction mitigated to some extent. I look forward to some interesting comments and debate on this proposal, which would be extremely cheap to run and very beneficial. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
I shall speak very briefly. The Minister has already said in reply to a previous amendment that local authorities would have substantial powers in organising traffic. I am anxious to have some assurance that HS2 Ltd will not, as it were, have overriding powers which prevent the proper processes taking place.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
My Lords, perhaps we could probe this amendment. A lot of the work that we did on the Select Committee referred to HS1, Crossrail and the tunnel. With all his expertise and knowledge, can the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, tell me whether this actually occurred in the case of HS1—the Channel Tunnel route—and Crossrail? Perhaps we should benefit from that, because we frequently went back to the experience of those two projects. There was no point to going through them if you were not going to get some learning from them. Are we trying to reinvent the wheel here or was there a separate way of doing it, which the noble Lord thinks was not good enough and is why he has tabled this amendment?
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that question because she is absolutely right to seek a precedent for this. Of the projects that I have been involved in, the Channel Tunnel was of course just in Kent so the discussions were with its highway authority, which was Kent County Council. HS1 was to a large extent in Kent and then in London. It was cut into two halves; again, Kent County Council was the highways authority and we talked a lot about transport, the mitigation, routes and everything else there. I think it did very well on that. Crossrail is of course not entirely within the TfL area but quite a lot is. Most of the discussions on transport took place, as I recall, with Transport for London. When Crossrail gets outside London, it mainly runs on existing railways so the problem is less acute.
What we have here, as we discussed previously, is a much longer route—200 kilometres long—which goes between two pretty massive conurbations: London and the West Midlands. As I think I mentioned the other day, there are several motorways and national railways to cross. It would be a shame if the motorways were all closed at the same time. I am sure they would not be, but they should not be. This is why I said, in my opening remarks, that maybe there should be three of these different, smaller co-ordination centres: one for the West Midlands, one for the London area and one for the middle bit. Again, it may seem bureaucratic, but it will mean less work to do. It is just a suggestion, and the Minister may say, “We are doing it anyway”. In that case, it is absolutely fine. I hope that is helpful.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, we have had extensive discussions on HGV routes and the role of the highways authorities. HS2 cannot override them, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Berkeley knows. There was a throw-away remark that the organisation he proposes would be modest. I must admit that, when I look at the coverage and the number of people involved, it does not look very modest to me in terms of the number of people that could attend. We know where the problems are going to be: HS2 has already had extensive discussions with Camden and other highways authorities on HGV routes and so on. We know that there is a construction complaint commissioner so that, if there are any problems, there is a 24-hour helpline. We have been through this over and over again. With due respect to my noble friend, if you were going to suggest a structure to deal with this, I could not think of anything more bureaucratic and, I suspect, expensive, when you look at the range of people who could potentially attend. I agree that there is going to be a significant responsibility on HS2 and its contractors to ensure that they minimise disruption, be it to motorways or local highways, which is why they have to get agreement from the local and county authorities, but in my view this is not the way forward.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I recognise and endorse the underlying objective behind this particular amendment: to minimise, as we all desire, the impact of construction traffic through appropriate co-ordination with bodies. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has suggested the creation of a command centre. In that respect, I disagree with him.
I wish to go into a few of the specific points that have been raised. First, on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, to which we have already heard a response, I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. The Bill includes specific powers for the control of construction traffic by qualifying planning authorities. This means that the routes to be used by heavy goods vehicles must be approved by the qualifying planning authority where the volume of large goods vehicles—specifically, those over 7.5 tonnes—exceeds 24 one-way trips per day. The consent of the relevant highway authority is also required for the provision of any new or altered work site access to and from a highway.
My noble friend Lady O’Cathain raised the important issue that, as we move forward on these projects, we must learn from experience of what has happened before. The Crossrail project was cited. In that regard, we have already developed a code of construction practice, which requires the appointed nominated undertaker to prepare a route-wide traffic management plan in liaison with highway and traffic authorities, not forgetting the emergency services as well. This is an approach that was followed during the construction of Crossrail and worked well. We believe it will also work well in this respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also raised the issue of Crossrail traffic management. Although he is absolutely correct that TfL managed the strategic roads, there was still the need to manage traffic flows on the local roads, and those were very much managed by the local boroughs and the construction of Crossrail had a direct impact on them. We are proposing to use the same tried-and-tested method which, as I said, worked well for that project in this respect as well.
The route-wide traffic management plans will include, for example, managing and monitoring lorry flows, requirements for preparing workforce travel plans and the strategy for design and consultation regarding traffic management. In addition to this route-wide plan, the code of construction practice, which I have referred to, also requires the appointed nominated undertaker to prepare local traffic management plans in liaison, as I said, with the relevant highway and traffic authorities and the emergency services.
Once appointed, contractors will also be required to hold regular local traffic liaison meetings with highway authorities, public transport operators and, of course, the police. These will provide an opportunity for contractors to present proposals for future works affecting the highway, including methods of construction and the proposed programme. I hope that this demonstrates that the Government are very much committed to the sentiments behind the noble Lord’s amendment. However, we have learned, and continue to learn, from experience. The Crossrail project has been a positive one and the learning from it will certainly be applied to this project. I hope that that demonstrates to the noble Lord that his amendment is unnecessary.
Lord Berkeley
I really am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken because I think their words, experience and responses will give a lot of comfort to those who have been pressing me to table these amendments. I do not want to see an enormous bureaucratic nightmare created. On the other hand, I do not want to see the promoter being stupid and closing two parallel motorways at the same time, which they obviously fear. So I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed and to the Minister for his response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Application of relevant provisions of Railways Act 1993 to Phase One of High Speed 2
All relevant provisions of the Railways Act 1993 including regulations made under that Act shall apply to the railway operated as Phase One of High Speed 2, including determination of access charges, safety and reporting.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, for the convenience of the Committee, I can speak to Amendments 19 and 20 together, which should save us a little time. This is a very short and probing amendment which comes out of experience with HS1. When the HS1 legislation was going through, Ministers seemed to have a lot of intentions to set it up so that it could be sold to the highest bidder in the shortest possible time and at the highest price. They seemed to think that if they did not have independent regulators keeping an eye on what was going on, that would dramatically increase the sale price. Anyway, the Bill received Royal Assent and it all happened, but a few years later we realised that, having no regulator with any teeth at all, the infrastructure manager, which could have been in the private sector, could charge exactly what it liked for the trains to run on it, could close it when it liked, and did not have to justify its costs of operation or anything else. All I have put down in these amendments is simply to probe the Minister to ensure that he is not trying to do that this time. I have no evidence that he is at all but I just wanted to probe to make sure. We spent an awful lot of time in the years after the HS1 Act—the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I did a lot of it together—bringing in regulations, which the Government accepted, to right the mistakes of the first Act.
Lord Bradshaw
Perhaps I may just draw the Minister’s attention to the large number of occasions on which Ministers of both parties have committed themselves to the fares on HS2 not being excessive and taking into account ordinary people and various other things— I have about 20 of them. This is not a railway that is apart from the rest of the railway, I hope.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords and I shall turn first to that final point. There are other Ministers taking part in the Committee today. I back exactly the sentiments of the noble Lord and would add my name to the list, in the sense that the HS2 project underlines the importance of the railway infrastructure as a whole. We have discussed in previous debates the importance of the building of HS2 not just for itself but also in terms of the impact it will have on the railway infrastructure.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for explaining that the amendment is probing in nature, but perhaps I may refer to the specifics. With respect to the Railways Act 1993, only one minor change is being made, which is a partial disapplication of the licensing provision so that the pre-operation testing phase does not require a licence. It is simply not considered to be necessary during that period. As I have said, we learn from experience; such a change was made for the Crossrail Act 2008 and a rather wider disapplication was also included in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, in which I am sure both noble Lords are well versed. The Bill would also disapply closure provisions in the Railways Act 2005 in the case of closures that are necessary because of the construction of the works. In this regard there is only one closure, that of the Wycombe Single to allow Old Oak Common to be constructed. This has already been discussed in the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House on the Bill, and it was decided that the closure procedures in the 2005 Act should not apply as Parliament will have already approved the closure. As I say, such a provision was also included in the Crossrail Act.
I appreciate that in the interests of time the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has spoken to Amendments 19 and 20. Specifically on Amendment 20, I can confirm that the existing safety and economic regulatory regime for the railway is unchanged by the Bill and so it would continue to apply to HS2 in the same way that the regulator, who as he pointed out has an important role, sees fit. For these reasons, we believe that this amendment is unnecessary.
Lord Rosser
On the question of the Government’s intentions in the longer term for HS2, recently we had an announcement from the Secretary of State about a new link between Oxford and Cambridge. As I understand it, the company running the line would also be responsible for the track. Are the Government intending that the arrangements for HS2 will be on a similar basis to that project?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State referred to a specific line. I am sure that the noble Lord will acknowledge that other announcements also made by the Secretary of State in this regard refer to the importance, whatever governance structure is set up, of those who are responsible for running the railway line and the rail service working together in an integrated fashion. The underlying purpose is that common objectives can be set. At this juncture, I cannot give the noble Lord a complete answer on the running of HS2 in terms of who will run the service and who will run the lines; there are, of course, other ways in which services across the country are run. The Secretary of State has underlined the importance—and it is his intention—that, whatever the governance structure, there should be an integrated way of running lines and train services, with common objectives being set if different companies are running different services.
Lord Berkeley
My noble friend has to some extent pre-empted my Amendment 23, but we will come to that shortly. I am most grateful to the Minister for his response to Amendments 19 and 20 because it has given me a certain amount of comfort. I shall read what he said with great interest, but I look forward to not having to press him to bring in regulations later to right some mistakes in what will then be the Act. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Control and management of infrastructure
(1) Once constructed, the operation of the infrastructure of Phase One of High Speed 2 shall be controlled by the network system operator.(2) Once Phase One of High Speed 2 is operational, the infrastructure managers of Phase One of High Speed 2 shall have a duty to seek to work together with infrastructure managers on the rest of the UK rail network, as relevant, in relation to timetabling, temporary closures, enhancements and technical issues in order to seek to provide a reliable, cost effective and convenient structure to support passenger and freight services on the Phase One of High Speed 2 route.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, again, I shall try to be quick. This amendment possibly links to what my noble friend Lord Rosser just mentioned. Noble Lords will be aware that Network Rail is in the process of restructuring itself into regions or zones, or whatever you might call them, with more autonomy over what it can do, and how it can make changes to timetables, maintenance and things like that. The plan is to create a control centre in Milton Keynes so that all the timetables for the whole country are integrated and you do not find problems at frontiers, which one is always worried about. The plan is that you will not find, as happened about 10 years ago, that the only two lines between England and Scotland are closed on the same weekend and there happens to be a rugby match on in Scotland. That was not very clever, and that was without separate regions or zones. Something needs to be done. Network Rail is going ahead with this, and I am sure that it will work fine.
It is the infrastructure that is being built under this legislation—we are not talking about trains much. We do not know yet who the infrastructure manager for HS2 will be; perhaps the noble Lord can give us some thoughts on that, but it does not really matter for the moment. The purpose of this amendment is to make sure that HS2 and the rail network talk to each other and work together. I have seen examples of this not happening in the past. In previous discussions with HS2 about timetables, it said, “When we get to the end of our line, it is up to Network Rail to timetable it”. I said, “Yeah, but you have to talk to each other, otherwise your trains will stop at a red signal and Network Rail won’t come along until the next week or whatever”. It is a simple thing, but they have to talk to each other. I am sure they will want to, but perhaps commercial pressures will mean that certain lines are closed on one day, and the other operator will want to close their lines at the same time. In this amendment, therefore, I am trying to argue that, whoever is the infrastructure manager for HS2, the timetabling, maintenance, closures and everything else must be integrated with the Network Rail operation and organisation system in Milton Keynes so that we end up with one network being run. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, again, I note very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has suggested. I cannot disagree with his sentiments about the need for and emphasis on an integrated approach; indeed, we perhaps touched on it in the previous debate in response to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. HS2 services will run on Network Rail’s infrastructure as well as on the new railway. I assure the noble Lord that the management of the HS2 infrastructure and HS2 train operators will need to work closely with Network Rail and other train operating companies to manage all operational interfaces. As he suggested, work on the timetabling is an important part of that, and is already very much part of considerations.
In addition to day-to-day rail operations, and as the noble Lord alluded to, co-operation will be needed in respect of the wider network roles undertaken on the railway by Network Rail. He raised the issue of a rugby match in Scotland. I am not a rugby fan but I am a football fan, and therefore can imagine having to face a similar challenge. This is a frustration that arises for many people, not just sports fans—when you are visiting family and friends up and down the country, you want to know that there is an integrated approach to the railways. Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord that part of co-operation with Network Rail includes long-term planning, timetabling and co-ordinating network-wide responses, particularly at times of major work or disruption. The need for infrastructure managers to work together and co-ordinate was also emphasised by the noble Lord. He will be aware, as will others here this afternoon, that that is already addressed under the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016. I hope that, given the assurances I have provided, and following reflection on the regulations I have pointed to, the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rosser
Can I be clear about what the Government’s intentions are, or whether they have still to be determined? Is the Minister saying that once HS2, or at least the first part of it, has been built—we are talking about that part of the track which is unique to HS2—there will be no involvement of Network Rail in the maintenance and upkeep of that track?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am not sure that the noble Lord heard me correctly. I am saying that an integrated approach to future management will be required as regards the new track, the existing tracks run by Network Rail and those who operate the new services on HS2. The noble Lord is fully aware that Network Rail currently has responsibility for the rail network of the country. As I said, operators need to work in an integrated fashion across the network and to have common objectives, whether it is Network Rail or another company running a franchise on a particular line. I cannot go further than that except to say that these common objectives are aligned under the specific regulation to which I have alluded.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for most of that response although we may come back to some of it on a later amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Disapplication of regulation 25 of Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016
Regulation 25 (Declaration of specialised infrastructure) of the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016 does not apply to new infrastructure for the use of trains on the Phase One of High Speed 2 route.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, the Minister kindly referred to the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016. This is another probing amendment to ask whether the Government intend that the High Speed 2 line should be declared a specialist infrastructure, which is allowed under these regulations. Regulation 25 states that the purpose of such a declaration is so that priority can be given,
“to that specified type of rail service in the allocation of infrastructure capacity”.
That all sounds fine, but it could become anti-competitive. That is certainly the case in many parts of the continent. I assume that more than one train operator may win the franchise, or whatever it is, to operate trains on HS2. I believe the Government’s intention at the moment is to have the west coast franchise on the west coast main line but also to operate the trains on HS2 as one franchise, which I think is a very good idea. Even so, there should be no need to give that operator priority over anyone else who might want to run trains on these lines—for example, an open-access operator.
Again, you have the problem that the Government, who probably not only own the infrastructure but also may have a financial link with the franchising process or perhaps a commercial link with the train operator, may want to give priority to their own operator. The latter may be in competition with an independent operator that wants to run trains on the relevant line. We have this situation on the existing network on the east coast main line and the west coast main line, and the regulator tries to ensure that there is fair play. I hope that would also happen in this case, but I would be very pleased to hear the Minister’s views on whether the Government have thought this through yet. I do not think that this has anything to do with who operates the infrastructure that we discussed a few minutes ago, because it is a question of the allocation of capacity and who gets priority. It is a very interesting question which will probably need further debate at some time. In the meantime I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, with respect to this amendment, I should note that it is slightly at odds with the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, seeking that the existing regulatory regime should apply to HS2. He referred to a particular provision; the provision in question enables the HS2 infrastructure manager to designate the railway as specialist infrastructure and thereby prioritise the type of rail services that have access to it. I know that the noble Lord and I, and others, have discussed before his keen support for the freight industry—indeed, his commitment to and passion for it. I fully recognise that. The business case for HS2, as the noble Lord is aware, is in supporting a significant level of public investment in HS2 to be used for high-speed passenger services. Each freight path on HS2 would use up to five passenger paths and cause significant delay and disruption to the planned operation of services, and in turn the business case for HS2. Running freight overnight would also not be possible, given the need to carry out the intense regular maintenance that this high-speed line will require overnight. Let us not forget the strict noise commitments that HS2 will work within, which do not include freight use of the line at night.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, knows, the real prize for the freight industry, if I may term it thus, will be the additional opportunities for freight services on the existing network once HS2 frees up capacity. The use of this released capacity will be determined via existing industry processes. Initial illustrative work suggests that once HS2 commences operation, it is not unreasonable to assume that between 20 and 26 additional rail freight paths per day could be made available on parts of the west coast main line.
Decisions regarding the appropriate operational commercial structure for HS2 will not be, and do not need to be, taken until we are much closer to the operation of the railway. We will consider whether HS2 or Network Rail should discharge that function.
Revisiting this issue, which I know the noble Lord has raised previously, illustrates that while the primary purpose behind building HS2 is focused on passenger services, there is a benefit to be had for the freight industry as well. I hope that he is therefore minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving me that update on the freight situation. My amendment did not actually mention freight; I mentioned the open access passenger operator, but I take his point. This is something to discuss and keep warm. I thank him very much and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“No financial or managerial link between rail infrastructure owner and train operating company
No owner of the rail infrastructure connected with Phase One of High Speed 2 may have any financial or managerial link with any company with a licence to operate trains on that route.”
Lord Berkeley
To some extent, one or two of my noble friends have already alluded to the matter in Amendment 23. Are we to have a vertically-integrated high-speed line or not? It links with some of the previous amendments we have had. At the moment, the legislation says that you shall have separate organisations running the infrastructure from those which operate trains on it, be they passenger or freight. Having got the legislation right, the need and desire for them to talk to each other is absolutely fundamental. It has been tried with alliances: South West Trains was probably the first one. It is interesting that that alliance ended after four years because they said that it did not bring any benefit, but they were talking to each other anyway.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the noble Lord did mention freight on this occasion, but I will not go beyond the mere mention of his mention. In both tabling his amendment and in his subsequent contribution, he has answered the amendment that he has proposed. I can merely confirm what he has already shared with noble Lords: such connections between infrastructure owners and train-operating companies are already prohibited under the existing regulatory regime. However, as I have already said, and as the noble Lord and other noble Lords have acknowledged, an important element is that we see greater integration in the setting of common objectives of those who run the infrastructure and those who run the train services. I hope that with that reassurance, the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“High Speed 2 trains to have flexible space
All trains procured to operate passenger services on the Phase One of High Speed 2 route must be provided with flexible space covering at least 10% of the internal floor area of the train for the use of cycles, pushchairs and small items of freight.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am sorry to go on so long but we are nearly getting to the end.
Noble Lords may wonder why we have tabled this amendment. For the last 20 years we have had freight trains and passenger trains. They are separate, regulated separately if they are regulated, and they mostly operate on the same tracks. More recently, there has been greater pressure on passenger trains to carry bicycles—obviously, wheelchairs are allowed for anyway—but they have also started to take small packets of freight. I think many Ministers have agreed that that is a good way of getting small consignments off the road and on to rail at very little marginal cost. It happens on the midland main line now, with parcels, medical samples and things like that, and as noble Lords may know, it happens with crabs and lobsters from the West Country—Penzance—some of which are alive. That is extremely successful.
There is a lot of pressure from some people in the industry, both on the freight and the passenger side, to develop this quite dramatically. Eventually, you could use an old multiple unit train, put roll cages in there, take it up to a main line station and deliver things in a very much more environmentally friendly way than you could by running big lorries in all the way. However, there is a half-way stage of not having enough volume to justify a complete train but having more volume than goes in a suitcase.
It would be interesting to explore whether Ministers think that all new trains—of course, the trains in this amendment will have to be the High Speed 2 ones, although I hope it could be extended—would have some flexible space. At night, when there is not much traffic, there could perhaps be freight in the end coach; in the daytime there could be bicycles—there is a big demand for carrying bicycles; and for anything else that comes along, they could still have flap-down seats when not too many people need to stand.
This is therefore an opportunity to look at the design of coaches again with regard to a changing demand for both passenger and freight. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley
The noble Lord is tempting me to get on to the issue of guards, which I shall not do. The answer is yes—but it is not for the guard but for other things. But there are not many left.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I recall the old luggage vans, although the Minister is far too young to remember things like that. I was travelling on a train in Australia a couple of years ago which still had a luggage van, and it was used for two things. First, it was used for people to put long-distance small packages on. They were not travelling on the train themselves; they were simply sending their package. That might be a company or a private individual. It was also used in the same way as we check our luggage on to an aeroplane—you checked your luggage on to the train. It transformed the experience of sitting on a crammed carriage with people jockeying for position with their luggage. I fully accept that that model is probably not acceptable or appropriate in the UK, but we need to move on from our fatal tendency to cram as many seats into the space as possible while ignoring the requirements for luggage space. I am sure that your Lordships will all have sat on a so-called express train to an airport—by definition in a scenario where you are likely to have quite a lot of luggage—and seen people sitting with large suitcases on their laps because there is absolutely no space left in the tiny amount of room allocated for luggage on those trains.
I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, because I think that we need to be more far-sighted on this. His suggestion on flip-down seats is extremely interesting and a useful compromise, because it provides seats where they are needed, when flexible space is not needed, allowing for change in future. Buggies are not going to go away. People are going to go on having children and using buggies and needing to put them on trains.
I want to use this opportunity to explore the issue of wheelchair space. By legislation, there will be such a space, but the Minister will remember that we had the discussion on the Bus Services Bill about what happens when two people in wheelchairs wish to travel together. Wheelchair spaces are very often a solitary allowance, so flexible space would allow additional space for wheelchair users. HS2 will be an absolute boon for wheelchair users; the current railway system is often difficult for people in wheelchairs to navigate, if not impossible. Air travel is very difficult for them. Many people in wheelchairs simply cannot drive a car. So this will be a huge opportunity for wheelchair users to undertake long-distance travel in comfort, and we need to ensure that the trains are designed in such a way that they are flexible enough to accommodate more than one wheelchair user at a time in a carriage.
Given that there has been so much publicity lately about the availability of toilet facilities for people with disabilities—noble Lords will recall the very distressing story of one of our Paralympic athletes who was put in a very undignified position by the fact that the sole disabled toilet on the train was not functioning—can the Minister clarify that these trains will have a modern and respectable level of toilet facilities for disabled people? I would like to feel that all the toilets were accessible for disabled people. By the time it is built, it will be the middle of the 21st century, and we really cannot have only a single available toilet on a train.
Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley are well taken, particularly in respect of facilities for the disabled, flexible space for carrying light freight and proper facilities for families and those looking after young children. There has been a tendency on the part of the railways to move in the Japanese direction of regarding freight and luggage as a bad thing and making it almost impossible for passengers to carry such items in comfort. I do not think that that is a direction in which we want to go.
However, the area where I am more doubtful is about facilities on high-speed trains or the next generation of trains in general for the carrying of bicycles. It is not that there should not perhaps be some facility at the margin for doing so—though I am not sure, even with the great wisdom and expertise of your Lordships’ House, that trying to design a train by committee is a good idea, so the figure of 10% that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has specified might be a bit too precise. If there is spare luggage space on a train that is suitable for carrying bikes, then that is fine. But the real issue in terms of encouraging much more bicycle use in relation to trains—which is out of all proportion more important than the capacity to carry bikes on trains themselves, which will only ever be marginal, particularly with very busy trains loading and unloading hundreds of people at a time—is decent cycle storage and rental facilities at stations, so that passengers do not need to convey bikes on the train in the first place. With the best will in the world, you are only ever going to be able to carry a handful of bikes on trains, but you can have thousands of bicycles, either privately owned or for rental, provided for at stations. By and large, our mainline stations, which were not designed for bicycles or indeed anything else modern, including in most cases decent retail facilities, have lamentable facilities for storing bikes. It is a telling indication of the big problems that we have in managing bicycles, even with all the improvements in London, that the cycle rental scheme does not embrace most London termini, because how to deal with the big issues of location and of shipping bikes backwards and forwards has not yet been worked out.
The contrast with best European practice in this area could not be more stark. I shall never forget visiting Amsterdam station and other major stations in Holland. Where you come out of the station, you have huge areas reserved for bikes, including rental schemes, along with bike workshops, so that you can get repairs done, and proper supervised bike facilities. It is a completely different situation from the one we have here. We are not yet at the stage of detailed station design plans for HS2 but I hope that, when it comes to the design of these hugely forward-looking stations that we want to see at Euston, Old Oak Common, Birmingham Curzon Street and other locations going north, there will be exemplary facilities for cyclists with significant space made available for cycle storage, repairs and rental schemes. In terms of a path-breaking approach to integrating cycling with railway use, seeing that there are state-of-the-art and capacious cycle facilities at stations is far more important than any provision that it might be possible to make in respect of the trains.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, as somebody who puts his Brompton bike on a train every day when I come here, I partly disagree with my noble friend, not on the substance of the point that he makes—that we cannot accommodate hundreds of bicycles on the train; there is a balance to be struck—but in that there are a significant number of people like myself who ride to the station and put their folding bike on the train and then get off at the other end and cycle a bit further. The other usage that I have is on my annual cycle tour, when I do want to take a bike on a long-distance journey on a train. At the moment, the facilities are very limited; you have to reserve in advance, which is probably what will obtain. While I agree with my noble friend that trying to design a train by committee is not a wise thing to do, it is wise to have this debate and raise these issues, which are important.
I certainly concur with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on disability. It is not just about the number of wheelchairs—it is about ensuring that you have level surfaces so that you can go from platform to train in an easy and effective manner, rather than what you see at the moment. I think that we briefly raised that in one of the Select Committee sittings, but I am not absolutely sure about that. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Bradshaw
Just to have a bit of up-to-date experience, I always travel on the bus in the morning. Yesterday, there was one wheelchair, three buggies and two ladies with wheeled trolleys. The driver should not have taken them, but he did. As time goes on, we are going to have to get round this issue of flexible space—perhaps it is a little more sophisticated than using tip-up seats. We have to adjust what we have got to take account of the traffic on offer.
Lord Rosser
Can the Minister provide an assurance— I am sure that he will be able to—that these facilities will be available on the high-speed trains, including for wheelchair users, and that there is no possibility whatever of anyone seeking to argue that, since other services will be running between Birmingham and London, Manchester and London and Leeds and London, on what is described as the classic network, people with bicycles, wheelchair users and people with pushchairs will have to go on those services rather than on HS2?
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very useful debate, which gives us the opportunity to explain exactly what is going on and what is planned.
With respect to the amendment, I can assure noble Lords up front that, in procuring the rolling stock for HS2, we will be fully mindful of the need to ensure access for all and to improve overall passenger comfort. That, of course, includes giving consideration to the needs of people with disabilities, cyclists and parents with pushchairs, as well as the need to provide adequate space for luggage. I should say straightaway that it brings to mind—certainly to me—the contrast in thinking over time from when the Gatwick Express came into use, which my noble friend Lady O’Cathain has referred to in your Lordships’ House. There is a dreadful lack of facilities for people to manage their luggage, which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has also referred to. Times and thought processes have changed, and the Government have taken that very much on board. Indeed, when the Heathrow Express came into service, I think we all clapped our hands when we discovered that on that train we have amazing space for luggage. It makes the whole difference, making what can be a nightmare journey into a very comfortable journey. The Government are very mindful of that. In fact, my noble friend the Minister has said to me that he has had the experience of getting on to one of the Crossrail trains that is being adapted on this basis—with, for example, flip-down seats—to make the whole process of being more flexible a possibility.
Baroness Buscombe
Oh! I beg your pardon. My noble friend has confirmed that he actually drove the train.
The good news is that we are already consulting with user groups as we consider the design requirements for the rolling stock to include freight and, yes, parcel logistic operators—a very helpful point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. That is proof that, over time, requirements change and we have to be flexible. Of course, this is why we do not want to be tied down by putting it in the legislation. I say from a lawyer’s standpoint that the sooner one pinpoints too carefully how things should be, the more one is constrained. Flexibility is important. We are also holding detailed discussions with the market to see what is practically possible. It is only through this extensive testing of the market and understanding of passenger need that we will be able to understand the correct specification. In any case, although I recognise the importance of the issue, noble Lords have amplified this afternoon the reasons why we need to keep this flexible.
One or two other important points were raised by noble Lords; for example, relating to the provision of decent toilet facilities. The Government are taking that very seriously. In fact, there will be a briefing session with the industry in the next two weeks to discuss this very issue and to ensure that there are more than adequate toilet facilities, bearing very much in mind the need for those with disabilities to be able to cope properly and comfortably on these trains. I hope noble Lords will accept that the whole issue of disability has developed so much more than in the old days, when it was impossible for anyone with a disability or in a wheelchair to contemplate travelling by train. This is very much at the forefront of HS2 and the Government’s mind in terms of the proposals going forward.
On that basis, I hope noble Lords will accept that we are doing everything we can think of to prepare for the future specification of the rolling stock for HS2. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about cycle provision, I would add that the detailed design of stations has not yet started, but I reassure noble Lords that best-in-case cycle provision examples have been looked at and the need to provide for cyclists will be fully integrated into station designs. I very much hope that the noble Lord will feel more assured by what we have said this afternoon and withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed and to the Minister for her response. My noble friend Lord Adonis was absolutely right about what happens in Amsterdam. There are several different stories of enormous great buildings of bicycles, but bicycles are also allowed to be carried on trains—I think there might be a charge for them. That allows cyclists to be flexible: they can leave their bicycle at the station and get another one at the end of the journey or, as my noble friend Lord Young pointed out, they can take their own bicycle on holiday if they want to. We need to be flexible and I think that our discussions this afternoon have gone some way towards that.
We must also recognise that, yes, HS2 will be a lovely service, but it will be a commuter service to start with—Birmingham to London. It will probably be not that different from any other commuter service, except the trains will hopefully be a bit nicer and might go a bit faster, and sometimes you will be able to look out because you will not be in a tunnel. However, the facilities will be the same and passengers will do the journey every day. They might want to take a buggy or pram or wheelchair or anything else, but I do not think that the design is that much different from any other modern commuter service train in other parts of the country.
I have to challenge the Minister on this. I think she confirmed that we are not going down the route of having an appraisal methodology, which requires good value for money. This means that you have to have as many bums on seats as possible, crammed sideways and frontways, to get some Treasury-induced figure to justify it. It would be much better to have some flexible seats. I do not know whether flip-down seats are included in the Treasury’s methodology but I hope that we can move on from that. I have got the impression that there are to be some rather nice trains with lots of flexible space, so on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Timetable for new railway and affected existing routes
Within 12 months of the passing of this Act, HS2 Ltd must publish a comprehensive and detailed working timetable for the railway approved by this Act and for all the routes of the existing railway network that will carry through trains or whose services will be affected by the new railway, in order to—(a) illustrate the offer of service that travellers between any relevant pair of stations can expect at its opening,(b) identify the paths that will be available for freight trains,(c) demonstrate the operational practicality and robustness of its plans, (d) provide data for a reworking of the business case, should the findings require that, and(e) enable an informed debate about the proposals and their implications.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, this is my last amendment in this section and it is to do with timetabling. Again, we had this experience with Crossrail and the great western route. We were pressing for a long time, saying, “You’re adding extra trains on to the great western. Where will all the freight trains and the intercities go, as you’re not building any more tracks?”. I said they had to produce a timetable. The first timetable produced for the great western between Reading and London was wonderful but it had only Crossrail trains on it. They said, “That’s the timetable” and I said, “What about the other trains?”. They said, “Oh, we haven’t put them on”. I said, “If you’re running a railway, you’ve got to put every train on the timetable. Don’t be silly, go away and do it again”. After about a couple of years, they came back and said. “Here it is”.
I gave their timetable to my experts and said, “Is the freight capacity that the Government have committed to on the timetable?”. They said, “Well, you’ve got 22 freight trains a day on it and you asked for 26”. I said, “Where are the others?”. They said, “Crossrail says they are on the timetable”. They were, but for a different line that went across the great western route on a bridge, so it was completely irrelevant. I got pretty angry then and said, “Can they go the other way?”. They said, “We haven’t checked that but it’s on the timetable”. They were adamant that they had to get priority for the Crossrail trains to Reading on the slow lines. They really wanted all the other trains to go on the fast lines. I got as far as telling some Members of Parliament in Cardiff and Bristol that they were going to have one train an hour and not two, because Crossrail was going to take all the paths. Eventually, the infrastructure manager was told by the Government to do a comprehensive timetable, which is Network Rail’s job. That is what should happen.
Here, we have HS2 and the west coast main line. As I said on Tuesday, you have six tracks at Handsacre junction going into three for a bit, so there may be a traffic jam of trains. It is reasonable to have a draft timetable produced either by HS2 or Network Rail, or hopefully by both, to demonstrate how many of the trains that everybody wants to run can actually run up there. I argued against Handsacre on Tuesday but if it happens, we have to have a timetable because otherwise something will go wrong. It should be up to the regulator to decide which trains have priority and who can run them.
This is very much a probing amendment. The Minister may say that it is happening already, although I would slightly challenge that. If it is not, perhaps he could say a few words to the relevant people to make sure that it does happen quite quickly and that there is good consultation with all the operators. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, unless I mistook what was going on, I have a feeling that the Minister has already replied to this amendment. I feel that the reply he gave to Amendment 22 was in fact a reply to Amendment 24A, hence the reference to freight paths and to keeping arrangements flexible in advance and not making commitments this far out. It may be that he has more to add on these issues.
I would make just two points. It is not clear to me why my noble friend thinks that publishing a draft timetable nine years before the line opens is a good idea. This would build up a whole set of debates, expectations and controversies long before the likely pattern of demand and usage is clear. Was there some particular reason why he was so keen that this work should be done so far in advance of the opening of HS2?
The second point that the Minister replied to earlier was about freight use, but of course it is not envisaged that there will be any freight paths on HS2. Perhaps my noble friend will say why he thinks there should be, because the released capacity on the west coast main line will provide very significant additional freight opportunities, and of course freight trains do not run at the speeds achieved by passenger trains, so they would significantly disrupt the operation of the high-speed service if they operated during the day. Moreover, as the Minister also said earlier, I understand that the custom and practice on most high-speed lines is that maintenance work will be done overnight and it is therefore essential that the lines can be closed for that purpose. So I was not quite sure about some of the points made by my noble friend—why he wants either to set these in stone now, or in the case of freight, to build up expectations that there would be freight services on this line, which is quite unlikely to be the case.
Lord Framlingham
My Lords, I rise briefly to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and to support what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is trying to say. This is a long and complicated process and however far in advance one talks about timetables, surely there is little point in building something if it will not deliver what one wants at the end of the day. One must look at the end as well as the beginning to make sure that one gets the system right.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, just to be clear, the illustrative timetables have been published already and, indeed, have been a part of the business case. What my noble friend’s amendment refers to is a comprehensive and detailed working timetable, which, as I say, will greatly build up the expectations of those who will benefit and lead to big and controversial campaigns by those who will not. In some areas, particularly with regard to freight trains, I am assuming that they would not feature in any event.
Lord Framlingham
I hate to labour the point. I can understand why detailed timetables would not be wanted, but surely identifying possible bottlenecks and flaws well in advance is absolutely essential.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. Perhaps I may say that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is correct in saying that much of this has already been responded to in speaking to Amendment 22. However, I can understand and empathise with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, as to where he is coming from in the need to ensure that thought is being given to the timetables. Indeed, dare I say it, I recall the experience of when Reading station was opened by Network Rail and there were no timetables for half of the stations. The service was extremely unreliable and uncertain, so experience encourages one to consider these issues with care to ensure that the Government are thinking all this through.
I am pleased to say that, as set out in a Treasury minute published on 19 December last year, the Government have already committed to developing an integrated train plan for the entire west coast corridor from 2019 and will consult on that plan. This work will be led by the recently announced West Coast Partnership franchise. It would not be possible to do the work earlier as the West Coast Partnership will not be in place until 2018.
The key point is that a number of well-established statutory and regulatory procedures are in use on the railway to ensure that timetables are developed in a considered and structured way. This amendment appears to cut across that process, and given that the Government have already committed to a timeframe for a timetable, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment as, again, we feel that it is not necessary; in fact, it would be otiose to legislate.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. Indeed, I was not aware of the Treasury paper, which is good news and rather justifies me tabling the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, may be wondering why the Treasury is moving so early. He said that a timetable is needed for the business case and yes, of course it is needed to build a new line. I am not talking in particular about freight on the high-speed line. If that does develop, it could run at night, but it is not that significant. However, for the west coast main line, a lot of people will be looking for business cases to work out how they will respond not only to the west coast franchise but to other franchises and freight. Ministers have said for many years that there will be so much space on the west coast main line that you will be able to run a lot of freight trains, and we hope that that is true. However, I recall that, a few years ago, other Ministers promised services on the west coast main line with a 10-minute frequency, non-stop from Milton Keynes. The number of non-stop services from the constituencies of particular Members of Parliament can cause a bit of congestion near London.
As the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, said, if any investment is required—even for just a small set of points or something like that—it takes a long time. We can debate why, but it does. In particular, if a freight service that goes up the west coast main line wants to run a new service between a port and an inland terminal and signs a contract with a customer for 10 years, it will want some comfort that it will be able to run that train for 10 years. Unlike passenger services, which can run when they are empty if they are told to, a freight train will not run unless it is full. It is therefore good news that the process has started, and I shall follow it with great interest. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Rosser
I will make a point on Clause 53, which, if I have understood correctly, is one of the clauses that is covered in the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It may be that the Government have already given their response, in which case I would be grateful if the Minister could remind me what it was, particularly bearing in mind that the report was published on 16 November. However, my question is purely to ask where we are with the Government’s response to that committee’s report. With regard to two particular paragraphs, have the Government responded and, if not, will they, or it is up to us to put something down on Report if we want to go down the road suggested?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am just checking as I do not have a response. However, the Government will respond and we intend to publish that before Report.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Berkeley
“Complaints Commissioner
(1) Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must appoint a Complaints Commissioner. (2) The role of the Complaints Commissioner shall be to receive and deal with complaints about any part of the works authorised by this Act.(3) Each year, the Complaints Commissioner must prepare and publish a report on the activities of the Commissioner during that year.(4) Each report must be submitted to the Secretary of State, who must lay the report before each House of Parliament.”
Lord Berkeley
This is a probing amendment to find out from Ministers whether we intend to have the same kind of complaints commissioner as we did for Crossrail, HS1 and the Channel Tunnel, whose role was to receive any complaints from the public, local authorities or anyone else located near construction activities. That system worked well, and the commissioners produced an annual report. On one or two of those projects, the Minister of Transport of the day used to chair a meeting where everybody could come along and the complaints commissioner could give his report. That is one way of doing it, if it was thought necessary. I believe the Minister said that there is going to be a complaints commissioner, in which case I am very happy. If there is not, perhaps he would consider it as a really good way of stopping complaints escalating unnecessarily into nasty local press stories and resolving them instead. I beg to move.
Baroness Pidding
My Lords, I have amendments in this group to which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, has also added his name. Before speaking to those amendments, I remind noble Lords of my declaration of interest recorded when I spoke on Tuesday.
A point I made at Second Reading is that an ongoing theme throughout the process of this Bill has been the scarcity of meaningful scrutiny of HS2 Ltd and the apparent lack of trust that residents have in the current system. My amendments would provide for a completely independent regulatory body to review and monitor progress during construction and to hold HS2 Ltd to account to deliver what has been promised in terms of environmental and other mitigations. This body would also be able to act, with teeth, when there are problems during the construction period—for instance, if the code of construction practice is not being adhered to correctly.
Unfortunately, there are concerns that the construction commissioner will not have the remit or capacity to monitor such a large project effectively. Indeed, a permanent construction commissioner has not yet been appointed and, as far as I am aware, no supporting staff are yet in place. Independent scrutiny by an independent body will be critical, perhaps with a panel with relevant expertise and, most importantly, enforcement powers.
The importance of the history of this project cannot be underestimated. HS2 Ltd has consistently been criticised for its poor engagement, as evidenced in the reports of the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Residents are rightly fearful that they may end up doing the policing themselves and may be at the mercy of poor communication and conduct for many years as construction is carried out.
Currently, many residents have such little faith in HS2 Ltd that they go straight to their Members of Parliament, local authorities or action groups for assistance. Up to this point, there has been scarce belief that complaints will be dealt with swiftly or fairly by HS2 Ltd. This is why an independent body is so important to restoring this trust and ensuring that residents are not left high and dry. This is already proving a problem in my local area, where HS2 contractors are failing to clean up after themselves following their initial groundwork investigations, causing significant mess and hazardous conditions on local roads in Chalfont St Giles. Predictably, once again the burden has fallen on local authorities, which have to deal with this at their own expense. Residents were forced to go to their local councillors and MP to complain, as they were simply unaware of any other route by which to escalate the issue. A wall was badly damaged by a contractor’s lorry in the same area. Although that situation is now being sorted out, there is little to no reassurance locally that such issues will be resolved fairly without influence from HS2 Ltd.
I am also very concerned that environmental measures may not be put in place appropriately if there is no one to enforce them. HS2 and its contractors, while required to adopt measures to reduce the adverse environmental effects reported in the environmental statement, only have to do so,
“provided that such measures are reasonably practicable and do not add unreasonable cost or delay to the construction or operation of the project”.
In effect, this could give the nominated undertaker a “get out of jail free card”. Presumably, it could be frequently argued that almost any environmental mitigation could cause delays to the project and add cost, which would therefore not be “reasonably practicable” to implement.
Similar amendments to these were put to a vote in the other place by the right honourable Cheryl Gillan. Although they did not pass, I believe that it is more important than ever to ensure that we get it right in this House to ensure that residents are fully protected.
My amendments provide for a truly independent body—a body with teeth—to take this project in hand and make sure that it is built properly and to the highest standards. Perhaps the body could also report regularly to Parliament on the progress of construction and make any appropriate recommendations. If HS2 or its contractors do not comply with requirements, there should be recourse and a means of meaningful enforcement. I do not accept that this role is covered in the remit of the construction commissioner—that is simply not the case. The project has desperately needed close scrutiny and independent oversight for many years, and it is time to ensure that the residents affected by it are not let down anymore.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, we need something to deal with this issue, whatever form that “something” takes, and we need it to be independent and to have a responsibility to provide reports and analysis of the issues and problems as they occur.
The committee’s report is very critical of the record of HS2 so far. The committee said:
“The promoter has attracted a good deal of criticism from some petitioners for lack of engagement”.
HS2 Ltd has now made a commitment to put in place a strategy for community engagement, including for vulnerable residents, and has employed someone to deal with community engagement and complaints. However, it has a lot of ground to make up in terms of public trust. Indeed, the final amendment that the Minister put forward in our previous debate, which was a last-minute change of approach in terms of traffic regulation, does not inspire one with confidence that the Government are looking ahead at what they need, or if they are looking ahead, that they have raised the issue in time for full consultation on it. I am not sure which of those two scenarios is the more disturbing. As I say, HS2 has ground to make up. Throughout the project residents have a right to expect a good, simple, straightforward and independent process when concerns arise and they have complaints. I believe that a similar process was followed in relation to Crossrail. However it is done, we need intelligent mediation on this.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for not being present at Tuesday’s Committee debate due to private reasons. I have subsequently read the report of the proceedings and very much appreciate the contributions made by my noble friends Lady Mallalieu, Lady Young and Lord Rosser. I particularly appreciate the Minister’s contribution as he covered some of the points I would have made had I been present, and did so very well. Of course, now that he has declared that he is a would-be train driver, I am sure that he will be disqualified from any future activities with regard to transport, but while we have him, we should cherish him.
I declare my interest as a resident of Little Missenden in the Chilterns AONB. I have also been involved in some of the campaigns associated with Little Missenden. My private interests were dealt with during a sitting of the Select Committee in your Lordships’ House. However, I think that, to the extent to which they were able to help, those matters are extinguished. Therefore, I am not dealing here with private interests but with the fallout from the issues that occur to me as a Member of your Lordships’ House in relation to some of the processes that I have been able to observe from a variety of positions.
I am speaking to Amendment 30, dealing with a complaints commissioner; to Amendment 31, in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding; and to the associated amendments relating to those. Amendments 30 and 31 relate to issues that stem from some of the processes that have been established to try to progress the Bill through a hybrid arrangement. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, made a very good speech in which she tried to identify where the gaps occur from a local perspective. I should have mentioned in my opening remarks that I thank her for speaking on Tuesday on another amendment. Noble Lords may not be aware that she rushed here, almost straight from the airport, and had not even unpacked before she arrived, and yet she was still able to give a very substantial speech, and I thank her for that.
The process we have been through reveals the need for either a complaints commissioner or an adjudicator. I absolutely agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on these issues. During the Select Committee phase, the focus is on the personal interests of those who are directly affected by the Bill. The problem is that, even if you are trying to argue a more general public interest case, what you can do is narrowed down by the fact that the opening position and arrangements against which those presentations are made relate to your residence and propinquity to the line.
I am conscious that there are members of the Select Committee here today, and I do not in any sense want to do anything to suggest that I do not hold them in the highest regard or do not think that the report was an excellent summary of the work that they did. However, I found it a very difficult experience, and I am not an inexperienced public speaker. If I found it difficult, it is fair to say that other petitioners will have found it the same. It is a very adversarial process, focusing on private interests, and therefore mitigation, rather than on the broader issues that exist. There is no equality of arms because the process is done in a court-like setting with very highly trained, and presumably quite expensive, advocates against you.
The particularity of the situation in the Lords was that the committee, for reasons that I understand, had decided that it would not hear cases that involved alternative provisions. That meant that most of those who wished to speak, certainly those from the Chilterns, felt that they could not raise all the issues they wanted to. I could go on—I could mention that the lack of action groups and the reliance on parish councils was reflected, but I do not wish to get into that area. I just want that to be noted as the background. Looking back at the process, it seems to me that important issues have fallen by the side. It is not clear to me how those can be picked up, except through this process. This process is dealing with the public aspects of the Bill, but it engages with issues that could be regarded as private, even though they are germane.
I appreciate that this is quite a difficult point to get across and I have no doubt that I will be attacked for it. However, there is a gap around the need to regard what local expertise and understanding can bring to the broader picture. That is not the same as private interests. The issues faced by those trying to petition the Select Committee were no different from the issues faced by those arguing more generally against the Bill.
The Bill will go through—there is no question but that the Government will get their Bill. Therefore, it is now a question of how best to improve it for the future for all people. However, in the absence of the ability to get direct cost information about what is involved, we were constantly frustrated. How could it be that decisions were being reached that balanced the direct costs of building part of the railway and the adverse costs that would occur if the environment were destroyed? This obviously applies to the Chilterns, but there are other areas in which this is also a responsibility. We could not get that cost information: we lacked the ability to do so through the private sector and we have not been able to do it in any public way. That is a problem. I am not saying that were the information to be made available it would change anything, but we cannot get it and the decision is not transparent. There is no information available in the public sector about the trade-off that needs to be made—as I understand it, through the legislative process—between the responsibilities the Government have to maintain AONBs and the need to have the infrastructure of a railway. I have come to terms with the fact that there will be a railway and it will go through the Chilterns. However, I do not have the information to understand better the mechanics of how a decision was reached that it was too expensive to continue the tunnel past Wendover, for example.
There are some difficulties here. It may be that the review which is to be carried out on how we deal with these issues and how lines are to be built will pick up on the point, although I certainly understand that it is probably too late to look at this particular railway. But I want to put on the record that, from my experience, there are difficulties here.
My real point is one I mentioned earlier. It is about the way in which local experience about the problems and the pinch points cannot be built into the process. Some very good examples were given to the Committee in the sitting on Tuesday. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in what was a series of powerful and appropriate contributions, talked about the tunnelling at Wendover and the issues that have arisen from knowledge about a cheaper version which simply is not being discussed, along with the issues at Doddershall and Quainton. As the noble Viscount explained, these are all extremely pertinent in the local context, but there are wider issues about whether they are the better solution to the problems being faced by the proprietor in putting forward the railway. Like the noble Viscount, I do not understand how it is that these decisions are taken in the absence of information and in the absence of a process under which better interrogation could take place.
I shall mention two or three other matters although I do not wish to go into any detail and I am not looking to the Minister to make a response to them. However, I have been copied into correspondence from people living near Savay Lake and Savay Farm, which I know the committee heard about at length. As I say, I do not wish to go into the detail, but it seems that there may be a miscarriage here which is of an extent that might require, for instance, an independent adjudicator to take some interest in further down the line. That is why I support the proposal. The question about the haul road in Great Missenden for which there seemed a solution brokered outside the Select Committee in order to ensure that there would be a programme to mitigate the damage to Great Missenden collapsed and there seems to be no way to retrieve it because the system simply does not provide an opportunity to do so.
All these issues—there are others; I could mention the question of more issues closer to Great Missenden at Hyde Heath and further up the line as referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor—show that the detail is not needed to make the general point that there is no body, no person, likely to be able to take account of redress where there is environmental impact as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, or impacts on communities which occur after the Act is passed but during the process and before the line is opened. That is because the system does not seem to permit it. It will be, as it were, cast in concrete as soon as the Bill gets through. That seems wrong and therefore I agree absolutely with the idea that there should be some form of complaints commission. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, made the right point when she said that we need something with teeth, and therefore her proposal for an independent adjudicator may be the right way forward.
Before I close on this perhaps I may mention a point that was raised by my noble friend Lord Rosser on Tuesday. Many of the complaints that arose in the original hearings and in both Select Committees were about compensation. I think we have all had experience of how difficult that can be to apply. There is a proposal which I would commend to the Minister to take on board. I do not think that it could necessarily be available on this project, but it might be appropriate for phase 2. It could be of more general interest and I would ask him to take it away because I am not looking for a response today. It stems from a Private Member’s Bill tabled around 18 months ago in the other place. The idea is a property bond approach through a substantial fund that would be controlled by a mutual on the basis that where a person has a property which is affected by some form of infrastructure arrangement, it would not be necessary for the promoters of the scheme to provide a direct contribution towards the replacement costs should that property be required. There is too much detail for me to go through at this point in the proceedings, but I would like to leave the proposal with the Minister and I am happy to write to him and attend meetings if he feels that it is worth following up.
The difficulty that has bedevilled all the compensation schemes in the Chilterns has been around propensity to the line. Setting an arbitrary figure of so many metres before someone can qualify for one or other of the various arrangements was always going to cause problems, and that is a general observation rather than applying just to this line. If it could be possible to arrange matters, perhaps through some form of mutual obligation on all property owners, so that anyone affected by waterworks activity, electricity, railways and roads is covered for the diminution in the value of their property because of the works, that would lift a huge weight from those who are affected by infrastructure arrangements and, I think, it would help the Government to gain support for their projects. The proposal comes under the general idea of a property bond, but it is really related to the blighting effect of infrastructure projects. I commend it to those who might be interested and I will be happy to follow it up later.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, I do not know where to start on the amendment after that omnibus. However, first, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, I do not think that having another independent adjudicator as well as the complaints commissioner is a good idea. It will confuse the situation. I agree with her on the substance of the point: a complaints commissioner should be appointed, as one will be, and that individual should have teeth. However, we really need to correct the notion that there is a “get out of jail free” card simply because we occasionally see a reference to doing everything practically possible in relation to the environment and that there are no requirements on HS2’s contractors to take care of the environment. Hundreds and hundreds of assurances have been given and they really have to be adhered to. I have said that many times to petitioners. We had petitioners from Camden who said, “Oh, there are a few assurances”. There were 100 assurances given to Camden Council and I pleaded with them to look at what is already available. We went over the environmental concerns meticulously. There is not an animal or insect that we have not considered, from hedgehogs to crested newts and barn owls or whatever, and rightly so. We paid them a lot of attention.
It is unfortunate that my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara was not here on Tuesday because we had the same allegation from the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that we did not debate this. We did: it did not matter whether they were additional provisions, we debated them at length many times. As for the costing, we did not take the word of the contractors or the promoters. We looked carefully, by an independent assessment, to see whether that could justify their view of extending the tunnel. Do not forget that this tunnel has been significantly extended, as a result of the debate in the Commons, and at significant expense. My noble friend shakes his head; I do not know why. It is not enough because we know what the objective is. He wants to tunnel right the way through it but did not achieve that objective. As for the idea that my noble friend somehow could not make his case, I find that hard to understand. He had plenty of opportunity.
On the idea that we in the Select Committee would somehow pay more attention to the barristers, believe me: we were bored out of our skulls by barristers on many occasions and often paid more attention to people who represented their case effectively, whether they were from the parish council or just individuals. The main thing they had to do was to focus on what they wanted the Select Committee to do, and when they did we supported them. In many cases, that was on compensation as well. It really is wrong to tell this Committee that somehow we did not have an opportunity to look at these issues. We did, again and again. In fact, it is probably lucky that I was not chairing it because I would have been more ruthless. We allowed lots and lots of people to present their case, including in locus standi hearings. We made sure that whether it was on environment or noise, or whatever it was, we gave people the opportunity to make their case—not just once but on many occasions.
It should not be suggested to this Committee that individual petitioners somehow had not had an opportunity to present their case or were browbeaten by the barristers. Of course it was a robust environment; I do not deny that but we took account of it and listened carefully. My noble friend shrugs his shoulders; I do not know whether that means that he disputes the integrity of the committee or our attempts to give a fair hearing to petitioners. I do not know why he does that.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I made it perfectly clear that I was in no sense criticising the committee. Obviously, I have let the noble Lord speak, but I was trying to say that there was a gap in the ability of those who wished to make points broader than their private interests, the cause of which obviously did not lie with the committee. I am not blaming the committee, which did exceptional work, and was fantastic. I felt—the noble Lord, Lord Young, can read the transcript; he was there—that I could not say the things I wanted to say. Indeed, the chairman stopped me and said, kindly, that he was taking account of my experience and presence in the House, and would listen to me, but that he wanted me to stop. I cut out two pages of what I was going to say. I am not saying that it was good or bad—it just happened. I am trying to get behind that to say that the committee’s process did not engage sufficiently with the issues that could have been considered. I am trying to play back to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, as I think that that will continue, and in the future an independent adjudicator would be a good thing.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I am afraid that we will have to agree to disagree, because they did have the opportunity to make wider points on many issues. On the fact that my noble friend was stopped from speaking, I cannot remember precisely why, but it may well be that we had heard those points on many occasions and reiteration did not necessarily produce a better impact for the committee. However, again, I refute the idea that my noble friend is promoting: that this was an unfair environment in which petitioners were not able to address the wider case. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker, was meticulous in allowing people to develop the whole case even though we had heard the same issue on many occasions, whether it was the requirement for extra tunnelling or a whole range of issues. Inevitably, if you look at the geography of the petitioners, we heard the same case again and again.
I am not saying that the Select Committee procedure was perfect but I refute that petitioners did not have the opportunity to make their case and address the wider issues. They did. We heard them and wherever we could, if anything, we leaned towards the petitioners. We knew that if people had taken the time and trouble to come to Westminster to make their case, they were entitled to a fair hearing. In fact, the pressure was more on the promoters to prove that the petitioners were wrong than the other way round.
Baroness O'Cathain
My Lords, I must correct two points that my noble friend made. The first was that the HS2 people did not communicate with the residents of various places. They held meetings and sent leaflets and the response was totally pathetic, particularly in the Camden area. It is not unreasonable to think that the response would be pathetic, because we were talking about something that would not go through their patch for seven years, so people thought, “I can’t really be bothered”. That was the information we got from HS2, and the petitioners did not correct us on it.
Secondly, on a point I made on Tuesday, in numerical terms we had over 100 meetings and produced a 60,000-word report, and the verbatim of all those meetings is available. It would be jolly nice if noble Lords tried to look at the various areas about which petitioners now say, “Well, of course they didn’t listen” or “They didn’t do this”. We bent over backwards, to the extent that sometimes I felt that HS2 would get fed up with the committee members trying to understand the various differences between the petitioners. There was just one QC who flung the file at Mr Mould, the HS2 barrister, because he simply could not understand his way of thinking, and that was wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, has explained it completely. I feel utterly traduced, having spent all that time on it. We worked from May through to December, relentlessly, four days a week. We did our best. The noble Lord and I were both worn out. I think I remember him saying, “If I die, Wendover will be written on my heart.” On another occasion, he said, “If I ever hear of Wendover again, I will go mad.” We spent hours on Wendover, and on the Chilterns—and then the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said that there should not be a tunnel anyway because the people who travel on the train want to see the scenery. To hear this kind of thing after all the work we have done frankly made me want to give up. I lost the will to live at one stage. It had an effect on us. We were getting colds. We were tired. Our weekends were spent in a daze wondering how to recover. I am not trying to plead a special case, but to hear this sort of stuff coming out is not at all rewarding to people who went there, unpaid, and gave up a huge amount of their private life for it.
Lord Berkeley
Noble Lords will be aware that there was a consultation on the hybrid Bill procedure, which closed just before Christmas and on which the clerks can provide us all with details. I think that is the forum for discussing how the procedure works, whether improvements could be made, whether everybody was treated fairly, and so on. I suspect it will be the first of a number of inquiries. We all learn from these processes, but I am not sure that today’s Committee is the right forum in which to discuss them in detail.
Lord Framlingham
My Lords, in a sense this goes to the point I was trying to make when we first started about the function of this Committee. We are dealing with a huge, modern project within a Victorian legislative system, which will be improved in time—but not in time to take care of the problems that face us. We all ought to bear that in mind. I, like every other member of this Committee, I am sure, have no wish to denigrate the work of the Select Committee. We acknowledge all the hours its members put in and what they went through. But if this Committee today is to have any function or usefulness at all, then it has to deal with and reflect on what they thought, what we think and how things should go forward.
We are talking about the biggest infrastructure project this country will ever undertake. It is an enormous project. The work involved will have a huge impact on both the urban and rural environment. Surely we must leave no stone unturned to ensure that it is correct. The Select Committee may think it has done that, but if anybody has more concerns, as we have today, they should be able to express them. This project is going to last for years. It will affect thousands of people’s lives for years in all sorts of ways. It is all right having a complaints system but complaints happen after the result, when the damage is done.
I am talking today about awareness: making HS2 aware of its obligations from the beginning and having someone—an adjudicator, or whatever you want to call it—to keep an eye on it from the beginning. People also need to be reassured that the adjudicator, or whatever official we decide upon, will support and defend their interests. I declare my own interest: I have always been interested in trees. I am an ex-president of the Arboricultural Association and I like ancient woodlands. Believe you me, an hour’s work with a JCB in the wrong place will do untold and irreparable damage that no amount of money, apologies, complaints or acceptance of responsibility by HS2 will put right. From the very beginning, if it is to work at all—I still do not want it to go ahead—there must be an awareness on both sides. That means, on the part of HS2, an awareness of its obligations on every little detail so that the general public are reassured that their interests will be properly defended. What structure or person that would need, be it an adjudicator or whatever we like to call it, I am not sure, but that mechanism must somehow be put in place.
Lord Rosser
Perhaps I may raise one or two points on the issue that is set out in the amendment, which as I understand it is about the procedure for dealing with issues that people have during the construction process and what kind of redress is available to them. I raise this in the context of asking the Minister to clarify what those processes will be. I shall start with the context set out in the summary of the Select Committee’s report, which states:
“As the railway is constructed over the coming years, it will be imperative that the promoter engages effectively with all interested parties to ensure that, as far as possible, disruption and inconvenience are kept to a minimum. In this regard, the promoter faces an enormous task and we cannot stress enough the importance of effective and timely public engagement, something which, we were told time and again, could be improved upon”.
As an example of what I am asking, I refer to paragraphs 155 to 157 of the committee’s report. These relate to an issue which, as far as I am personally concerned, is fairly close to home; about a third of a mile, to be precise. The committee states at paragraph 155 that it had,
“heard some powerful and entirely credible evidence about traffic congestion in Ickenham”,
while paragraph 156 states:
“That is the background against which, as we are satisfied, the promoter has made determined and realistic efforts to reduce the numbers of HGV movements on the roads of Ickenham. The promoter’s original estimate was of 1,860 two-way HGV movements a day. That has been progressively improved, first to 1,460, then to 1,060, and finally to 550 two-way HGV movements a day. That last figure appears in the assurance (in terms of “reasonable endeavours”) embodied in clause 7 of the draft contract giving effect to the agreement mentioned in paragraph 150 above. It is expressed as a limit of 550 HGV movements a day at Swakeleys Roundabout and, as a separate undertaking, a reduction (“so far as reasonably practicable”) in the number of HGVs using the roundabout at peak morning and evening hours on weekdays”.
The committee goes on to say:
“This remarkable improvement in the target, although obviously welcome, has been criticised by some petitioners as having emerged only at a late stage, after much uncertainty, and as still having an element of contingency”.
I have no doubt that it was not only as a result of the representations made but from the questioning and the interest taken in it by the committee, which were probably quite significant factors in getting the numbers down.
I use this simply as an example for the question that I want to raise. If, for example, residents in the area—it could apply to any area—where commitments have been given have suspicions that rather more than 550 HGV movements are taking place, I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what redress those residents would have in that context. They have made representations and obviously have had help from the committee, but what happens if, when the work starts, they subsequently feel that the commitments are not being adhered to? What redress can those residents take, or what could they seek to obtain?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to these amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and my noble friend Lady Pidding. The Government share the concerns that noble Lords have highlighted through the tabling of this amendment, and I fully acknowledge the importance of residents and businesses along the route knowing they can seek fair and independent resolution of complaints, if necessary—the word “independent” has come up several times, as it is important.
I will immediately address points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I hope that he will recognise, as indeed he said in his speech this afternoon, that the Minister addressed a number of the issues that the noble Lord raised this afternoon during our first day in Committee on Tuesday. However, I shall quickly reference a couple of things he talked about. One is with regard to engagement on wider issues. While he is correct that the Select Committee focuses on private interests, there has been frequent consultation on the scheme at a detailed level, even as it evolved and changed through additional provisions. Consultation responses, which numbered nearly 23,000, were analysed and reported on by an independent assessor appointed by Parliament. Six reports are available in the House Library for the noble Lord to consider. In addition, the noble Lord referenced property bonds, which I shall refer to. I hope he will be reassured by the fact that we will review the full suite of HS2 discretionary compensation schemes later this year, and as part of that, I can confirm that we will consider arguments with regard to a property bond option.
I acknowledge several helpful interventions made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, and my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, in amplifying, illustrating and helping us through this process by referencing so much that took place during that whole process when they sat on that Select Committee. We must be mindful of the enormous amount of work that they achieved and of course the considerable care they took to ensure that people were genuinely listened to.
The Government want to reassure noble Lords that these amendments are unnecessary, as we are already putting in place comprehensive measures to address these concerns in the guise of a construction commissioner. The construction commissioner will fulfil the requirements that noble Lords are seeking in their proposed amendments, and more besides. The commissioner will mediate in unresolved disputes between the project and individuals or bodies relating to the construction of HS2 and will be able to receive and deal with complaints about the construction of the railway on an independent and impartial basis. Furthermore, the commissioner will have a role on advising on actions the nominated undertaker and contractors can take to reduce the number of complaints they receive. The commissioner will also have a particular role in determining complaints which are made under the small claims scheme—this point makes immediate reference to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—which provides a simple and informal basis to recover losses up to £10,000 for each individual claim.
The construction commissioner will be independent of the Secretary of State and any nominated undertaker appointed to construct the proposed scheme. We have already appointed an interim construction commissioner, Mr Gareth Epps. A permanent appointment—to reassure my noble friend Lady Pidding—will be made following Royal Assent, when the Secretary of State will establish an independent body to appoint the construction commissioner and determine its precise terms of reference, including its regular reporting requirements. The independent body will be made up of a range of stakeholders, including representatives of local authorities affected by HS2 phase one. The commitment to appoint a construction commissioner is a binding one, made to Parliament and recorded in the register of undertakings and assurances. Given that we are already addressing this issue, I hope that noble Lords will accept that legislation is unnecessary and not press this proposed new clause.
With respect to the issue of an independent adjudicator, I note that this amendment was previously tabled during the Public Bill Committee in another place. I am not convinced on the need for an HS2 adjudicator. There are already extensive checks and balances built into the Bill, based on the regime adopted by Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The regime has proved effective for those projects and we see no reason why it would not be effective for this project. This issue was raised before your Lordships’ Select Committee, which also saw no need to impose such a role. I do not believe that this Committee should either.
This amendment, as well as being unnecessary, is unwelcome, as it would effectively create a quango with all the unnecessary cost and bureaucracy that this would entail. I cannot resist citing the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who, at the beginning of this afternoon’s Committee, said on his second amendment that he is not in favour of creating an enormous bureaucratic nightmare. These amendments would create just that.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister’s peroration but, while I understand the point about the construction commissioner, who may well solve a lot of the difficulties raised today, who is going to take responsibility once construction is completed for ongoing concerns and issues? She mentioned current practices in Crossrail, which may have a resonance for us. Without having to spend too much time today, perhaps it would be possible for her to write with details of what that might contain for us.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, in response to the noble Lord’s question, it will continue to be the construction commissioner. In fact, if I could continue my response to noble Lords it would perhaps be helpful.
There are a considerable amount of checks and balances already established by the Bill and the environmental statement, which protect the natural environment and communities from the impact of construction works. The Bill sets out the detailed controls and planning approvals needed for construction works, such as the limits on land that can be taken for the railway and where and how works can be constructed. There is also a strict envelope of environmental impacts within which HS2 has to be built or it does not have planning permission. Furthermore, there are requirements for the Government to gain approval from local authorities under the planning regime on specific issues, including the approval of construction traffic routes.
Additional commitments have been made during the parliamentary process: literally thousands of individual undertakings and assurances that are a matter of public record. These commitments are either legally enforceable through the courts or matters for which the Secretary of State will be answerable to Parliament if there is any breach of them. These commitments also include those relating to the environmental minimum requirements, which have been developed in consultation with local authorities and others. The code of construction practice, which forms part of these commitments, sets out detailed standards of work that will be adopted by contractors throughout the construction period to control potential impacts on people, businesses and the natural and historic environment. This code also sets out the mechanisms that will be used to engage with the local community and their representatives throughout the construction period.
Let us not forget all the existing legislation that will continue to apply during the construction of HS2. This includes the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which give necessary roles to statutory bodies that will all play a role in regulating HS2. The Freedom of Information Act and all its requirements will, of course, continue to apply to the Department for Transport and to HS2 Ltd. These existing protections will be reinforced by the dual roles of the residents commissioner and the construction commissioner. The residents commissioner ensures that the Government are communicating with affected residents in the clearest and plainest language possible. The role of the construction commissioner is to mediate unresolved disputes between HS2 Ltd and individuals or bodies and to provide independent, impartial decisions.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
The Minister has comprehensively covered most of the territory, but I want to address the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, and my noble friend Lord Rosser raised. There is a code of practice, and they have had the communication—hopefully, because they were not always as good as they should be on that, which is why we made that comment—but there is also the 24-hour helpline. This is the first recourse that people have. If something is going wrong—for instance, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, if a resident wishes to complain that they were told there would be only 500 lorries but 1,000 have already passed through—there is an immediate requirement for the contractor to respond and to take remedial action. If it fails to do so, then the matter can be taken to the construction commissioner. What people are concerned about, and what we have heard about time and time again and rightly so, is whether what is on paper will happen in practice, and the noble Baroness gave some examples. We must ensure that HS2 abides by the terms and meets the commitments, part of which is that immediate response.
Baroness Buscombe
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. He is absolutely right that there will be a 24-hour helpline and dedicated community liaison officers there to assist and respond to people’s concerns. I hope that, following this debate and the helpful interventions, noble Lords will accept that we believe that we should avoid creating unnecessarily what would amount to a quango. I hope, therefore, that these amendments will be withdrawn.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her response and to colleagues for their comments. My intention in putting down this amendment was to probe what has already been done and I am fully satisfied. I did not want to build up a big, bureaucratic exercise. It worked very well on previous projects and I am sure it will work well today, given the right will. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
““deposited statement” has the meaning given by subsection (5);”
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
“2_ In section 7(2)(acquisition of airspace), for paragraphs (a) and (b) substitute—“(a) Schedule 2A to the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (counter-notice requiring purchase of land not in notice to treat);(b) Schedule A1 to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 (corresponding provision in case of general vesting declaration);(c) section 153(4A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (blighted land: proposed acquisition of part interest; material detriment test).”2A_ In section 8(2)(acquisition of subsoil or under-surface), for paragraphs (a) and (b) substitute—“(a) Schedule 2A to the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (counter-notice requiring purchase of land not in notice to treat);(b) Schedule A1 to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 (corresponding provision in case of general vesting declaration);(c) section 153(4A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (blighted land: proposed acquisition of part interest; material detriment test).””
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, as noble Lords know, the Bill applies the statutory compulsory acquisition regime to enable the land required for the railway to be acquired. However, the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which was recently considered by your Lordships’ House, made some amendments to that regime and how it operates. The amendments tabled in my name to Schedule 14 update the Bill to take account of the amendments included within the Housing and Planning Act 2016. As such they are technical in nature and merely bring this Bill into line with the Housing and Planning Act 2016. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
(a) in a case where the notice to treat relates only to one or more of the following—(i) the acquisition of subsoil or undersurface of land, where the subsoil or undersurface lies more than 9 metres below the surface;(ii) the acquisition of airspace over land;(iii) an easement, restrictive covenant or other right over land;for “3 months” substitute “1 month”, and(b) after “11A(4)” insert “or (6) and (7)”.”
(a) in subsection (1)(a), after “land” insert “under that provision”,(b) in subsection (2), after “land” insert “under that provision, to the extent that the newly identified person is the owner, lessee or occupier of the land,”,(c) in subsection (4)(a), for “14 days” substitute “7 days”, and(d) at the end insert—“(5) Subsections (6) and (7) apply for the purposes of determining the period to be specified in the notice of entry under section 11(1) served on the newly identified person in a case where subsection (4) does not apply.(6) The period specified in the notice must be—(a) in a case where the notice to treat relates only to one or more of the following—(i) the acquisition of subsoil or under- surface of land, where the subsoil or undersurface lies more than 9 metres below the surface;(ii) the acquisition of airspace over land;(iii) an easement, restrictive covenant or other right over land;a period that ends no earlier than the end of the period of 7 days beginning with the day on which the notice of entry is served, and(b) in any other case, a period that ends no earlier than the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice of entry is served.(7) The period specified in the notice must end no earlier than the end of the period specified in any previous notice of entry given by the acquiring authority in respect of the land.””
(a) omit paragraphs 1(2) and 14(2), and(b) at the end insert—“PART 4INTERPRETATION30_ In this Schedule, references to entering on and taking possession of land do not include doing so under Schedule 16 to the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017 (temporary possession and use of land).””
“DUTY OF CARE AND LIABILITY OF SECRETARY OF STATE 1 The Secretary of State and the nominated undertaker, and their contractors and sub-contractors, are, when dealing with persons whose land is subject to the exercise of powers under sections 4 to 19 or whose land is otherwise affected by the construction of the scheduled works, subject to a general duty of care to those persons.2 The general duty of care includes requirements to—(a) act fairly and in good faith at all times;(b) minimise so far as reasonably practicable the acquisition and temporary occupation of land of third parties;(c) minimise so far as reasonably practicable the impact on third parties of the carrying out of the scheduled works;(d) act transparently;(e) for not less than five years after the completion of the scheduled works, provide an information and assistance service for those affected by the scheduled works;(f) pay fair compensation promptly;(g) consult affected persons before and during any process of compulsory acquisition;(h) provide accommodation works during the construction of the scheduled works where reasonably required.3 Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary between the Secretary of State and the nominated undertaker or any contractor or sub-contractor, the Secretary of State is liable to third parties for the actions of the nominated undertaker and his or its contractors and sub-contractors in exercising the powers conferred by this Act and carrying out the scheduled works. 4 It is the duty of the Complaints Commissioner appointed by the Secretary of State under section (Complaints Commissioner) to determine how the Secretary of State and the nominated undertaker must observe the general duty of care created by this Schedule.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I beg to move this amendment standing in my name. I realise that my following remarks risk throwing petrol on an already blazing flame and that my great friend and former colleague my noble friend Lord Young will probably never speak to me again. However, I say again that I fully acknowledge that the committee did exactly what was required of it and went to extraordinary lengths and made a huge personal commitment in doing so. In no sense was anything I said on the earlier amendments meant to imply anything other than huge admiration for what it has done. I hope that point is well taken. However, I was trying—obviously ineffectively—to argue that the work of the committee, however good, could never address the sorts of issues that I was trying to articulate as they concerned private interests.
I follow the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, in saying that a 19th century Victorian approach to dealing with the vested interests of private landowners is being used in a situation where it is completely inappropriate. It is not in any sense the committee’s fault that we are today talking about the issues that it may feel it knocked on the head and put to bed. There are still issues out there and they were raised by my new friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, because she has experience, as I have, of how they will operate in practice. This issue is about structure.
I have submitted evidence on all this to the committee that was set up to look at hybrid Bills. I hope that it will consider that evidence as we go forward. Why have we not had an opportunity to discuss the committee’s report? That could still be done. It is the biggest gap of all. As I understand it, there is no procedure as regards discussing the excellent report, which I have read. I have looked at every piece of evidence the committee received and I have read every transcript of the events, so I am not unaware of its work. I almost died but I did it. However, the report will never be discussed. That seems an extraordinary lacuna in the process of looking at the Bill. It needs to be picked up because there are things in the report which ought to be brought out and discussed. There are things which perhaps we could agree to disagree about but at least they could be aired and ventilated in a discussion. That is a terrible mistake. I move on.
My last point concerns an issue that came up and reflects points made on it both today and on Tuesday.
Lord Framlingham
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but he was not here on Tuesday, when I think that the Minister gave us assurances that the response to the report will be available before the Report stage.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I have taken note of and am aware of that, but a response is not a debate. While of course I am looking forward to the response and will read it with considerable interest, it will not give us the opportunity to debate and discuss all the other issues, and that is disappointing.
The amendment before us asks whether a duty of care should be placed on the promoter and the nominated undertaker in relation to the acquisition of land by compulsory purchase and associated issues. The reason for tabling it stems from our discussions on questions of how HS2 has been dealing with the people with whom it has to engage around the acquisition of land in preparation for the construction phase. It is clear that the ability to purchase land compulsorily should always be used with a sense of great responsibility and as a last resort. The ability to purchase the property of another against their will is a really substantial power and one hopes that it will be used and exercised with care.
When the Bill before us today receives Royal Assent, HS2 Ltd will have compulsory purchase powers. However, many people feel that the organisation has not really earned the right to move ahead in the way it has done because of how it has operated before in terms of dealing with them. Those most affected by the scheme seem to be the most upset about it, and that is obviously a concern which perhaps will be picked up by better and more informed engagement, but the more that people push top-down on engagement, possibly the less effective it will be. This duty of care is not about disrupting or delaying the Bill—we are not in any sense trying to do that—but introducing a set of standards against which HS2 Ltd can be judged; that is, how is it treating those who are losing land or property to the scheme?
Examples which have led to this amendment have been reported to me and I am happy to share them with the Minister if he wishes me to do so. I am keeping them neutral at this stage, but there is evidence to back up what I am saying. Examples include landowners finding out about significant changes to the design of a scheme only once the information has been released to the public. In some cases, landowners have had meetings with HS2 representatives only shortly before changes were announced, but at which it was denied that any changes were forthcoming. There has been a refusal to engage in extensive discussions with landowners, and that is obviously very frustrating. If adaptations to the design are going to be made, previous plans will not necessarily follow. This has often meant that almost fake meetings have been set up where discussions have been held, but it was clear that another agenda was in place which had not been revealed to the landowner.
There are examples of the failure to pay properly for access to land. Some landowners have agreed to allow HS2 Ltd access on the basis of a fee, but those fees have still not been paid. That seems to be a very poor practice. Some sense of a duty of care being overseen by an independent complaints commission of the type talked about by the noble Baroness when she addressed the last amendment may be a way forward on this, and I am sure would help, but it may mean that the whole process needs to be stiffened by having a formal duty of care. I do not think that this should be seen as being in any way bureaucratic, because obviously that is not allowed. It also should not be seen as in any sense a way of slowing down the scheme. In fact, in some ways a duty of care might actually set standards that would improve the quality of the process between landowners and HS2 Ltd. It is important to look at whether that might be the right way forward.
There is a lot of uncertainty up and down the line about how much land will finally be taken, for how long, on what basis it will be paid for, and how the timing of those payments will work out. This is not helping in terms of making the scheme a success. It would be sensible to have the basic structure of a duty of care as provided for in this amendment, which I commend. I beg to move.
Lord Rosser
In part, the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, relates to an issue I have asked about previously, which is also contained in the Select Committee’s report on page 97, on permanent or temporary land take. Certainly, the Country Land and Business Association, for example, believes that HS2 is seeking powers to take land permanently which it needs only temporarily, and that this is leading to a highly unsatisfactory situation. I would be grateful if the Minister can reconfirm what I believe he has already said, that when the Government come to respond to the Select Committee’s report, they will address what the Select Committee had to say on the issue of permanent or temporary land take, on pages 97 to 99 of that report. It may well be that, in the light of what the Government have to say, an amendment on this issue will need to be pursued on Report. Therefore, I want that assurance that those paragraphs which the Select Committee included on permanent or temporary land take will be commented on in the Government’s reply.
I appreciate that I am stretching things a bit in raising this, but the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, asked a question earlier about the moving of the portals of the tunnel at Euston. I too have had an email which said that there is a suggestion that staff at HS2 Ltd have indicated that consideration is being given to moving the portals of the tunnel from which the proposed high speed line will emerge to the west of Euston station, about one kilometre nearer to the station. Can the Minister say whether that is correct and whether consideration is being given to this?
Lord Berkeley
To add to that, I have also heard that same rumour from some of the local residents. It is particularly unfortunate if we hear stories like that from residents and we cannot get the answer from Ministers, so I am sure that the Minister will do his best to respond.
On the compulsory purchase and compensation side, I have heard allegations that some of the land subject to compulsory purchase in the Old Oak Common area will be allocated or transferred to a separate company—many of the directors of HS2 seem also to be on its board—and then used for, shall we say, non-railway purposes. Surely compulsory purchase for railway schemes is designed for railway purposes, but if this is to be used for other purposes, it begs a lot of questions as to whether that is an appropriate methodology. If the Minister cannot answer that this afternoon, I am sure he could write to me, if that will be possible.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his contributions, and the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Berkeley, for their questions. To take the final issue first, because that is quite a specific matter, I will write to the noble Lord. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised the issue of what had been heard from residents. I appreciate that that has been received in a positive light and that is taking place, and I hope that that addresses one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised on that.
On the proposal for the duty of care, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that he had read all elements of the Select Committee’s reports, and we shall of course be testing him on his verbatim knowledge of them at the end of this afternoon’s proceedings—I shall not hold him to that. I am sure that he recognises— I have said this several times, but I shall not tire of saying so—that the Select Committees in both Houses looked at this issue closely among other areas, and the proposal for a duty of care was considered.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, again rightly raised the specific issue promoted by the Country Land and Business Association in its petitions. Let me assure both noble Lords that this matter received lengthy hearings and the Government have now given more than a dozen assurances to the association in response to its concerns. The noble Lord referred specifically to the Select Committee report in this regard, as set out on pages 97 to 99. As I have said previously and will now repeat, we shall respond to those points when we publish our response to the report next week. However, notwithstanding what I have just said, there were no specific recommendations from either committee on the need for such a duty.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, may well know, the compensation code which I alluded to in our debates on Tuesday, is both understood and has been developed over time. It has been further refined through the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Furthermore, the Government are already working to an existing commitment, reinforced by several assurances on the formal register, to minimise likely areas of permanent and temporary land take where it is practicable to do so. We have also developed a series of environmental minimum requirements, while the code of construction practice already provides a series of protections for those who may be affected by the construction of the scheme. It is already the case that, if contractors engaged in the construction of the railway fall foul of the expected standard of reasonable care and skill, they will find themselves exposed to claims of negligence which will be actionable through the courts in the ordinary way.
To prevent the need for people to seek redress through the courts, as my noble friend Lady Buscombe mentioned in her response to the previous debate, the Government have provided an alternative remedy in the form of the role of the construction commissioner who is able to receive and deal with on an independent and impartial basis any complaints about the construction of the railway. As my noble friend has already said, the commissioner has a particular role in determining complaints that are made under the small claims scheme, which provides a simple and informal basis to recover losses of up to £10,000 for each individual claim. To emphasise that point, the construction commissioner will also be independent of the Secretary of State and any nominated undertaker appointed to construct the proposed scheme.
Wider protections are already included in the Bill, such as the enforcement of planning controls, which will rest in the ordinary way with the responsible planning authorities. We have talked during our various debates today about the important role that local planning authorities and related agencies will have as we build and construct HS2. I am sure that noble Lords will also be aware that previous hybrid Acts referred to in our debate, such as the Crossrail Act and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act, did not include the provision of a duty of care to ensure that those affected by the construction of these projects were sufficiently protected. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured by what I have said and is therefore minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank the Minister for that full response. I think that one would be more inclined to accept it if there was a good record of engagement on the part of HS2 Ltd across the range of the piece that we have been talking about today and which I am sure was touched on last Tuesday, but of course the reality is that that is not the case. There have been too many mistakes, too many issues, too much neglect and too much arrogance in terms of assuming that people will just go along with what is being said. These are all words that have been used to me, and I am sure that they are not strange to the Minister’s ears. The point is that this is something that really does have to be handled carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I think this is the last amendment of the day. My reason for putting this down was to probe the rather obscure wording in Schedule 17 that allows in the included ancillary matters the,
“handling of re-useable spoil or topsoil”.
I am not sure what that means—perhaps the Minister can help me to define it. For me, the word “spoil” could include all the material coming out of a 10-mile-long tunnel bore—probably several million tonnes. If HS2 is to be allowed to deposit this stuff wherever it likes because it can give itself planning permission, that does not seem a good idea to me. Maybe it does not cover such large volumes, and it will just be small bits of excavation here or there which do not matter very much. Paragraphs (2)(b) to (g) include what are normal construction activities, such as storage sites for construction materials, construction camps, works screening, lighting and dust suppression. I feel comfortable with their being in the schedule. However, the word “spoil” hit me, and I wondered what it included. If the Minister cannot answer that question today, he can always write to me. It is not the end of the world, but it would just be nice to know. I can always bring it back on Report if I have to. On that basis, I beg to move.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, it is important that I get this right. This amendment seeks to restrict the ability of a local planning authority to consider the handling of topsoil or other reusable spoil when being asked to approve construction arrangements. Matters over which local authorities—who have requested to be nominated as qualifying authorities—have a right of approval or have enforcement over have been the subject of a tried and tested practice that has worked well on both the Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel rail link projects.
I say to noble Lords, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that my impression was that the amendment is linked to Amendment 17, which dealt with restrictions on lorries and road use for the removal of soil and topsoil. We discussed those similar issues when dealing with that amendment earlier this afternoon. The issue relates to storage; for example, of spoil, which is then reusable, as well as topsoil. For example, we spoke on Tuesday about the whole issue of woodland. It is important, where possible, that HS2 has an ability to allow those who will plant the trees to use reusable topsoil—some of which is precious, not least for the regeneration of wildlife and so on—around ancient woodland and new woodland, where it can be transferred. Therefore, on the meaning of “reusable spoil and topsoil” there is nothing one should worry too much about.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I think I can be of some help, because we had significant discussions on this issue. Some of the spoil is indeed reusable—for building embankments, for example. Other types, such as slurry, are not particularly reusable. We had a lot of debates on this because some petitioners were convinced that the promoter had got it wrong and that they did not have to transport some of this spoil over a distance. However, they did; they needed to get it to a site because it had the right components to enable it to be used for building embankments. This is a complex issue. Certainly, however, contractors do not have the right to dump loads of spoil wherever they like—that will be highly controlled and regulated. I hope that has been of some help.
Baroness Buscombe
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for his very helpful intervention. In addition, local authorities will of course be best placed to decide where best to store the reusable soil, whether it be spoil or topsoil. The important point also to make, and which I hope will reassure the noble Lord, is that the nominated undertaker would be required to get disposal plans approved by qualifying local authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, it would not be possible for contractors just to dump it or leave it anywhere they felt like. I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am very grateful to the Minister. I had hoped that that would be the answer and it gives me great comfort. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
House of Lords
Death of a Former Member: Lord Goodhart
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of Lord Goodhart on 10 January. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and friends.
European Union: Freedom of Movement
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the free movement of persons for work and other purposes is provided for in the treaties and CJEU case law and largely governed by the free movement directive. All member states are bound by this directive, including the UK, and implement this through their respective domestic legislation. The directive sets out that in order for an EU citizen to reside in another member state beyond three months, they must be exercising a treaty right; that is, working, self-employed, self-sufficient or a student.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, has the Minister’s Answer not got to the nub of this? The three-month practice is what most countries in the EU follow—namely, that you can stay for three months and, if you have not got a job by then, off you go. We do not do that. Surely if we adhered to the same practice as most other EU countries we would be in a much better position to negotiate a sensible way forward.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government do not comment on other member states’ implementation of the free movement directive. We are about to begin these negotiations and it would wrong to set out our position in advance, but the Government are clear that at every step of these negotiations we will work to ensure the best possible outcome for the UK.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I have been reading in the newspapers that the EU is demanding that we will have to give free movement of labour in return for access to the single market, but the United States has access to the single market and I am sure that it does not give free movement of labour between Europe and the United States.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, that will certainly be determined in negotiations as we exit the EU.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister, rather than answering a question she was not asked, answer the question she was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs? He asked why we do not now apply the three-month rule, not what we will apply when we have a new relationship. I understand that she is not prepared to say that, but will she now answer his question and say whether she thinks that if we decided now to start applying it we would put ourselves in a much better position when we start the negotiations?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I think I did answer the noble Lord’s question. Each member state implements the free movement directive through their respective domestic legislation, all of which have different nuances within them.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that confirmation that EU law on free movement is sound and not a charter for layabouts or benefit scroungers and that, if the strict conditions for eligibility are not enforced, that is a failure not of Brussels but of the UK Government and notably the Home Office, which the Prime Minister presided over for six years. Will the Minister offer the further reassurance that EU free movers contribute enormously to our economy, to the Treasury and to our society, and that it is a two-way street, with millions of UK citizens having taken advantage of EU free movement rights?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I do not disagree at all that the EU free movers contribute to the economy. We were talking yesterday about doctors, nurses and various other people who contribute to the public sector. I cannot remember the first part of the question, but I think I answered it previously. Each country enshrines the free movement directive in its own legislation.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, if the noble Baroness will not comment on the detail of discussions in response to my noble friend Lord Dubs, can I repeat the question I asked her on 30 November? Do the Government make any distinction between the free movement of persons and the free movement of labour? Could she answer without conferring?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am not entirely sure, but all those distinctions and discussions that will be taking place will be solidified in the fullness of time as we go through this process.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
Will the 180-day tax residency rule be applied, with all those working in nation states paying their taxes in the countries in which they are resident?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
All people who are resident in a country for more than a certain number of days a year are liable to pay the taxes of that country.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Does not the fascinating Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, reveal that the so-called absolute—fundamental freedom of movement of labour—is not fundamental at all? There are all sorts of variations developing, particularly under modern movement conditions. Does the Minister accept that those who keep arguing that this is a binary choice between absolute freedom and being in the single market simply have not grasped the reality of the situation at all?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend raises the point about different countries’ implementation of the directive although we have not, as a Government, done a comparative analysis. However, he is absolutely right.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness write to me, and put a copy of her letter in the Library, setting out in detail the Government’s reason for failing to implement and for failing to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lord Dubs?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, it is not a failure to implement; it is a difference in each country’s implementation of its legislation. This country is more than generous in its implementation of that directive.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, after Brexit, why will we not be like the 168 other countries on the planet which have not made the mistake of joining the EU and which simply decide for themselves who comes in, how long they stay and on what conditions?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as we exit the European Union, one of the balances to be struck is about controlling immigration and at the same time ensuring that we have the skills in this country needed to meet our economy.
Brexit: Trade Arrangements
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Wood of Anfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure continuity and stability in trading arrangements for United Kingdom businesses in the period between the conclusion of the Article 50 Brexit negotiations and the commencement of new trade arrangements between the European Union and the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, we want a smooth and orderly exit from the EU, and to provide certainty where we can. How the Government achieve that will depend on the nature of the agreement reached with the EU, but it would not be in the interests of either side—Britain or the EU—to see disruption. The Government are considering all possible options, focusing on the mutual interests of our own country and of the EU.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that familiar Answer. The case for government working on a transition deal to provide continuity and certainty for Britain, and for British business in particular, at the end of Article 50 is overwhelming. For one thing, it is difficult to find a single person who thinks that a successful exit and incorporation of EU law into British law can take place within two years; for another, we know that the negotiation of a new arrangement cannot start until the Article 50 process has finished. Either the Government are not working on a transition deal, in which case they are severely letting Britain and British business down, or they are, but they are not telling us. Which one is it?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord, with his usual forensic skill, puts me in an interesting position. Let me just repeat what has been said. As a Government, my fellow Ministers and I have had numerous conversations with business, and the noble Lord is absolutely right that there is a considerable amount of interest and concern in certain quarters as to what will happen at the end of the two-year period. We are very focused on that. As the Prime Minister has said, we want to avoid a cliff edge. We want to provide certainty where we can and are looking at all the options, although I am not in a position here and now to go into that. Clearly, some of those options will be dependent on what comes out of the negotiations, but rest assured we are very mindful of this issue.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
Would my noble friend distinguish between a transitional negotiating phase and the transitional implementation phase? Surely there is no reason why the negotiations might not be completed in two years, whereas the implementation, in order to avoid a cliff edge, might take place over a longer period. But that is entirely different from what the noble Lord was suggesting.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My noble friend is absolutely right, and once again we need to be very precise in the use of our language here. In many treaties there are periods for implementation. In other treaties, heads of terms might be negotiated and they are a bridge between those heads of terms and the end date. We need to be very clear what we are talking about.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, to remove potentially years and years of uncertainty over tariffs and regulatory instability for business, would not the clearest signal to British business be for the Government now to indicate their intention that the UK retain membership of the customs union? Have the Government ruled this out?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord raises an issue that the Government are analysing and assessing. There are a range of options open to us regarding the customs union and other aspects of our relationship with the EU. I will just repeat that we want to have a smooth and orderly exit, and as the Governor of the Bank of England pointed out yesterday, such an eventuality is in not just our interests but the interests of the EU itself.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, would the Minister perhaps respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wood: that you cannot start the negotiations for the new external relationship until after the withdrawal negotiations are concluded? I know that is the view of some people in Brussels, but I hope he will say that it is not the Government’s view and that their intention will be, after triggering Article 50, to begin the negotiations on a new external relationship without delay, and not to accept that they have to wait until the other negotiation is complete.
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord speaks with great authority on this, and he is absolutely right: there is nothing in Article 50 to suggest that we cannot negotiate the exit treaty and our new relationship with the EU at the same time. Indeed, paragraph 2 of Article 50, which I have in front of me, makes the point that the arrangements for a country’s withdrawal will be negotiated,
“taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that Article 50 implies that it can be revoked within the two-year period? Is a corollary of that not that if there is any doubt about that—this goes back to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about what has to happen within the two years—or if the negotiation is not reaching a reasonable conclusion, the Article 50 Bill can make provision to reverse engines or revoke the Article 50 timetable?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord makes an interesting hypothetical point; however, the Government are aiming to have a successful outcome to the negotiations. It is a matter of government policy that, once given, our notification will not be withdrawn.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Will my noble friend confirm that we remain full members of the World Trade Organization in our own right, and will he tell us what we get for our £5 million annual subscription?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My noble friend is absolutely right. We will continue to remain a member of the WTO and place our schedules with the WTO in due course. In terms of our contribution to the WTO, our membership is very valuable in a range of ways. We will seek to build on that relationship in the years to come in order, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said, to become a global beacon for world trade.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, in response to the previous Question, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said that the Government will be working for the best possible outcome for the UK. Can the Minister say precisely what that is, in terms of jobs and the economy?
Lord Bridges of Headley
First and foremost, it is critical that we continue to build on the excellent competitive edge that this country already enjoys, the good statistics we have seen coming through and what the Governor of the Bank of England said yesterday about the outlook for our economy. That means providing certainty in the short and medium term, building on that and making sure that our businesses enjoy access to the markets of Europe in as free and frictionless a way as possible, while ensuring that trade from Europe continues with the UK.
Gambling: Young People
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to tackle the prevalence of underage gambling online, in the light of the Gambling Commission’s report Young People and Gambling 2016.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde)
My Lords, the protection of children from being harmed or exploited by gambling is one of the core objectives of the Gambling Act 2005. The level of participation of children aged 11 to 15 in gambling has remained relatively static. There are strict controls in place to prevent children from accessing gambling online, via the Gambling Commission’s licence conditions. Where there is a failure to prevent underage gambling, the Gambling Commission will take regulatory and/or criminal action.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I thank the Minister for his reply. The survey of the Gambling Commission found that nearly one in 10 of 11 to 16 year-olds were engaged in gambling-style games, usually on a smartphone. Does the Minister share my concern that the prevalence of this would seem to normalise this behaviour at a very formative time in young people’s development, which may lead to very serious problems later on? What more can Her Majesty’s Government do to limit their exposure to adverts and games that are explicitly trying to encourage gambling?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, of course I share the right reverend Prelate’s concern that there might be risks attached to social gaming. These gambling-style games were considered in detail by the commission in 2015, which concluded that there was no compelling reason to impose additional regulation on the social gaming sector, particularly given that it is subject to extensive consumer protection, such as the Consumer Rights Act. As far as advertising is concerned, there are strict controls over advertising and the content of gambling advertisements already. Gambling advertising was part of the recent call for evidence in the gambling review for the first time, so we await that evidence.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s reference to the triennial review, which, despite my scepticism, has actually started. One of the problems with that review, which he has alluded to, is that it talks about gambling limits in certain gambling premises, but one can walk into any premises and put down any amount of money on a mobile phone. Surely it is time for the Government to have a bit of joined-up thinking here and see what the implications are of this absolutely unregulated level of gambling, which affects not just children but everyone in our society.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, the noble Lord is right that the gambling review was initiated in October last year—despite his scepticism, as he says, so I am glad that he acknowledges that. He is also right to draw attention to the possibilities of online gambling. The gambling review has always looked at different things—namely, the stakes, prizes, number and locations of gaming machines. As I have already said, this year we added advertising to that. The view of the Gambling Commission, which is the statutory adviser to the Government on gambling, is that the current requirements for age verification are effective in preventing underage gambling, but we keep the regulation of online gambling under review and will not hesitate to take action if it is needed to protect people from gambling-related harm.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
Will the Minister undertake to ask the gambling review to look at specific problems for young adults with learning disabilities or with other aspects of impaired mental capacity who, although they are over the age of 18, can still be particularly vulnerable to being hooked into quite inappropriate gambling activities? I declare my interest as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I cannot confirm today that it is part of the gambling review because that has already been started. However, one of the three core licensing objectives is to protect people who are vulnerable from gambling-related harm.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, the Gambling Commission report clearly shows that in just one week a staggering 32,000 11 to 15 year-olds entered betting shops, many of them playing on highly addictive fixed-odds betting terminals. Does that not show wholly inadequate levels of supervision in betting shops and their failure to meet the licensing objective of protecting the vulnerable from harm? What action are the Government going to take or recommend that the Gambling Commission takes?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I cannot say now because the gambling review is looking at just that matter. The point of the review is to look at these things and provide recommendations. The call for evidence has just been completed, and we will be consulting on that call for evidence soon.
Baroness Jowell (Lab)
My Lords, I hope the Minister will accept that the Gambling Act 2005, which I was responsible for as the then Secretary of State, gave us one of the most highly regulated gambling regimes in the world. Gambling changes rapidly, though, and, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans made clear, young people can gamble in the privacy of their own rooms on smartphones. Many of the new gambling products know no borders, which creates a regulatory challenge. Therefore, in the context of the gambling review, will the Minister undertake to look at ways of increasing the regulation of those forms of ambient gambling that we can control—specifically, gambling and betting shops on the high street—and ensure that a regulatory review is undertaken not only of the speed of play and the number of machines but also of the planning consent that has led to the outbreak of betting shops, driven by the availability of these machines on high streets across the country?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I congratulate the noble Baroness on her achievement with the Gambling Act. However, things have not stayed the same since then; for example, the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 brought all gambling websites that provide gambling to British subjects, including foreign websites, under the licensing regime. We realise that this is a fast-moving environment, and the Gambling Commission monitors it on a continuing basis. As I said, we will not hesitate to take action if it is required. However, our statutory adviser has said that age verification is working well.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, in his initial Answer to the right reverend Prelate, the Minister mentioned the action the Gambling Commission could take against people offering underage gambling. Can he tell us, first, in how many instances it has taken action and what the consequences were and, secondly, how it takes action against overseas providers of those sites?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My most up-to-date information is that there have been 11 occasions when the Gambling Commission has asked payment providers to prevent payments to unlicensed websites. On all 11 occasions the payment provider either terminated its relationship with the unlicensed operator or took steps to ensure that those websites were no longer available to consumers. There has also been great success with foreign unlicensed gambling websites. The key to this is that gambling is no good if you cannot transact money, so we stop payment providers. They are not prepared to deal with unlicensed—and thereby illegal—operators. I have figures here to show that it has been very successful.
Green Investment Bank
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Barker of Battle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of progress made on the sale of the Green Investment Bank.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Barker of Battle, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, the sale process is commercially confidential and I am unable to provide details of progress at this time. However, the Government have committed to providing a full report to Parliament once the sale is completed. The Government launched the sale process on 3 March 2016 and we expect it to be complete before the end of the financial year.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on his new position and thank him for that Answer. The Green Investment Bank is the jewel in the crown of the Government’s green energy policy. There is huge concern at the moment that the preferred purchaser may have a mind to purchase the whole of the Green Investment Bank and dispose of the individual parts for a price higher than might be paid to the Government. What further assurance can my noble friend the Minister give the House today about the future of the Green Investment Bank and its integrity, excellent work and the huge success story continuing after privatisation?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, the Green Investment Bank has been a huge success—I do not think anyone doubts that. From a start-up four or five years ago, it has developed into probably the finest financial institution in this space. The Government have two objectives: first, to get value for money—certainly not to sell the assets for less than they are worth; and secondly, to free up the Green Investment Bank so that it can use its expertise to back more sustainable projects in the future.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I give credit to the coalition Government for setting up the Green Investment Bank. It was a very good move and I deeply regret the privatisation because I feel that we will, perhaps, lose some momentum. However, in a debate yesterday in the other place the right honourable Member for West Dorset said that the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank would be judged on its increasing the spend over the last full year, which I think was £700 million. Is there any commitment within the bidders’ bids—I do not think this is confidential—to increase investment so that the good work can continue?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I think the Green Investment Bank has spent just over £2.5 billion so far and has brought in about £8 billion of private investment to complement that, so it has committed a total investment of about £10 billion. Clearly anyone who buys the Green Investment Bank will want to see that investment grow. That will be very much part of the negotiated discussions that we are having with interested parties.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee-designate of the Green Purposes Company. Given Nick Hurd’s very strong statement in the House of Commons yesterday that the Government’s number one priority was to obtain the right value for the Green Investment Bank—which we get—surely the integrity of the bank going forward should at least be an equal priority. Can the Minister confirm that please?
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government’s commitment to the integrity of the Green Investment Bank was made clear by enshrining its five green, core purposes in the articles of association of the company and the assurance that, if the company wants to change those green purposes, it has to get the agreement of the independent trustees, of whom the noble Lord is one.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
I welcome the noble Lord to his new Front Bench duties and look forward to working with him. The issue that has just been raised is important. Surely it is now clear that the trustees will be unable to prevent the green mission being changed, because the way that the deal is structured means they can be bypassed. Is it right that there will be no obligation on the new owners to continue investing in the UK, contrary to the requirements of the Act passed by this House?
Lord Prior of Brampton
On the latter question of whether the bank may invest overseas, I understand that it is already considering projects in India and east Africa. One purpose of introducing private capital into the Green Investment Bank is to give it more flexibility to develop the business in future.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
The question of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, was about the possibility of the bank being broken up for profit-taking. Is that possible, or will it remain completely intact?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, no business would say that it will be intact for ever. Interestingly, the Green Investment Bank manages an investment fund of £800 million. It is the biggest investment fund in the renewable sector in the UK. It has a whole series of investments in that fund, and of course some will be sold in future.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, the suggestion in the Sunday papers was that the integrity of the bank was under threat. It is not sufficient just to support the objectives of the bank; this is about its integrity. Can we have an assurance from the Government that they are seeking to protect that integrity as well as the objectives?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I can give an absolute assurance that, in assessing which company or organisation might acquire the Green Investment Bank, the integrity and commitment of that company to the green purposes of the bank is crucial.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
One of the interesting comments in last Sunday’s press about the issue was that Macquarie bank was one of the favourites to buy the Green Investment Bank. The Minister will be aware of Macquarie’s ownership of Thames Water, where it has stripped probably three-quarters of the assets of the company, to the extent that it will be unable to fund the Thames tideway tunnel. Is that a good example of integrity?
Lord Prior of Brampton
As the noble Lord will know, the Government signed confidentiality agreements as part of the sale process and I cannot comment on any individual purchase or otherwise.
Business of the House
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
That the debates on the motions in the names of Baroness Massey of Darwen and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen set down for today shall each be limited to 2½ hours.
Faversham Oyster Fishery Company Bill [HL]
Northern England: Opportunity and Productivity
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
That this House takes note of the Institute for Public Policy Research’s annual State of the North report, and the case for equality of opportunity and sustainable productivity.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this debate as a proud Lancastrian and therefore a northerner. I am someone who also cares about deep divisions, any sort of division, in our society.
The so-called northern powerhouse must not just be a catchy label. Northern regions can be powerful only if they have real power, economically, politically and in their public services. I am not talking about devolution; I am talking about decentralisation. The Institute for Public Policy Research North, whose report we are discussing today, suggests ways of contributing to this power and releasing the energy of the north. I welcome it strongly.
I am delighted to see colleagues with such a wealth of experience and expertise taking part today. I look forward to their contributions. I am only sorry that time will be so limited. I note that some will talk with great expertise of cuts to local authorities, so I shall leave that to them. They will also discuss many other issues.
I shall explore part of the current story on the state of the north, then look at some possible ways forward. I shall look first at social mobility, a component of power and potential. When I was growing up in the north many years ago, social mobility was a term unheard of. You got on—hopefully, but not always—if you passed the 11-plus. In the working classes, where I came from, if you ended up not going to mills or the mines, then you had succeeded—at least partially. That situation is now much more complex. I hope to examine some of that complexity today. The situation is much more multidimensional, going beyond mills, mines and steel, which are of course mainly gone. A productive and ambitious northern economy needs to have its own potential for social mobility and high productivity. The potential is there; many dynamic things are happening, but times are a-changing.
The IPPR’s report begins by stating that its previous year’s annual report was full of confident projection of northern powerhouse potential, in relation to the economy, jobs growth, attractiveness for foreign investment and educational improvements, but there is a warning that the decision to leave the EU will affect the northern economy in terms of trade, access to skilled labour and EU funding. One worry is that devolution appears to have stalled and that the focus on rebalancing has been overtaken by an initiative to develop the industrial strategy.
We may all speculate on why so much discontent and anger were expressed in the northern regions during the European referendum and, of course, in the result. The areas most at risk from leaving the EU, but which could also benefit from new trade arrangements, voted to leave. Only Manchester, Liverpool, Stockport and Trafford voted to remain. People in the north were dismayed at neglect and disregard, at the perception that decisions were made in the south and that power and money resided in the south. The northern regions are more than three times as dependent on EU trade as London. The director of the IPPR has argued that Brexit negotiations should focus on the needs of the areas that voted strongly to leave. He has a point.
Brexit must not be bad for the north; we must be vigilant. In relation to productivity, the northern regions are growing faster than other regions. The weakening pound may be playing to northern manufacturing strengths, but disruption of trade with Europe is still to be feared.
A recent CBI report states that the most productive area of the UK is now almost three times more productive than the least and that wide geographic differences are the root of much inequality in the UK today. Parts of the north suffer disproportionately.
The State of the North report on social mobility states that many regions, and not just the north, have fallen behind London and the south. For example, more than half the adults in Wales, the north-east, Yorkshire and Humber, the West Midlands and Northern Ireland have less than £100 in savings. Young people who want to get on are moving away from many communities—again, not just in the north. Home ownership among the under-44s has fallen by 17% in the last decade; the gap between housing is accentuating the wealth divide. The average weekly pay of workers in Blackpool of £333 is half of that in Southwark—£639—and several, but not all, of the lowest hourly pay averages in the country are in the north.
I add to these figures concerns for transport, education and the issue of poverty and health. Wherever there is poverty and concerns for health, which occur frequently in the north as reports on equality have shown, a whole population may be damaged from before birth onwards. An OECD report last year pointed out that the UK has the worst performance of intergenerational earnings mobility among OECD countries. The Social Mobility Commission, chaired by Alan Milburn with the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, as vice-chair, identified four fundamental barriers that are holding back a whole tranche of low and middle-income families in communities in England—again, not just in the north. These factors are: an unfair education system; a two-tier labour market; an imbalanced economy; and an unaffordable housing market. Our education system seems intractable, with more emphasis on passing exams rather than the soft skills, such as communication skills and teamwork, which are required by industry. Not enough emphasis is placed on the early years, although that is improving, and sport and the arts are being neglected. We need to look again at what we are doing to our children.
My noble friend Lady Corston chaired a committee last year which produced a challenging report, Overlooked and Left Behind. It pointed out the inequalities between academic and vocational routes to work for young people and the importance of advice in making transitions and choices. Speaking of young people, I am delighted to learn that the Children’s Commissioner for England is developing a new project to look at childhood in the north of England and the opportunities for children provided by devolution and regeneration. This project will seek to understand the regional differences in children’s experiences and how these impact on outcomes. This will surely be a project to follow. The report of the Commission for Housing in the North, published by the Northern Housing Consortium, points out that a response to housing in the north is local flexibility and the use of public investment, developing new partnerships and revitalising places.
I am highlighting just a few points; I know that other noble Lords will elaborate more. Let me now discuss the possibility for development. The CBI report on regional growth, which I mentioned earlier, identifies four main drivers of regional productivity: ensuring a strong school performance and results at GCSE and—recognising that school is not enough—work training and development; transport links that widen access to labour, also examined by Transport for the North; better management practices; and a higher proportion of firms that export and innovate.
These concerns link with the views of IPPR North. In 2015, it set out four tests for the northern powerhouse: to generate a better type of economic growth that combines rising productivity with more jobs and better wages for all; to liberate the potential of people through improvements to the development of skills, starting with the youngest, including pre-schoolers; to invest in future success, particularly in terms of innovation and building infrastructure for the future; and to rejuvenate local democracy by giving people a genuine involvement in the way that the north of England is run. These tests are still important—I have touched on some of them already—but times and contexts move on. In the 2016 report, IPPR North praises the progress being made in relation to transport, infrastructure, finance, trade and investment, and the schools strategy. But there is a caveat—clouds on the horizon. Wider events, with Brexit a large influence, mean that business confidence is threatened and the prospect of inclusive growth in the north looks distant.
The IPPR makes three recommendations. The first is the formation of a northern Brexit negotiating committee, to enable the north to be heard and to build trade relationships with regions and nations within and beyond the EU. This recognises that the Government’s industrial strategy is an opportunity to take a more proactive approach to structural challenges. The second recommendation calls on the Government to adopt a place-based approach to industrial strategy with the core principles of regional differentiation, co-ordinated investment and devolution. Local economic resilience needs to be fostered and developed. Thirdly, local enterprise partnerships should conduct resilience audits that set out the post-Brexit threats to their economies and develop strategic responses. Government should be asked to back this strategy as part of a new round of devolution deals with each local enterprise area.
As the report also states:
“The North has distinct economic assets and interests that present both opportunities and threats as the UK prepares to leave the European Union”.
It warns that the patchy development of combined authorities, metro mayors and devolution deals in the north affect the formulation of a coherent response to Brexit.
I have attempted to give a flavour of this exciting report and touch on some of the issues facing the north in relation to its economy and underlying structures, such as health, education, housing and transport. Much is positive; much shows forward thinking. The importance of local enterprise partnerships and the encouragement of local democracy are at the core of progress in the north. Will the Government heed the warning signs of the IPPR report and consider its recommendations? I beg to move.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I remind the House that there is a five-minute time limit for Back-Bench speeches, so if the clock says five, I am afraid that you have gone over.
Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)
My Lords, first I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for introducing this timely debate so elegantly. Her view of the dangers of centralisation came across powerfully. My own contribution is from the perspective of small business in my part of the north, especially Cumbria.
Before venturing further, I need to declare my personal interests. I remain on the board of, or am otherwise involved in, my family’s activities in Cumbria. They include farming, forestry, leisure, mineral extraction, housebuilding, aggregates and horseracing.
This is my first encounter with the work of IPPR. I had rather imagined them to be a left-of-centre think tank with rather predictable views. I am very pleased to repent of my ill-conceived prejudice and I commend its website to anyone who has not seen it: they have a treat in store. Nor do I have a problem with many of the IPPR’s recommendations. I like the idea—as does the noble Baroness—of resilience audits. I also support, in principle, the concept of a northern Brexit negotiating committee, subject always to the details of its composition.
With all reports, whether they come from government or think tanks, I find myself asking who the authors have been speaking, and listening, to. I am usually left with the feeling that the conclusions reached, where business is concerned, are garnered from those men and women who are pleased to call themselves “business leaders”. Many of them are in command of large corporatist businesses and dislike risk—and certainly uncertainty—of any kind. By contrast, those of us in the SME sector wake up every morning of our lives to personal risk and uncertainty. We do not complain: it is the life-blood of our very existence. The cohorts of officials advising Ministers have problems understanding the sector. Why would it be otherwise? They have never been near a risk-taking enterprise.
What has become increasingly evident lately, however, is how remote from the business environment the political class has become: witness perhaps the fact that only two of the 23 noble Lords taking part in this debate will be responsible for paying the wages tomorrow morning. My request that a better way be found to hear what the SME sector has to say is not special pleading; it is essential because we represent such a large proportion of the nation’s economy and its growth.
Where I do take issue with the report is where it says that, after such encouraging progress in the north, “dark clouds are gathering” and,
“uncertainty now pervades the northern mood”.
I see no sign of the northern powerhouse flagging. I am old enough to be rather wary of industrial strategies, but whatever the Government are doing in the north—and it amounts to a great deal—it seems to me to have been an enormous success and I thank them for it. Less good is the situation in my own county of Cumbria—what has sometimes been described by noble Lords as “north of the north”. We face the usual challenges of infrastructure needs and connectivity, as well as problems with skills and education—the matters elegantly described by the noble Baroness.
We will not lack opportunities post-Brexit. I believe that there is scope for further development in our traditional strengths of agriculture and tourism. Significant investment is already coming into the county. We have the nuclear coast and major shipbuilding orders, and there is investment in energy and pharmaceuticals, with more besides. However, looking ahead, enduring benefits for Cumbria will not be achieved unless and until the burning issue of local governance is resolved.
For a number of years I sat on Cumbria County Council. I am delighted to see in his place, and due to speak, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, who serves with great distinction on the council and enjoys a formidable reputation there. I hope that he will throw more light than I am able to on the problem of devolution. I believe it is a fact that our LEP had to accept what amounts to a pitiful settlement through Cumbria’s failure to agree a devo deal.
In Cumbria we have half a million people—there are more sheep than people—and we are governed by 600 elected representatives, plus their support staff. It is small wonder that one civil servant in exasperation told me, “You are over-governed and under-led”.
In conclusion, I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has to say on this local matter, but I wonder whether the Minister might consider reminding the world how much my county and others like it could stand to gain with a degree of reform, which has worked so well elsewhere.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, for initiating this debate. I add to her list of places in the north that voted to remain my own city of Newcastle upon Tyne.
I congratulate IPPR North on its incisive report. Its recommendations urging local enterprise partnership resilience audits in the face of Brexit and the creation of a northern Brexit negotiating committee to speak for the north in the absence of the devolved structures now available in London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are critical. IPPR North is also right to identify the adoption of a place-based approach to industrial strategy, encouraging regional differentiation, co-ordinated investment and devolution as its basis and ensuring that all parts of the north and not just the big cities can grow.
A hard Brexit will damage the north’s economy profoundly, with fewer exports and fewer jobs as we exit the single market and the customs union. The north must keep access to the single market and the customs union. Over half of our exports go to the European Union, and the prospect of those exports queuing up at foreign borders because we have left the customs union is too dreadful to contemplate. Leaving the single market will create tariff barriers, which will result in lower exports.
Mention has been made of the northern powerhouse. The Government were right to create it as a flagship policy but it has to date suffered from being more flag than ship. However, the signs are encouraging, not least in the work of Transport for the North, whose role will inevitably relate not just to investment in transport infrastructure but to the wider economic development of the whole of the north.
I want to suggest to the Minister a six-point plan—which is not exclusive—to boost growth and productivity in the north. If there is no plan, the economy of the north risks being squeezed by the economic strength of London and the south-east in one direction and Scotland in the other, which could well see an economic resurgence if its wish to stay in the EU results in a referendum vote that means it leaves the UK.
Turning to the six points, first, I want to see the introduction of regional targets for the Department for International Trade for foreign direct investment, which is currently assessed only across the UK as a whole. I draw attention to the fact London got one-third of all new jobs from foreign direct investment in 2015-16.
Secondly, the Government should be encouraging the private sector to invest in the north to boost development. As an example, I pay tribute to Legal & General’s investment in Newcastle, including a £65 million investment in the Science Central site. This is good news, but we need more of it.
Thirdly, we need a major boost to our secondary schools, as there has been in London, which now has a much higher achievement rate than the north—and, of course, much higher funding per capita. The CBI demonstrated in its December report that that is a key factor in driving up productivity and therefore wages.
Fourthly, will the Government look at using some of the apprenticeship levy from April to promote employment and higher-level skills development in areas that have done less well since the crash?
Fifthly, the north’s universities need to work even more closely together to promote innovation across the whole of their sub-regions so that more people—not just those in the big cities—can benefit from their job creation.
Sixthly, the north needs a bigger share of the country’s communications investment in both transport infrastructure and digital support for SMEs to enable them to grow faster and export more. Its share has been far too low, as I think the Government now acknowledge.
In conclusion, the north has a huge cultural heritage, which we want to protect and promote. Much of that was forged by the Industrial Revolution. We need a new revolution, one that drives a sense of common purpose across the north to invest more, to make a success of devolution and to bridge the productivity divide. Places that feel left behind need new thinking. I hope the Minister will agree that to leave policy simply in the hands of the Treasury, which thinks only in terms of innovation driving growth, does not help the left-behind places. Those places need intervention to address the barriers of skills, poor connectivity and lack of investment.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, noble Lords will not be surprised that an Archbishop of York is keen to contribute to this debate on the state of the north of England, but, as I remind myself, one title held by all Archbishops of York is Primate of England and Metropolitan.
In focusing on the north, I want to avoid any suggestion that the north and south of England can be spoken of as if a latter-day Hadrian’s Wall has been built from the Dee to the Humber. We are one nation, and I, for one, want to see the bonds and sympathies between all people of this land strengthened. It is very good that the state of the north is being debated today in your Lordships’ House. The state of the north is important because, unless we get things right in the north, the whole country will be more divided, less prosperous and unhappier. In short, the whole country needs the north to flourish.
The report looks, in very interesting ways, at the variable economic resilience of areas of the north. I want to focus on another sort of resilience that is just as important as economic resilience: human resilience, the resilience of the people of the north. Any plans for greater prosperity and flourishing in the north must build on that vital characteristic, the resilience of the people.
Over more than 30 years, the economy of this nation has shifted from manufacturing industry to services. Successive Governments have seen the City of London as the economic powerhouse. The result has been to suck energy and resources southwards. London has become an exceptional capital city. It is an exception to the ways of life and the economic prospects of the rest of the country, especially in the north.
The report from IPPR North warns us that the uncertainties surrounding the Brexit vote could set the recovery of the north back very badly. But the status quo before 23 June was not serving the north well. If we are, indeed, poised to “take back control”, how will the people of the north be offered the chance to take back control of their own lives and communities? Brexit cannot just be about more control for London.
It is certainly heartening that the Government have understood the need for an industrial strategy. Making things matters. So do good employment practices. Our economic system is supposed to reward risk-takers, but the people who bear the greatest burden of risk these days are being rewarded with zero-hours contracts, fake self-employment and low pay. Much of the resilience of the north and its people stems from the long history of pride in the jobs that our industrial past created. We may not get the old industries back, but we do need jobs in which people can take pride, and which reward their resilience.
The report expresses cautious optimism about the Secretary of State's approach to a place-based industrial strategy. I share that optimism. It is significant that the Secretary of State comes to this role with a background in community policy. If, as I think he does, the Secretary of State “gets” communities—if he gets the way in which the resilience of the people is an asset on which the economy can build—then there are some sparks of hope for a realistic, resilient northern economy to emerge. The people of the north cherish their history, their toughness and their contribution to the well-being of the nation. That is what has made the north resilient for decades, even for centuries. Our economic policies must build on those assets and not undermine them.
We need more devolution from south to north—devolution of powers and of institutions. We need Cabinet-level figures to champion the north—people who know the qualities of the north from their own experience. We need a more diverse economy that draws on the skills of northern people. If Brexit prompts a shift in that direction, it may just be worth the uncertainty that we are currently experiencing. I am grateful to IPPR North for this excellent report and I urge your Lordships to reflect carefully on it.
Lord Monks (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Massey for initiating this opportunity to shine a spotlight on the north of England. It is always a pleasure to follow the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, who talks knowledgeably about his particular archdiocese.
If the reality of the northern powerhouse never quite lived up to the hype generated by its jazzy title, as my noble friend Lady Massey suggested, it is none the less welcome that the Government have injected energy and resource into the future of the north. The policies were not always consistent, with cuts in local authority funding running against the grain of the northern powerhouse. There were some contradictory strategies at work. But as the IPPR reminds us, with George Osborne and the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, moving on, it is not yet clear that there is an effective champion in the Government for the northern powerhouse. I hope that we will hear something about that today. Indeed, the Prime Minister struck a rather different tone, referring to her interest in all cities and regions—an approach that risks losing the focus and momentum that the north needs. One message from this debate will be to ask the Government, “Where are the top-level champions at the heart of government?”.
There are welcome bright spots in the north. There are vibrant city centres. They are a little too dependent on shopping and drinking, in my opinion, but none the less huge improvements are taking place in some cities. There are well-performing areas such as Warrington, Cheshire and York and North Yorkshire, but in too many other places the dynamism that built the great industries of the north and the accompanying cities and towns has faded along with those industries.
So we have the situation of a rather lop-sided economy in the UK, with—according to the Eurostat figures—the UK having three regions in the EU top 20: London; north-east Scotland; and Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Only the rest of the south of England does better than the EU 28 average. It is not just a northern problem, of course; it is a Welsh problem, it is to some extent a west of England problem and it is a problem for others as well. Regions outside the south-east are struggling to come up to scratch against some European standards.
Now some people who supported leave might claim that the north has been held back by EU membership and that, if we take back control, our natural enterprise and flair—and, no doubt, unleashed animal spirits—will transform matters. This is a fantasy. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, the north is lagging behind the best on a number of issues, including: education and training standards, which is a point well developed in the IPPR report; higher levels than average of poverty; life expectancy rates below the national average and particularly below the average in the south of England. Productivity needs big improvement, the urban environment needs improvement and transport, too, needs improvement. Where in the great northern cities are the underground railways that so characterise many of our continental counterparts?
These in fact are all national competences. They are not EU competences at all. They are nothing much to do with the EU, although the EU regional funds have been useful contributors. It is important, too, to remember that a lot of the companies that are engines of growth in the north are foreign owned, often European owned, but also Far Eastern owned. They include BASF, Tata and Nissan—and, of course, recently Siemens in Hull, making a huge contribution in this important year for Hull.
I had hoped that our cities would reach this northern European standard. We have still got some way to go and it is important that we continue to make people in the north aware of just what other people are doing. Brexit will not help with that, but it is important that they learn. My father used to say, “What Manchester does today, London does tomorrow”. I am proud of what Manchester has achieved since the 1990s, but let us be honest about it. It is some time since we have been able to say that those remarks of his remain true. We are still some way off the best and have got a long way to go.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest. I am a partner in a farming business in Northumberland and historically have had involvement in a number of businesses in the north-east. I was also, five years ago, a member of the Adonis review on the economy of the north-east. I, too, appreciate the comprehensive introduction to this debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and I welcome this report. Recognising that it covers the whole of the north of England, my comments will focus specifically on the north-east.
As a region, the north-east has the most positive balance of payments of any region in England. This is a remarkable achievement and something of which we are proud. However, this means we are even more vulnerable if trading—particularly trading with the European Union—is disrupted by the impact of Brexit. The north-east boasts the second highest gross value added in the UK economy, at 2.8% in 2016 according to House of Commons figures published in December. This performance must be maintained, whatever the world looks like after Brexit. Earlier this week, your Lordships discussed this very issue. During Tuesday’s debate on the economic impact of Brexit, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, highlighted that 58% of the north-east’s exports are to Europe. The IPPR report further highlights this, placing the north-east in the “dynamic but vulnerable” category.
This important region must make sure that its voice is heard throughout the Brexit negotiations so that it can pursue an agenda beneficial to the north, as recommended in the report. As has been mentioned, large companies such as Nissan are very important to the economy of the north-east and it is excellent that it has committed to post-Brexit investment. However, as in every other region, the business community in the north-east consists of tens of thousands of SMEs and their future is crucial to the economy of the north. This being the case, it is vital that they continue to be supported throughout the Brexit negotiation process, as much of the success of the northern economy is tied to theirs. They need encouragement, continued access to capital funding to improve skills and support to access markets here at home but also, importantly for the region, overseas.
Noble Lords will not be surprised that I also refer to the rural economy and its importance to the north. A Newcastle University study in 2013 found that two-thirds of rural businesses in the UK are SMEs and microbusinesses. This is not surprising, but what is not well known is that the rural economy in the north grew in the decade between 2004 and 2014 faster than any other sector in the region, according to the North East local enterprise partnership figures.
The rural economy is vital to the region and makes up approximately 20% of England’s economic activity. It would be remiss of me not to refer to the importance of agriculture in the rural space. The common agricultural policy is a hugely important element of EU membership. The support it provides is currently crucial to the survival of many farm businesses in the north of England. I could go into a lot of detail on this, but I will confine my remarks to the following.
The north of England has a higher proportion of hill and upland farming than any other area of England, from the Peak District, through the Pennines to the Lake District and the Cheviots. They may not be seen as the most obvious drivers of economic growth, but the dependency of other sectors on the uplands of Britain, particularly in the north, is massively important, from tourism, water capture and flood management to the environment and the contribution the uplands make to climate change. Of course, agriculture as a whole is vital, but the uplands are particularly vulnerable in a post-Brexit world if some form of ongoing support is not recognised as essential when the common agricultural policy is demolished. Farmers recognise that change is inevitable post Brexit and they may have to change, but upland farmers have fewer options.
I make these points because we need integrated solutions that bring the rural, the urban and cities together to succeed. The economy of the north-east is dynamic and has huge potential, but it is vulnerable and this needs to be recognised. There has been great work towards this so far, but it must not be derailed by Brexit. We need to ensure that current progress is maintained.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to those of previous speakers to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for initiating this very important debate. As usual, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.
My working life and my involvement in local government for the past 30 years has taken place in the northern metropolitan district of Bradford. People are generally surprised to hear that Bradford is the fifth-largest metropolitan district in the country and that two-thirds of its area is rural. It has a rapidly growing population of 531,200 and is the youngest city in the UK. Some 23% of the population are aged under 16, compared with 18.8% nationally.
Most Governments, of all political colours, have tended to be London-centric in their thinking. The result of the referendum in many parts of the north was certainly in part a reaction to what many regard as the opinions of a Westminster elite. This divide was cemented even more by the sneering tone of some commentators implying that voters in the north lacked the intelligence to vote the right way.
The previous Chancellor of the Exchequer was wise enough to realise that the north has much to offer, much that could be developed, and that the UK could be economically stronger if the potential of the north could be developed. The Northern Powerhouse Strategy in the Autumn Statement showed that the present Government are taking seriously their approach to addressing the key barriers to productivity in the north. The IPPR’s State of the North report helpfully identifies three key issues to build business confidence and economic resilience: securing a northern voice in Brexit; clear principles for a place-based industrial strategy; and a focus on local economic resilience alongside growth and devolution.
Yorkshire currently has no agreed devolution deal in place, so the lack of a unified voice across the north is potentially damaging, particularly to the Leeds city region and to Bradford. It is important for the north to find its own voice and promote itself and its constituent cities, towns and communities on the world stage. The IPPR view that an effective national industrial strategy should allow for regional differentiation is particularly relevant to the Leeds city region and to Bradford in particular as they are diverse and the city region does not comprise a single city or solely an urban environment. Creating more jobs and getting people into good jobs is key and inclusive growth is central to Leeds city region’s economic strategy.
As a district, Bradford is committed to creating a high-value, high-skilled economy, driven by innovative and productive business that delivers growth, jobs and opportunity for all. Devolution and differentiation offer opportunities to develop local solutions for harder-to-reach unemployed and underemployed people. An example of this is the project Get Bradford Working which addresses the gap in nationally commissioned approaches. Such local initiatives would benefit from more support, as national solutions tend to lead to a focus on people who need help the least. Locally designed and implemented services can respond better to local business need.
IPPR’s call for greater public investment in infrastructure and research and development is an important message. The north receives less government R&D spend than London and the south-east. Public resources could deliver better economic and social outcomes if targeted in areas with greater opportunities for market growth. Key for Bradford is investment in transport infrastructure, including a high-speed northern powerhouse rail stop for the city and other trans-Pennine improvements, including electrification of the Calder Valley line. Delivering inclusive growth across the north will require significant long-term investment in social capital as well as physical infrastructure and the need to see social infrastructure as driving the well-being agenda.
Any industrial strategy for the north must recognise the need for local solutions and genuine devolution, including fiscal powers, which are key to the delivery of those local solutions. Long-term resilience is dependent on physical and social investment to deliver truly inclusive growth.
Lord Prescott (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to address my remarks to the northern issue, not necessarily the town or the city. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on securing this debate on the excellent State of the North report. She said at the beginning that basically decentralisation is what she is concerned about, not devolution, but those two things are two sides of the same coin if we are to find a framework, on a spatial basis, to develop the north—not the tribal basis of each of us talking for Hull, for York or wherever. What contribution and framework do we need to meet the real development of the north? It almost takes me back to when Michael Foot, when he was leader of the Opposition, asked me to find an agreement between the Scots and the English regions after the failure of the first Scotland Bill in Parliament. I talked to them all; they all had the same problem. They were concerned about high unemployment and about growth; they were concerned that growth was really in the south and not the north—very similar arguments in Scotland as in the northern regions. I had to find an agreement about that.
I want to concentrate my remarks on the business of devolution, because it is the same framework. The devolution I mean is what we introduced in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; we produced an elected government in London—a regional government—and a cities policy, and all this was part of devolution. It found a role for the local government within a framework; that was what was essential for us and we did it. Tragically, this was opposed all the time by the Tories and scrapped when they came in in 2010. Even with RDAs, which everybody thought were successful, they kept development agencies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but took them away from the English regions and gave us these enterprise boards or something—what do you call them? They do not have the resources or the powers and do not compare to an RDA. To that extent, the Tories took the view that they were more concerned with local than regional government. That is an important difference.
When Osborne came along—whatever his full name is—he gave us “northern devolution”. It is not northern, because it does not cover all the north; it certainly does not cover Hull and anything east of the Pennines. It is not devolution; it is local government reform. I quite welcome that, if that is what we are going to have. It lacks the regional dimension, which is absolutely essential if we are to get the northern economy moving and to recognise the disparities between the north and south. There is a similar argument between Scotland and England as within the English regions themselves.
We have to look at what northern devolution was. I note that all the report on northern devolution dismisses the rhetoric of “powerhouse”—it is certainly not that. However, the report says that devolution is waning, and that it is,
“too partial, piecemeal and parochial”.
That is because the Government have always been against the regional dimension. They always want to see it within the local government framework—so do I. However, strategic thinking needs a strategy.
I am glad to see that the Government now recognise two things. First, Mr Clark, the Secretary of State, is now looking at spatial economic development. We have a Minister who represents every centralised issue in government. The department that matters now is the one for energy and industrial strategy. The Government are right to pursue that, but they do not like to use the talk of regions. That is another difficulty. How do we bring that together?
We need to be talking about the places of growth, and not only in each city or small area but in the region of the north. The north runs from Liverpool to Hull. We need a strategy that shows that as a place of growth. We need to use the Humber—the greatest source of energy we have at the moment. It is an energy estuary; it is environmental and developmental in a fundamental way. It is not just about culture—I leave that on the side—it is about economic development, and that is important. But you need a framework for that. The framework is crucial and we do not have it at the moment.
The argument for Brexit in negotiations was really about redistributing power and resources, not back to the centre but to the regions. Let us see where the money goes. That is a constitutional change—a further balance between the north and the south. I believe we should stay in the European Union but, leaving that aside, if there are negotiations and money is to come back, let it go to the regions. Let us have constitutional change.
Scotland wants more powers for devolution, and probably to stay in, as it has said. I have combined with my colleague Gordon Brown to see if Scotland and the north can form a powerhouse together. If you want a real powerhouse, put Scotland and the north together for the same reason: to redistribute the power and resources and begin to develop a northern economy. Find a framework; it is strategic.
Thank goodness the Government are partly there with Transport for the North, which is now looking for a regional solution, because that cannot be done with local government boundaries. This House will very shortly be debating new powers for Transport for the North which are regional. Let us start looking at the north as a region, not tribally representing Liverpool, Manchester, Hull or wherever. Let us get back to thinking strategically.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I am glad to be following the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, and agree considerably with his remarks. I will not be as demonstrative in what I have to say and will limit my remarks to the part of the region which I know best, Yorkshire. I declare three interests. First, I love living in Yorkshire and have a very personal interest in the debate as a resident. Secondly, I am an elected representative for one of its towns. Thirdly, like the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association—and, I suppose, fourthly, I intend to be unremitting in making the case for the north.
The picture painted in the IPPR report, The State of the North, is one I recognise. The analysis reflects much of what was done by the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward, 10 years ago. The analysis then, as now, is that the challenges for Yorkshire are poor connectivity, relatively low skills and inadequate investment in new businesses to transform the region from its 19th-century industrial past. The sad fact is that since the demise of Yorkshire Forward, there has been no significant progress in addressing those challenges. The consequence is that that the lives of 5 million people in Yorkshire and the 15 million in the north as a whole have been blighted. The challenges are clear. Poor connectivity within the region and to the rest of the country is a drag on investment. Major transport investment is part of the solution, and the comparators with London are stark. In London, the Government have invested £1,870 per head on major transport projects, whereas in Yorkshire and the Humber region it is a mere £247 per head. The figures for infrastructure investment are even more stark, with London getting £5,426 per person, while in Yorkshire the equivalent figure is £581.
The relatively low skills in the north are cited as one of the factors discouraging inward investment. Educators at all levels are taking up the challenge, but people need to have some expectation that developing skills will lead to a better job and therefore income. Encouraging adults to acquire new skills can be challenging when the job opportunities are not obvious. It is a bit of a vicious circle.
Areas such as Yorkshire have been, literally, the powerhouses of the country for a century or more. Yorkshire still plays a massive role in generating the nation’s electricity but the transformation from the industries of an earlier era—coal, textiles, steel—needs major and sustained investment, and a vision shared and agreed with those communities.
Despite warm words from the Government, none of this has happened. The northern powerhouse has apparently run out of steam. Improved connectivity priorities agreed across the north in the Northern Way group a decade ago are still awaiting implementation. To make matters worse, the Government have systematically and deliberately divested many of these same areas of the north of the resources to tackle these challenges.
Being starved of resources leads to a lack of capacity to deal with the big issues beyond the day-to-day. The Government’s own figures show that Leeds City Council for example will this year have £l,555 per household to spend on local services, which should include investment in encouraging new business and regenerating derelict areas. Meanwhile in Surrey, residents will have £1,993 per household of expenditure. If the spending power for Leeds, which is typical of many of the northern industrial towns and cities, was at the same level as it is for Surrey, Leeds residents and the council would have an additional £140 million every year to invest in making a difference.
What The State of the North demonstrates, and the Government’s own information illustrates, is that the 15 million residents of the north have had a poor deal. We do not want to be patronised. We do not intend to bring a begging bowl. But we insist that we be given the tools so that we can get on with the job, and that means the Government being bold enough to let go of the reins and let those of us who live in the north work together to release the talents, creativity and determination of northern folk.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, many of the points I wanted to make have already been made, and I will not repeat them, but I do want to emphasise one or two points. When we talk about the north, I sometimes think it is a bit like the way we talk about Africa, as if it was one monolithic place. The north is not. It is very diverse, differentiated and complex. For example, we have heard about Bradford having a very young population, 23.6% being under the age of 16. Where are the jobs for them? It is all very well to have a thriving city of Leeds, which has a large manufacturing base; but if that is not integrated and if the success of Leeds means that its environs have vulnerabilities, there is a potential problem. In the rural areas of north Yorkshire and parts of west Yorkshire there is low productivity in the farming and tourism industries, low-wage economies, and problems with housing and house prices, particularly with second homes or those living in the metropolitan areas wanting to live outside those areas. House prices rise and there is a problem with the continuity of community and with families being able to stay where they are. I mention that because we often talk about industry or industrial strategy as if it were an end in itself. The purpose of wealth creation, the purpose of industry and work is to create a good society. That is why I was pleased to hear earlier the call for an integrated approach. Industry is not an end in itself.
There are two elements in the report that are worth paying attention to. Much has been said about devolution, so I will leave that out. The first is resilience. We need to remember that in the wake of Brexit, however particular communities voted, the split is pretty even in most places. Leeds voted to remain; Bradford voted to leave. We still have to pay attention, not just to those who won the referendum, but to those who are very concerned about the future. For example, what will happen if the European subsidies to the farming industry are removed? Are the Government really going to compensate within the United Kingdom for what is going to be lost? That is creating an uncertain future. I gather that £350 million has already been committed to the NHS every week. We keep hearing figures cited, but there is a finite pot of money—so what is going to give? We need honesty and realism as that is taken forward. The resilience largely depends on the nature of the people and the tools they are given to shape their own future. Local leadership has to be established, or continued, that is inspirational and dynamic. I want to pay tribute to some of the leaders of our local authorities, who are expected to do more and more with less and less. There are excellent examples in some of the authorities that my diocese covers.
Connectivity is, in the end, where resilience will lie. I speak as someone who comes originally from Liverpool. I once went to Hull, although I am sure I will head back in the coming year. I am now in Leeds; I have lived in Bradford and studied there as well. When we talk about the northern powerhouse, too often we speak in terms of east-west connectivity, purely in terms of the M62 corridor. That is what we mean by the trans-Pennine route. What happens to places such as Harrogate? What happens to the post-industrial towns of Halifax, Huddersfield, Kirklees and Calderdale, which do not seem to figure too well in the ruminations about connectivity? There is no point linking up Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull if we are not addressing certain questions, which I have raised in this House before. For example, Bradford has two stations but they are not joined up, so one cannot come off the north-south route and get across, unless something is done within Bradford to join it up. If we do not do that, we are militating against the possible thriving, not only of some of the northern Yorkshire towns and communities but also the west Yorkshire towns.
I have run out of time, so will leave it there. Integration and connectivity are essential.
Lord Bragg (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, on bringing this debate to the House. In my view, nothing is more important for the future economic well-being of this country than the wholesale energising of the proven and potential power in the north of England. As Brexit draws ever nearer, it is urgent that the IPPR’s well-thought-through and detailed report be taken seriously and urgently, by which I mean it should lead to action. As in all other regions, the north is vulnerable to Brexit. Luck will play a part in its future, and so will grit. However, policies, structures and history are the chief themes of this report, and the response to those by some in the north itself and by some down here in London—the Great Wen, as it used to be called, and the name seems ripe for revival—will define the future.
On the face of it, the north is a powerful beast—an economy of £300 billion, more than Scotland, Ireland and Wales lumped together. Were it to be an independent federated part of this country, which in my view would be very desirable, it would be the 10th largest economy in Europe. In 2015 the north grew faster than anywhere else in the UK, including London.
Against this, there is the history of the north, a walk on the dark side, which, save for one glorious world-defining era, does not promise well in its relations with the Great Wen of power in Whitehall. It has been a punishment block. William the Conqueror harrowed it and destroyed it as much as he could, while Henry VIII followed his example and had his usual go at blundering away at it. It became a vast, largely empty landscape of castles, cathedrals, monasteries and small settlements, with many sheep and few people.
The people of that area rose to the challenge, their genius providing the cradle for the greatest revolution in history, the Industrial Revolution, and the north came back. It is astonishing that we had 35% of the world trade at the end of the 19th century, yet by the middle of the 20th we had all but frittered it away. The coup de grace was delivered by the Conservative Government of the 1980s, and over a period of about a dozen years almost 3 million skilled jobs and some great world industries were laid to waste. As an act of national self-harm, it defies comparison.
There was no follow-up plan, nor, I am sorry to say, did the Labour Party provide one. The north was left to die—closed shipyards, empty factories, lost skills, empty towns, subsidence, subsidy and sorrow. But it has slowly, albeit patchily, built itself up again by its own initiatives. Now it is ready for a great leap forward, if only this Government would have the foresight and the nerve to give it the investment that it needs in education, business and communications, where the north has been left behind. We are faced by a Brexit that could badly threaten the north’s recent steady increase in prosperity and confidence. Threats and bullying words from Europe—including, surprisingly, from Germany, which I have admired over the last half-century—seem designed to stall any continued prosperity. However, over the centuries we have had a habit of responding well to threats from bullies, and now we have to get ourselves organised.
Infrastructure is the key, as many have said. It is shameful and ridiculous that there are no first-rate transport links between Liverpool across to Hull and from Hull up to Newcastle. Local infrastructure is far behind the European best. There is a skills shortage that could be remedied by the immediate expansion of technical departments in schools and colleges, instead of this faffing around with pointless new grammar schools and wasting energy on destroying the autonomy of universities. We have spent £40 million on a garden bridge in London without a brick being laid. That would have gone a long way in Hull and secured many of the scores of arts institutions that have been decimated in the north over the last year or so.
Why is there no vision for the wealth-making skills in the north when we are in clear danger? Vision led us to fast-build aeroplanes when the Second World War seemed imminent, for instance, and they were utterly vital. Who is defending the country now with anything like that foresight? We are throwing £50 billion to £60 billion at a railway line from London to Birmingham. Such a sum could bring riches to Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. What better way to shore up this country against the projected ruins of Brexit than to attempt with all our might to turn the north once more into a system of fortresses, this time of glitteringly contemporary business, high-tech manufacture and trade? Brexit is an opportunity for the north but confident commitment is what we need.
The north is well prepared for the impact of major change, but it needs to happen very quickly. How wonderful it would be if we could cut the deadly dither and exhilarate ourselves in a brave new world of decisions and action. A hundred years ago in the trenches, the British Army sang a song that went:
“We’re here because we’re here because we’re here”.
Great lyrics. Those men went on being there, and won through. So, you Brexiteers, “We’re here”, thanks to you—now get on with it. Have a vision. Take the opportunity in the north and stop moaning about how difficult it is. You got us here. Redeem your fibs. Turn your bluster into blast-off. The north, like Barkis, is willing. It can be the salvation of this country, but only if those inside the Great Wen would lift up their eyes to the northern hills, which is where they could find all the strength they need if only they had the guts to seize the moment.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, not least because only a few hours ago I was listening to him on the radio asking searching questions about the philosophy of Nietzsche. I thought it was going to be a sharp change of gear but actually he brought some of the same broad perspective to his very enjoyable speech today.
I welcome this report and the suggestions it makes. I want to look at it alongside another valuable report—the North East Chamber of Commerce’s manifesto for the year ahead. I pick out one thing initially from the latter report: dismay at the failure to make progress on the devolution deal for the north-east of England. You might think that where every local authority in the region has Labour leadership they would manage to agree with each other and make progress, but no such thing has happened. They disagree with each other and the Government have not been helpful either. I would like to see the Labour Party get its act together and start to reach agreement on the devolution process and the Government to stop making as a precondition of progress on devolution the creation of an elected mayor, which is not a relevant concept for this kind of region. The two sides should now get together and start making some progress.
However, there is a lot more we need in the north-east of England. Sometimes when people from my part of the world hear debates about the north they feel that quite a lot of it is about the Midlands, rather than areas which are to the north of much of Scotland and feel that sense of remoteness as well. We have a superb higher education sector in the north-east of England but there is also a large skill shortage, which the IPPR report points out. We therefore need to strengthen both our further education sector and access to it, which is very difficult given the large distances involved in much of our region. In my home town of Berwick, for example, it is no longer possible—because the Labour council would not agree to it—to have support for young people going to further education colleges in Newcastle. The only feasible way to do that is to go by train. Lots of people are denied the access that would improve their skills and give them opportunities in the labour market. As the IPPR report identifies, partly as a consequence of this we are short on the knowledge-based industries and the rate of progress and expansion of knowledge-based industries is slower in the north-east than nationally and the skill shortage must be part of that.
Of course, there are infrastructure improvements we want to see. I spent a lot of my time in the Commons arguing for dualling of the A1 and I am still arguing for it because progress even on what was agreed under the coalition is still slow. When we hear talk of HS2 we are actually more interested in what happens to the east coast main line and increased capacity and improved reliability on it. There are many infrastructure decisions which, as other noble Lords have pointed out, would make a huge difference to our potential in the region.
Brexit features in both reports and both sound loud warning bells about the dangers in a region where 58% of exports are to European Union countries. There is a particular fear about a potential period in which we may have left the European Union—and the Prime Minister has not shown herself interested in staying in the single market or the customs union so it may be on this basis—and still do not have new trade deals with other countries to fill any of the potential losses when exporters to Europe will find themselves faced with tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers, which are sometimes more significant than the tariff barriers for being able to export into a country or a whole region such as Europe. We really need a different approach.
Lord Spicer (Con)
I am terribly sorry that I did not hear the beginning of the noble Lord’s speech, but he is on about Brexit and the north-east.
Lord Beith
I apologise to the noble Lord, but he is depriving me of the opportunity to make a very important point, with which I want to conclude.
The process of dealing with Brexit requires communication between the Government and the north-east of England. In November, I read in the Evening Standard that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, had agreed with the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, that he would have a monthly face-to-face meeting both before and after the triggering of Article 50, so that the position of London could be understood at every stage of the negotiation. As far as I know, there is no such arrangement for the north-east of England. The IPPR report suggests a resilience committee to deal with that and open up that communication. In some way or other, the Government have to listen to the north-east’s special concerns and set up a mechanism to ensure that it is listened to throughout this process.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, along with 1 million private sector businesses, some 15 million people call the north of England their home. Compare those 15 million with the populations of sovereign countries: 11 million in Belgium, 5 million in Denmark or the 6 million combined population of the three Baltic countries. However, as we have heard, despite its significant population, and in the absence of devolution, the north does not punch its weight and many, especially those living in deindustrialised rustbelt towns, feel both disaffected and alienated.
Since 1855, when Elizabeth Gaskell published her famous social novel, North and South, the phrase has pointed to disparity, but in our own time austerity cuts have accentuated poverty, exclusion, educational failure, crime and lower life expectancy. It is a fact that a baby girl born in Manchester can expect to live for 15 fewer years in good health than a baby girl born in the London borough of Richmond. Consider that Londoners currently benefit at the rate of more than £65 per head from investment in cultural infrastructure, compared with less than £5 per head for the populations based outside the capital. Or take employment. UK employment rates are at an historic high: almost 2.4 million jobs were created between 2006 and 2015, but during the same period, across the north of England just 360,000 jobs were created. For too many workers in the north, wages have failed to increase in line with the national average.
Remedies might include the creation of a northern wealth fund, using new money saved or generated in the north for the north; a pan-northern digital platform; more innovative regeneration; and housing policies determined in the north, where Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield will face a shortage of 86,000 homes by 2030.
For me, two leading priorities are transport infrastructure, which has been referred to, and education. I should like to hear from the Government what progress is being made not only on the direct high-speed east to west line but on reopening and renewing local lines and dealing with gridlocked roads feeding our northern motorways. Last Sunday, it was reported that two more of the most senior managers of HS2—which is now said to cost some £56 billion—have quit their jobs. Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman of the Commons Treasury Select Committee, questioning its credibility, has said that it risks being “scarcely worth the candle”. It is an argument I set out in this House in October 2015. Compare that £56 billion, which the noble Lord, Lord Beith, mentioned, with infrastructure investment in the north.
Turning to education, my other priority, I am the first from either side of my family to have had the opportunity of higher education, in Liverpool, and I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests. Sadly, significant numbers of bright young people in cities such as Liverpool still do not get the same opportunity that I, and others who were beneficiaries of the post-war education legislation, had. We urgently need to improve life outcomes for children and young people in the north. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, said that the northern powerhouse will “splutter and die” if more is not done to improve performance in the region’s schools. He points out that four in 10 secondary schools in Liverpool are rated as inadequate, and that the number of teenagers gaining good grades is falling. He also said that “politicians need to act” and that,
“We cannot fight for social mobility with political immobility”.
A northern teaching premium to help schools struggling to recruit the highest-calibre teachers, and perhaps a “teach later” programme, might help.
The region’s 23 universities, six of which rank in the top 20 for research excellence nationally, should be empowered to become the drivers for transforming our region’s schools. The wonderful university of Liverpool John Moores, with its 21,000 students and 2,500 staff, has generated an estimated 2,493 jobs in industries across the north-west of England. By spending £186 million per year, it significantly contributes to the region’s economic and civic life. Manchester University has its own venture capital fund and has attracted £300 million of private funding to university spin-outs—crucial in creating jobs and leading-edge technology. The excellent annual Educate North & UK Leadership Awards and their conference celebrate these achievements. The whole sector is desperate not to see that success compromised by Brexit or by the Government’s higher education legislation. The Government must listen carefully to concerns that a dead hand is being placed on those crucial institutions.
I welcome today’s debate and am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for giving us parliamentary time to discuss these important questions.
Viscount Eccles (Con)
My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for this debate. I want to concentrate on the north-east.
In 1954, I went to live and work in the north-east. I lodged at 195 Durham Road, Stockton-on-Tees, with a Mrs Aucutt. Mrs Aucutt was a very significant figure. She worked for the council and controlled coal rationing. There is a certain irony in that when we think about the state of the coal industry in County Durham and along the coast of the north-east. There is not a single deep mine left. Much the same has happened in our part of the country to shipbuilding and to those firms that participated in the nuclear power industry in the days when we were building gas-cooled reactors. Global economics and political decisions have changed the scenery dramatically. Even steel is in trouble.
At that time, there were many headquarters of companies operating in that part of the north-east. Of course, they had with them many professionals who lived in the area. At much the same time, I bought myself a bicycle and bicycled across the wilderness between north Stockton and Middlesbrough. The visibility was not always very good and there was a strong smell of burnt cheese most mornings. To the left was ICI Billingham. What has happened to ICI was then unthinkable.
When we think about these things, we should remember—because it is much more important to think about the future than about the past—the huge changes that have taken place and consider the legacy. Middlesbrough is the third-largest port in the country. The chemical industry, which is born of companies such as ICI and Billingham Synthonia and so on, is going ahead strongly. There is the North East of England Process Industry Cluster, with a fantastic website which I recommend. It is doing extremely well both domestically and in exports, with very good success in building its supply chains effectively. One member of the cluster is an American corporation called Huntsman, valued at $5 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. It has among its subsidiaries a business that was called in my day British Titan Products. That was a very sound, steady British business bought in the late 1970s by Huntsman, which is a truly global corporation with subsidiaries all over the world. It still has a manufacturing plant on Teesside and an innovation centre. We should work even harder than we do to attract inward investment from such corporations which have had a successful time in the north-east of England. So not all is gloom.
The north-east also has iconic places; this is important because, if you want international business to come with middle-sized enterprises into the north-east, it must be attractive. There is Durham; Shakespeare and the opera come to Newcastle; there is the Beamish museum; there are Jonathan Ruffer’s great efforts in Bishop Auckland; and there is the Bowes Museum. Why is the Bowes Museum not a national one? The idea has been about for a long time; it meets every standard. Is it just because it is in the north that it has never been made a national museum? Such recognition would be a great boost—a psychological move maybe, but that is not to be despised. We all need confidence, and recognition helps.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Massey for securing this debate, which has engaged so many excellent speakers. Like many speaking today, I was born and bred in the north of England and, although my working life has been spent elsewhere, my ties to the north are still very strong. In my home town of Bradford in Yorkshire, I have seen over the years both the decline in its traditional industries and the determination to recover its economic potential. So I read the IPPR’s annual health check on the northern economy with great interest. It contains some nuggets of good news, such as the latest GVA stats, which show that, in 2015, the north’s economy grew faster than any other part of the UK. It has now passed the £300 billion mark and is worth more than those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined; apparently it is the 10th largest economy in Europe. There is no doubt, therefore, of the enormous economic potential of the northern powerhouse.
However, last year’s optimism has been replaced by the shadow cast over the region by the Brexit vote. Given the north’s dependence on EU trade—which is greater than that of anywhere else in the country—and the legacy of its industrial decline, the report argues that the north has the most to gain or lose from Britain’s exit from the European Union. One thing that I found most telling was that the northern areas most vulnerable to the economic turbulence caused by Brexit are those that voted most strongly to leave the EU. The report argues strongly that Brexit negotiations should focus on the needs of the areas that voted overwhelmingly to leave and that the Brexit vote in the north makes the Government’s northern powerhouse more important than ever. I agree: you have only to contrast areas such as Humber, Tees Valley and the Sheffield city region, which had the highest percentage of leave votes in the north, and the city of Manchester, which has benefited from economic development and where 61% voted to remain, to realise that the benefits of the northern powerhouse have been felt only in certain parts of the north so far.
As I have seen in visits to various parts of the north in my role as chair of the National Housing Federation, the,
“patchy development of combined authorities, metro mayors and devolution”,
mean it cannot as yet match the response of the devolved Administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, or even that of the Mayor of London. So I echo other speakers today in asking the Minister to recognise the IPPR’s call for a northern Brexit negotiating committee to determine the type of Brexit that would best suit the north and to unite the northern voice in negotiations. Does the Minister agree that to ensure sustainable productivity in the north there is a need to build direct relationships with regions and nations within and beyond the EU, to develop and enhance the north’s particular trade interests?
The author of the report calls the Brexit vote,
“a cry of community outrage at the imbalances of wealth and power, played out … within and between the regions”.
It is a reminder that many areas in the north, particularly those post-industrial communities outside the city centres, have not shared in northern economic growth, and are vulnerable, for example, to any post-Brexit restrictions on trade. I am therefore anxious, like my noble friend Lord Monks, that the Government’s new economic and industrial cabinet committee’s focus on,
“delivering an economy that works for everyone”,
to ensure that the,
“benefits of growth are shared across cities and regions up and down the country”,
could dilute our focus on the north. I fear that this would be a mistake. We must not allow support for the northern powerhouse to falter. The announced investment in infrastructure, culture, housing and the quality of life in the north, the devolution deals in Sheffield, Greater Manchester, the north-east, Tees Valley and Liverpool, and the work to raise education and skills levels, must be supported. Yes, this is important for the success of the north, but it is also important for the success of the UK as a whole.
My final point is that the two key issues of high-level skills and housing are inextricably linked. In the past 10 years, 75,000 highly qualified British residents have been lost from the northern powerhouse regions, which seems to have been masked by highly qualified workers coming in from outside the UK. In a poll of 2,000 graduates by an alliance of the north’s largest housing providers, 55% said that the quality of housing would be a key factor in deciding where to live if they were to move. Cost of housing was a very close second. Affordability and availability of housing is a unique selling point in the north. The alliance argues that if local authorities, housing providers, employers and universities came together, they could develop joined-up strategies to attract and retain many more highly qualified people. Does Minister agree that the Government could be instrumental in assisting them in developing innovative new products to buy or rent, specifically aimed at the graduate market, to attract the very graduates that the north so clearly needs?
Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on securing this timely debate. Of course, the anchor for our debate is the IPPR The State of the North report, which was published on 9 December. It is quite instructive, however, to go back 16 days to 23 November, because that was when Her Majesty’s Government produced a document, the Northern Powerhouse Strategy. It is a 30-page document—well, there are 10 pages blank—with a splendid foreword by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It helpfully sets out in a table that the north of England has a GDP greater than 22 European Union states. But the document does not tell us about the democratic deficit. It does not tell us that the north of England is on a totally separate footing to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or London. There are 20 pages of commentary about the northern powerhouse with barely a reference to the European Union, save for a couple of paragraphs on page 18 indicating a UK government guarantee on certain EU-funded investments signed up to prior to the Autumn Statement last year. There is neither a note of doubt about the issue of Brexit, nor any exuberance about any opportunity—silence.
The IPPR document published 16 days later attempts to plug the gap. It is a wide-ranging report on the north of England economy and its pages set out the Brexit concerns. Its number 1 recommendation is that there should be a northern voice at the Brexit negotiating table. It calls for,
“the formation of a Northern Brexit Negotiating Committee to determine the type of Brexit that would best suit the North, to speak with one voice”.
For me, a further striking point of the IPPR paper was its cover. In showing a map of the north of England, it showed it as what many of us have often thought of as three regions—to come back the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. If those three regions existed, it would pretty simple for them to co-operate, to talk for the north and to become a power base for the north. The diversity of cash-strapped and debilitated local government, ill-fitting combined authorities, mixed devolution and several LEPs does not easily convert into northern clout.
I want to talk about two further things. Can the Minister provide any further insight into the prospect of devolution in Yorkshire? Yorkshire is an understandable brand; I have lived there all my life—nowhere else. The efforts of the Yorkshire tourist board, the Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the Yorkshire Post make it clear what Yorkshire means. The cricketers say that if you get a strong Yorkshire, you get a strong England. I say that if we get a strong Yorkshire, we will get a stronger north. Does the Minister have something to say on whether he can see daylight with regard to devolution for Yorkshire?
My final point is that the ever-helpful House of Lords Library paper includes copies of the Hansard report from 17 June 2015—19 months ago—when the House discussed transport in the north. We heard a day or two before that of the indefinite delay in the electrification of the trans-Pennine railway, while there was nothing at all about the Calder Valley line, which the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, referred to and which greatly concerns me. That is the line from Manchester to Leeds and York via Huddersfield. Is there any news of a start date for that?
Lord Mawson (CB)
My Lords, as a northerner gone south I welcome this report and its focus and am thankful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for introducing this important debate.
I have spent a great deal of my life trying to stimulate integrated local economies in what appear from the outside to be unpromising contexts. In doing so, one has learned quite a bit over the past 30-plus years about how the world can look from Whitehall and the desks of researchers who are overconfident about the value of the papers they read by other researchers, and talkers in the press who often live at 60,000 feet above all the action. I am interested in what the world looks like through the eyes of practitioners engaged in the detailed work on the ground of rebuilding local economies. What is valued by the research community, who are chasing grants and their next funding, and what counts on the ground in practice may be very different. This is a helpful report but, like many other similar reports, it is overconfident about the role of the public sector—its structures, frameworks, policies and the like—and does not pay enough attention to the details of the business and social entrepreneurs actually doing the job on the ground.
I have been involved in the Olympic project in east London for over 17 years, in thousands of practical details on the ground that are generating quite a legacy. I have discovered that today there is still one story at 60,000 feet in Whitehall—about how we have successfully used this event to regenerate the east London economy—and quite another story to be told, on the ground, about what made the fine words and statements deliver in practice.
I will repeat my well-worn mantra: the way into understanding macro changes—in this case in the northern economy—is in the micro and the local community. The economies of the north are made up of thousands of local economies that need to thrive. The question is, as always, about the practical detail: this is where the devil sits. Real economies, in the north and in east London, are built by entrepreneurial people who take problems and turn them into opportunities. They are not built by government structures, frameworks and all the other clutter that this report is in danger of relying on too much. The public sector has an important role, yes—not in swamping those of us who rebuild these local economies in politics and red tape, but in creating the conditions within which business and social entrepreneurs can thrive.
Reference is often made to the history of the northern economies. My own city of Bradford’s economy was built not by the public sector and government paraphernalia but by wool entrepreneurs such as Samuel Cunliffe Lister and Sir Titus Salt, among others. How much time have these researchers spent with northern entrepreneurs in our own day, looking at what the world looks like through the eyes of these practitioners? This is where the rich grain of gold is to be found—not in generalities but in detailed practicalities.
As I engage today in 10 towns and cities across the north, in areas with great social and economic challenges, I am coming across some fantastic opportunities to rebuild our economies in the north. However, to do this the traditional siloed thinking and overreliance on reports like this will have to go. We live in a digital age; everything has changed. The job of the state is to create the conditions within which entrepreneurs can thrive, not to research and measure them to death with little purpose other than to feed the beast which is government.
I shall illustrate briefly one such opportunity in one northern community, a place where I am working. I have worked in west Cumbria on and off over the last 15 years. Successive Governments have poured billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the nuclear industry there and into the local economy. We have been right to do so: the nuclear industry really matters. However, the way successive Governments have done this has created a profound dependency culture in local communities—what the local MP described at one recent meeting I attended as “basket-case government structures”. Have we learned any lessons from all this previous activity? No: I learned many years ago that government is not a learning organisation. It too easily repeats old formulas and past mistakes, despite all the millions we spend on research keeping our universities in business.
An opportunity to work with the people of west Cumbria—particularly the next generation of young people, who I am already engaging with—is emerging, an opportunity to innovate and do things differently as new investment makes its way up the M6. I am already working with key business leaders in the nuclear industry there, and local entrepreneurs, to explore what an entrepreneurial culture might look like for a new generation. My interests are in the register. Later this summer, on 28 September, Professor Brian Cox will join me and my colleagues as we replicate a very successful science summer school there which we have been pioneering together over the last five years in east London, exploring how Britain can become the best place to do science and engineering in the world. Cumbria desperately needs a new narrative that takes it out of 1970s and puts it and its important industry firmly on the global map as a place of nuclear excellence. Who better to explore that modern narrative than Professor Brian Cox?
The question for the Government in this important piece of the northern economy is whether they will allow my colleagues and me to innovate. Will they allow us to move beyond the traditional silos and create a truly entrepreneurial and—yes—safe and responsible community, or will a thousand little pieces of legislation and a lack of continuity and bold leadership miss the moment and leave the next generation wondering whether it has a future in the north? I hope it does. Look at the health data in Cumbria: the effects of a dependency culture are in plain sight.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on obtaining this debate and I declare an interest in my role as a Cumbria county councillor, about which the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, was far too generous.
For us in Cumbria, the northern powerhouse came as a beacon of hope. But today the flame has been reduced to a flicker. Why and what can be done about it? Cumbria is a county with enormous economic potential. The national parks stretch continuously from the Cumbria coast right into Yorkshire, and with Hadrian’s Wall and all its cultural history it is one of the great places to visit—and to live—in Europe and the world. If the northern powerhouse could reignite the 19th-century dynamism of the great northern cities to its south, and if only the right local infrastructure were in place, Cumbria could become a compelling attraction for small business entrepreneurs, innovators, consultants and the rest.
As for Cumbria’s west coast, which the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, just spoke about, in the 19th century a few made their fortunes out of coal, iron, steel and shipbuilding there. In the 20th century, the workers and families they left behind lived through decades of acute depression and, since the Second World War, a longish industrial decline. Now, however, there is a real prospect of billions of new investment. GSK is putting £350 million into Ulverston, in south Cumbria. The Trident replacement programme in Barrow is taking on highly skilled workers. A £2 billion wind farm is planned off the Barrow coast, and a £20 billion new nuclear power station at Moorside next to Sellafield will generate 7% of Britain’s electricity, with a £2 billion investment by National Grid to carry it to the rest of Britain.
But for those developments to lead to a lasting rebalancing of Britain’s economy, there has to be a coherent economic plan, and they need supporting infrastructure. I shall explain to your Lordships how bad things are. The Cumbria LEP made a bid last July for 12 key projects, to be completed by 2020, to help support this new investment. The cost would have been £165 million, but the Government are offering us £12.6 million—less than a 10th of what we asked for.
In addition, we have argued for government commitment to a £130 million improvement to the Cumbrian coast railway, which connects all these projects and runs from Carlisle to Whitehaven, Barrow and Lancaster. At present, the journey from Carlisle to Lancaster is longer and much bumpier than the Virgin Trains ride from Carlisle to London. The new Northern Rail franchise will improve the rolling stock a bit, but only if we get Network Rail investment in track and signalling can this be transformative in what will be a hugely important area. The £3 billion of extra rail investment that George Osborne promised the north is, frankly, inadequate. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Alton, I am not arguing that the sums committed to HS2 should be cut; nor am I arguing that London’s Crossrail should be stopped. I feel very strongly that, if we are serious about rebalancing, we have to increase our overall commitment to transport investment.
At the same time, there has to be much more joined-up thinking in Whitehall. I support Greg Clark. I think he is a great Minister who is developing an industrial strategy, but that strategy has to put the nuclear innovation at its heart. Why spend all this money on new nuclear in Cumbria when all we will have is imports by foreign companies if we do not make ourselves a centre of nuclear excellence?
But more than that, we have to develop our universities and have much better schools and higher apprenticeships, and we have to support the vital public services. How can it make sense for the Government to support a plan to build a new nuclear power station in west Cumbria, which will require a workforce of 6,000, at the same time as we are proposing to cut services at the local hospital?
Finally, in Cumbria we need to get our act together, as the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, said. Our structure of two-tier government is hopeless and, at a time of continuing public austerity, disgracefully costly. However, there is no incentive for reform unless the Government put money on the table and bang heads together, showing a lead. Without that, I am afraid that the remaining flickers of the northern powerhouse will die out.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for instigating this important debate. I also thank IPPR North for a very incisive report, which I think takes the debate on slightly, as I shall explain in a moment.
I never thought that I would say this in a debate, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. If the strategic argument and the strategic framework are not sorted, then in everything we have been talking about we are simply tinkering at the edges. This is a northern issue, but it is not just about our towns, our regions or our cities; there is a northern dimension that needs to be dealt with here.
I am in the middle of reading a great book by an author called Philip McCann. It is called The UK Regional-National Economic Problem and its subtitle is Geography, Globalisation and Governance. It deals with specific regions. He argues that the UK economy is decoupling into three economies. That is brought about not by government policy but by globalisation and the way that different parts of the UK now trade globally. Therefore, there need to be different responses, and policymakers at the centre, through a framework, need to think strategically about what that actually means. I do not believe that there is a policy to deal with this—there is tinkering but no strategic policy.
For example, the London economy acts on agglomeration, which we assume is the be-all and end-all of every economy in the world. However, in Europe, and particularly in some of our regions, including the north, the approach is more polycentric, which is about how the cities and towns work together, how the rural and urban work with each other. That is not based purely on a city region devolution basis; it goes much deeper than that. The northern powerhouse is based predominantly on cities, particularly Manchester, and not on the whole northern area.
The book also shows that there is no trickle-down effect and that the prosperity of the south-east and London is not shared equally across the whole country. Half the UK’s population live in regions where productivity is below that of the poorer regions of the former East Germany. The weak, long-run productivity performance of the UK is largely a result of the fact that productivity benefits do not spread across the country but remain largely located in the south.
Meanwhile, the highly centralised and top-down UK governance system, which is being tinkered with but has not been significantly reformed for our economy, is appropriate only for governing a country whose economy is homogenous. That is not the case in the UK. This mismatch between the UK’s imbalanced internal economic geography and its overcentralised governance system on a regional-national basis is the key issue that has to be addressed if we are to unlock the economic performance of all regions in the UK. It is a deep-seated problem which will not go away, and tinkering with a few quality issues will not solve that. That is why we clearly need to grasp an understanding of how our economy works at the city, town, sub-regional and regional levels. Without that we will not unlock the potential of the north and other regions in this country to deliver the economic performance that they can achieve. The IPPR report, in talking about a plan for the greater north, begins to tackle that strategic policy issue.
Therefore, I ask the Minister: what work is really going on, not just in relation to cities and devolution at a local level but in relation to the conundrum between the regional and national economic problem? That needs to be addressed if we are to achieve total and prosperous economic development. It is so fundamental that not addressing it will mean that all devolution of skills, business development and other issues, which noble Lords have talked about, will not have maximum effect. It is so fundamental that it needs to be addressed. Yes, we need to address the local level and the polycentric at city and town level, and at the level of urban and rural working together, but we also need a policy framework that untaps the potential at the regional level and in the wider north. Again, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. Transport for the North starts to address that but it needs to go much deeper and much further.
Lord Sawyer (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Massey for instigating this debate. I will speak about the Tees Valley. The IPPR report states that the Tees Valley is going through a transition. That may be so but we have well-worked-out ambitions for growth in four major sectors: advanced manufacturing, energy, digital, and health innovation. We also have a highly productive workforce, a strong business and enterprise birth rate, and a good record of high-growth firms. We struggle with relatively low levels of research and development because we are a branch-plant economy, and a new industrial strategy needs to address this.
I will mention our creative economy, because we have bold ambitions there. Middlesbrough Council aims to have a culture thread, which will run right through successful development of the region’s people. Middlesbrough has 90 first languages spoken by the pupils in its schools. There is a new agenda to build confidence and enjoyment in speaking, known as oracy. This helps to build confidence in expression and it also helps higher achievement across the entire curriculum. The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art—MIMA—concentrates on building positive change. Its recent exhibitions have addressed migration, immigration, housing and healthcare. Darlington will soon be home to a new theatre, which will incorporate world-class children’s theatre and a centre for creative education. These are distinctive, creative projects in themselves, but we can note from them their dedication to inspiring people in the Tees Valley, who have a real gift for invention and for collaborating with each other.
To look at some of the biggest challenges, the IPPR report notes that the region does not provide enough jobs and that the current economy excludes too many people through unemployment. There is also a problem with the levels of pay. The median level of pay for full-time workers in the Tees Valley is 5% less than the national median level of pay. In too many cases, work is not a route out of poverty. Young people and their families need to see a system where education leads to decent jobs and where jobs lead to decent pay. If they cannot see opportunities, they will not see the point of trying. There is nothing new about this, nothing that we have not seen before, but these challenges still remain in the north of England and have to be met.
Skilled people and organisations across the Tees Valley are doing very creative, ambitious work, and the region is investing strongly in itself, but we need to create more jobs and more routes into jobs. I will make six suggestions that might help in this respect. First, we need to make sure than any structural funding lost in leaving the European Union is replaced; that has already been addressed but it needs to be continued. Secondly, we need to ensure continued access to European markets in our priority investment sectors, including chemicals and advanced manufacturing. Thirdly, we need to develop new trading arrangements and support for Tees Valley firms in helping them to diversify their activities. Fourthly, we need to press on with a new industrial strategy, and that strategy needs to prioritise principal economic growth in regions such as the Tees Valley. Fifthly, we need to help and support the Tees Valley in working with its four prime strengths—advanced manufacturing, energy, digital and health innovation. In doing so, we will help the region to create 60,000 new jobs, including apprenticeships for young people. Sixthly, we ask that all government departments join fully in the devolution process. There is a chance here for the north, including the Tees Valley, to have a new start. We need those voices to be listened to. The problem in the north-east is that we have not really been able to find the leadership that we should have—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. The noble Lord, Lord Beith, said that in some ways that is down to the Labour Party. We definitely have the leaders there but we have not given them the authority to speak for the region, and we need to do more of that in the future.
My final point touches on a point made by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Alton, that we have northern powerhouses because we have our universities. In my part of the region, the north-east, we have five universities which employ about 15,000 people. There is great talent, innovation and ability in the universities. If I were the Prime Minister, I would do one thing, which Jim Callaghan used to do when he was Prime Minister: he sent for people to come down and talk to him about the issues. I have done so a couple of times. It is very impressive to be sent for by the Prime Minister to listen to your opinions. The Prime Minister should send for the vice-chancellors of the five north-east universities—maybe more, but that is a different issue—and say to them, “What can you do to help the north? What is your town, what is your culture and what are the things that you’ve got?”. Bring them to the table and let us see if we can go forward on that basis.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this is obviously a debate for praising the noble Lord, Lord Prescott; I thought he said it all. Brexit transfers power from Brussels to London. England is the most centralised area in the whole European Union. The devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has to some extent modified the centralisation of power within the UK, but the regions of England have continued to lose out. Cuts to local authority spending now are making that go further. It is a cultural imbalance as much as an economic one. I agree strongly with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that people in London sometimes talk about Yorkshire as if it is part of Africa. When I first came into this House, I remember a Conservative Peeress saying to me, “I have just been to Yorkshire, and parts of it were quite nice”. The media, as we all know, are also heavily concentrated in north or east London and report things that happen in Islington or Tower Hamlets in ways they would never think of reporting if they happened in north Leeds or east Bradford. That is all part of the problem with which we have to deal.
It is therefore an increasing disadvantage that the north, as a whole, lacks an effective political voice within the UK system of government. Scotland has an effective voice on the Barnett formula, the geographical distribution of public funding, and in negotiating with London on the terms of international trade. Wales and Northern Ireland also have good institutionalised positions. But the north lacks anything comparable—certainly not comparable with London government itself. That matters in particular when we have a Conservative Government drawn largely from the Home Counties, with only a handful of Ministers who have any feel for, or sympathy for, the northern counties. Now that George Osborne and William Hague have gone, Greg Clark is the only one among the senior members of the Cabinet who appears to have sympathy and understanding for the industrial towns and cities that contributed so much to Britain’s prosperity over the past 200 years, but which have been left behind since the balance of Britain’s economy shifted, under Margaret Thatcher, from manufacturing to finance. There is a real danger that the north will be squeezed further between London and the devolved national governments as the Conservatives negotiate Brexit.
The State of the North report notes that the English regions, as a number of noble Lords have said, are significantly more dependent on trade with Europe than London itself. Yorkshire trades with the continent. Hull and the other Humber ports depend on handling trade with the continent. Two-thirds of Yorkshire’s food exports go to the European continent, eased by the rules of the single market and protected by the registration of regional denominations by the EU. Some of our producers are just beginning to wake up to the fear that they might lose that. The idea that food can be traded freely without international regulation is absurd. Food goes off, and dirty processes on food spread disease, so there has to be international regulation, and European regulation is some of the best. European regional funding flows into the economically weaker parts of Yorkshire, redistributing funds that a southern-dominated Conservative Government in London might be reluctant to redistribute to the north within a purely national framework.
Previous State of the North reports have detailed the low levels of investment in infrastructure in the north, in transport in particular, as noble Lords have said. I have been using the trains across the Pennines since I first taught in Manchester in 1967, and some of the rolling stock has not changed since then. The speed has hardly improved, either. The previous Labour Government, amazingly, neglected the north’s infrastructure, even cancelling tram networks in Liverpool and Leeds when plans were well advanced. It is not clear from recent announcements whether the east-west rail corridor from Oxford to Cambridge will now carry a higher priority for the Government than northern Crossrail, which is vital to realising the concept of a northern powerhouse.
The concept of a northern powerhouse, as the previous year’s report from IPPR North said, is itself difficult. The 2015 report said:
“The government has excelled in being largely unspecific as to what exactly the northern powerhouse is”.
That represents a lot of the cynicism in the north as to whether the northern powerhouse concept is merely rhetoric or is actually going to lead to money being redistributed. When George Osborne appeared with a number of Chinese investors alongside him, to suggest that perhaps the Chinese could pay for the northern powerhouse rather than the British taxpayer, our cynicism increased.
The north of England has been left behind by successive Governments. The rhetoric of a northern powerhouse was a welcome sign that things might change, but we have not seen the money yet. Canvassing for the referendum in June, I was painfully aware that in the former council estates of West Yorkshire, people planned to vote against London as much as against Brussels, and against politicians as much as against bankers. Head teachers tell me that school budgets are being squeezed. Two head teachers in Bradford told me that they fear they might go bankrupt in the next two or three years, as flat funding comes up against increasing salaries for their teachers.
Councillors tell me that local services are in danger of disappearing as cuts get deeper. Companies recruit directly from eastern Europe because, they say, they cannot find local workers with the skills or the motivation that they are looking for. Extra rounds of spending cuts and the likely downturn that will accompany a hard Brexit will worsen the situation across the north, so I strongly support the message of this IPPR document, which says that we need a more effective voice for the north to rebalance the British economy and rebalance the political system of the UK.
I stress the fiscal redistribution dimension of this because we have not talked much in British politics about the imbalance of funding for local authorities across the UK as a whole. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish now bargain with the Government about the balance of income and expenditure. The rest of us do not have a chance to do so. It is extremely important that we now begin to bring into the open the argument about how far rebalancing the economy allows us also to shift funds from the richer areas of the country to the north. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, talked about a dependency culture, but in the estates of north Bradford, which I know that he knows well, the sense of hopelessness is partly because the local authority cannot do anything for you either. Children’s services, social services and so forth have been cut, so people do not see their local authority and they feel alienated from the entire political system.
Education is also a tremendous problem. I have seen figures that suggest that by the time children enter reception class at school in large parts of Bradford and Leeds they are already a long way behind their counterparts in London. I am conscious that FE colleges in the north are also being cut. As a Latvian cheerfully said to me when I canvassed him during the referendum, “The one good thing about Brexit will be that you will have to go on depending on people like me because you aren’t going to find people to build houses within Britain”. The supply is not there. There are not enough places. Building companies in Yorkshire, I was told some weeks ago, want to carry on recruiting directly from eastern Europe because they do not have the confidence to set up the sort of training schemes to train people who are less well motivated. In Bradford, the one training scheme that I am aware of was oversupplied in terms of applicants for its building apprenticeships by 100% or more.
I have one final comment. Depending entirely on FDI is not the answer for the region. We need local economic leadership, which means encouraging local entrepreneurs and local companies. Allowing those local companies as they grow to be taken over by foreign multinationals does not provide us with local incentives and local leadership—everything that we need. Banks, centralised in London as they are, also need to put money into the region. We need an institutionalised presence for the north in the process of Brexit, but we also need a stronger voice for the north in the British political system as a whole.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Massey on securing this most interesting debate, and on an introduction that has been a stimulus to all contributors. Two developments dominate the whole issue of the north at the present time. One is obviously Brexit, on which this Government are inspiring little confidence that they have a structure of priorities in place for the negotiations. Several noble Lords in the debate and the IPPR report itself emphasised that it is essential for a negotiating committee to be set up for the north to protect its interests and advance its cause in the negotiations with Europe. The UK as a whole has a considerable dependence on exports to the European Union, which is why these negotiations will be of such significance. The country as a whole exports 44% to the EU, but the north-east exports 58%. That is why it is so important that negotiations take place that safeguard the economic interests of the north.
Developments in relation to Brexit also reflect the fact that the north is a significant part of Europe. After all, its economy is as large as Belgium’s, as was indicated in the debate. It is larger than the majority of countries in the European Union. So we cannot disregard the significance of the region in these discussions. That is why the IPPR reached its conclusion, which I am sure this debate has gone a considerable way to broadcasting and endorsing.
The Government have also been riding high on the other development of great significance to the northern economy—the powerhouse of the north. Thus far, we would have to say that there has been great talk but very limited government commitment of resources. The concept had a somewhat weak start when the Chancellor seemed to concentrate on that part of the country of most direct interest to his own constituents. That is not of course to disregard the enormous significance of the city of Manchester, but it is also obligatory on any concept of the powerhouse of the north that other significant cities be included. The right reverend prelate the Bishop of Leeds emphasised that it is not just the cities that need consideration but the smaller towns that are satellites to them and the surrounding countryside. They will also require real consideration if their interests are to be protected.
The fact that the Government’s commitment has concentrated overwhelmingly on transport shows the significance of the link between cities, but that plays only a limited part in the development of the wider northern economy, to say nothing of the fact that thus far very little has been heard of other significant cities. My noble friend Lord Prescott reminded us of the significance of Hull in this debate, but many cities in Yorkshire are important. Leeds has had some prominence in the Government’s considerations, but there is so much more to do. Concentration on transport has had a limited demand in this respect. The Government are promising £13 billion to be spent on these links in the next few years, whereas the IPPR indicated that effective links could be established only if £50 billion—four times that amount—were spent. That is an indication of the challenge that lies before us.
My noble friend Lady Massey and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, commented on the existing local authorities. The Government’s local government settlement still ensured that a great deal of resources went to the wealthier southern parts of the country, and the northern region got its usual poor deal out of that assessment. That is an indication of what needs to be done, not least on the issue of education. I was delighted when my noble friend Lord Bragg raised the issue of further education. He was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and others. There is no point in our talking about reskilling our nation while at the same time reducing the viability of the further education colleges. In my own former constituency, the Oldham College, which was a significant contributor, has had its resources truncated so much that it is now being linked with two other colleges for provision—a sure sign that this is about constraint on expenditure rather than expansion of provision.
However, unless we address ourselves to the skills of the nation, the resilience of the people that was referred to by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York cannot be catalysed into effective activity without the necessary education and training. I hope we will soon see the Government giving some priority to this. That is the only way we will see our economy thrive on the skills of our people, rather than be dependent on the introduction into the economy of plumbers and contract workers from eastern Europe to meet the needs of our employers. We need progress in this area.
Finally—and I am not asking the Minister to reply to this point because it is at a nascent stage—several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Liddle, have emphasised the problems in Cumbria. I know of several businessmen who are taking seriously the challenge of improving the position in Cumbria. They are looking, and have been for some time, at what we had such excellent news about yesterday: tidal schemes in Swansea and the fact that the Swansea lagoon can prove viable. We have estuaries off the northern and southern coasts of Cumbria, and it is to be expected and hoped that intelligent business activity will address itself to the possibilities of progress there.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the publication of the IPPR’s annual State of the North report has given us the raw material for a debate on the state of the north, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has provided us with the opportunity. I am grateful to her for her opening contribution, particularly her focus on the way that social mobility has changed over generations. I thank her for setting the scene for the debate, and all noble Lords who have contributed. Having sat through the debate for nearly two and a half hours, I have to say that there is very little with which I disagreed. Indeed, as somebody who for 41 years in another place represented constituencies in London and then Hampshire, I felt a growing sense of guilt at the apparent preferential treatment that my constituents had received for such a long time, compared with those in the north. I hope to try to reassure the House that the Government are determined to see a fair distribution of resources.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, quoted from the summary of the IPPR report, as did other noble Lords. It is worth quoting one sentence:
“All this, however, presents new opportunities”.
Maximising the full potential of the economy of the north, which has in many ways lagged behind that of London and the south-east, is vital. The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, in a speech that could have come out of “Henry V”, exhorted us to raise our sights and unlock the potential of the north. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York said, it is important for those who live and work there that we should do this. I found what he said about the human resilience of those who live in the north very moving. It is in the interests of not just the north but the whole of the UK that we should unlock the potential. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Curry, about the contribution to the balance of payments is well worth making—the fact that there is a major contribution to the balance of payments, which at the moment is in deficit. We should do all we can to unlock that potential.
Noble Lords made many helpful suggestions in the debate about how we can raise our productivity and bring about a sustained rise in wealth, prosperity and opportunity. I hope to respond to as many points as I can in the time available, but where I cannot, I will write to noble Lords and deal with their issues. We have debated this issue a number of times in this Chamber. We had an exchange at Questions on Tuesday. The IPPR report helps us make further progress and I am glad it found favour in the eyes of my noble friend Lord Cavendish, who reminded us of the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, he made a plea for a reform of governance in Cumbria. I will certainly pass those comments on to the Secretary of State at DCLG. The question of whether Cumbria is going to get the importance it deserves may be answered in the forthcoming by-election up in Copeland, which may focus the minds of all political parties on making sure that that part of the world gets a square deal, but that is beyond my brief.
We are determined to take action to support and strengthen local economies across the north. As noble Lords will be aware, that was an aim pursued with unwavering enthusiasm and dedication by my noble friend Lord O’Neill of Gatley in his work at the Treasury, and I pay tribute to his contribution. In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, I reassure him that colleagues in government will continue to work to realise my noble friend’s vision for a true northern powerhouse—one with a vibrant, resilient and growing economy; a flourishing private sector; modern and efficient transport links; and a more highly skilled population—and to do so, as we move to leave the European Union, with a negotiated outcome that works for all parts of the United Kingdom and shows the world that we are open for business. I hope to say something later about the very forceful points that were made about a voice for the north. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, reminded us of the importance of the single market and produced a six-point plan, to which he will get a six-point letter in due course.
Reading the IPPR report, I was struck by some of the deeply ingrained challenges that we are trying to overcome; in particular, the productivity gap, which has been the case for decades now and, indeed, was picked out for mention in the Motion before us. Currently, productivity in the north is 13% lower than the UK average and 25% lower than in the south. Clearly, there is a complex range of factors behind that, many of which noble Lords have highlighted previously and did so again today. I will pick up three.
First, connectivity remains a challenge for many people and businesses. To give just one example, congestion on the M62 means that it can take more than two hours to travel the 40 miles between Manchester and Leeds. That is not only frustrating for local people but a barrier to local businesses and the jobs and growth they can bring, and potentially a deterrent to inward investment. I take the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that connectivity is not just linear. What we need is a spider’s web, rather than a telephone wire, to reach out to the communities that are not directly on the main roads or railway lines. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the stations he would like to see reopened. As a former Secretary of State for Transport, I share that enthusiasm.
Secondly, skills have consistently lagged behind the south at all levels. The north has a higher proportion of people with no qualifications than the UK average and a lower proportion of graduates. I will certainly pursue the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, about the role of vice-chancellors in making progress in this area.
Thirdly, it is still more difficult to set up and grow a business in the north compared with the south. Connected to that, we find a lower level of entrepreneurialism in this region, although in saying that I take nothing away from all the dynamic and resilient businesses that exist in the north, some of which were referred to in the debate. We were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and others of the history of the great entrepreneurs of the north, particularly those in Bradford.
The IPPR report identifies some excellent examples of successful local economies but, in short, there remain clear areas for improvement, which were highlighted in the debate. The northern powerhouse strategy we published at the Autumn Statement seeks to address these underlying challenges. In saying that, of course I recognise that there are other issues that we need to address—the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned housing—that are not touched on in the report. We know that lasting changes will not happen overnight, but already we are making substantial progress, as the report acknowledges.
There are signs that our hard work is beginning to pay off. Foreign investors are responding. In 2015-16 the north of England saw inward investment projects increase by nearly a quarter from the previous year, faster than the UK average. In October, the French rail builder Alstom confirmed that it will build a £20 million technology centre in Liverpool, creating up to 600 jobs. In the three months to October 2016, the north saw a record number of people in work—more than 7 million people—and an employment rate of 72.5%, close to its record high. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and others mentioned other successful business that either have been established or are growing.
I shall summarise briefly some of the action that we have been taking to support that success, starting with our work to improve the transport networks that businesses and hard-working commuters rely on every day. We are investing £13 billion in transport in the north over the course of this Parliament. Already we have started to take forward important improvements such as upgrading the A1 in North Yorkshire to motorway standard, upgrading the trans-Pennine rail route to take nearly 10 minutes off journey times between Manchester and Leeds and establishing Transport for the North, to which the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, referred. Last night I was reading his intervention in what I think was one of the first debates of this Parliament when he spoke about his work on the Northern Way. I pay tribute to what he did when he was in government to improve infrastructure in the north.
At the recent Autumn Statement we went further, committing to upgrade the A66 to a dual carriageway across the Pennines and to make major improvements to Manchester’s M60 ring road to ease congestion. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asked about Cumbria’s coastal railway. The new rail franchise for the northern and trans-Pennine express networks will deliver altogether more than 500 new railway carriages and 2,000 extra services each week. This franchise includes the Cumbrian Coast line to which he referred. Improving connectivity is vital to unleash the north’s economic potential so that the whole can be greater than the sum of its component parts.
As my noble friend Lady Eaton said, better transport links make it easier for people to find jobs, for firms to find workers and for ideas to be shared and developed. That is not just the case domestically within the UK, but in terms of international links as well. In my time as Secretary of State for Transport, one of the things that I took forward was giving the go-ahead to a second runway at Manchester Airport, which is now the UK’s third busiest airport—the busiest outside the south-east.
Skills was a theme that ran through our debate, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and others. We have been working to ensure that people have the right skill sets for their chosen career. We have welcomed the findings of Sir Nick Weller’s report into schools performance in the north and committed £70 million to improve outcomes in northern schools. We continue to explore how we can improve everything from careers advice to high quality apprenticeships and world-class teaching. There is more that I would like to say, but time precludes it. However, to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, who asked if the Government would consider housing products for the graduate market, in the Northern Powerhouse Strategy we have committed to work with the northern city regions and other local stakeholders to develop innovative proposals for attracting skilled workers. We are funding groundbreaking projects to develop the north’s strengths in science, the arts and sport, including providing £235 million to the Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials.
I turn briefly to our responses to the IPPR report. As I have said, a lot of activity is already taking place. The report makes three suggestions as to how we can go further. The Government will work to get the best possible deal for all parts of the United Kingdom as we leave the EU, engaging with businesses up and down the country and continuing to back northern trade. Listening to this debate, I was struck by the number of representations about the potential relative disadvantage of the north in accessing the decision-makers. Without going beyond my brief, that is certainly a point of which my colleagues in government should be aware, given the strength of feeling that has been expressed throughout this debate. That is one of the most important lessons that I have learned.
Our industrial strategy will represent a comprehensive plan for the success of British businesses across all sectors and places, positioning the UK for long-term, sustainable growth as we move towards exiting the EU. A consultation paper will be published shortly.
Lord Prescott
Will the Minister explain the difference between—as pointed out in the report—a place growth strategy and the other critical northern house which tends to get debated? Is it the Humber?
Lord Young of Cookham
I hope the document on industrial strategy to which I have just referred will shed some light on the important issue that the noble Lord has raised. I hope he will excuse me if I move to my final comments. I am conscious that I have not dealt with a whole range of issues about devolution to local government, about local enterprise partnerships, about employment and wages and about those museums—to which I have an answer that will now have to be converted into a letter.
We are determined to keep up our relentless drive further to enable the sustainable economic success of the north. We are taking action on a number of fronts to tackle the deep-seated structural issues that have held back the economic prosperity of the north for too long. There is more to do. To continue our progress, we will keep working hand in hand with those who know best: local businesses, authorities and other organisations. Together, we can keep seizing the opportunities for growth that benefit not only businesses and individuals in the north, but the UK economy as a whole.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that thorough, respectful and inclusive response. I am grateful to him for some reassurances. I am glad that he reminded us of the importance of MPs and elections. I hope MPs will read this debate. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this thoughtful, wise and sometimes entertaining debate. It has also been challenging, as it was meant to be.
When I came to the Chamber today, I had not realised that so many parts of the north would be represented. I have sympathy with my noble friend Lord Prescott’s concerns about a strategy for the whole region. As many have pointed out, each region has its own characteristics, from population to industries, culture and cricket. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, that mentioning Yorkshire cricket to a Lancastrian is not the right thing to do. Has he looked at Yorkshire’s record recently?
We have moved between many topics: small business, housing, education, agriculture and so on. We have also heard of initiatives such as Get Bradford Working and the North East England Chamber of Commerce. I do not discard culture as unimportant. Culture is really important. Opera North is one of my favourite companies and the north has many cultural seats of excellence, as it does in sport. They are all important for local pride and local interest.
The most important thing that has emerged for me today is this issue of the urgent need for dialogue between the Government and the north. Many people mentioned this, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. Investment has also been mentioned many times. The issue of local councils is difficult. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, give them the tools. I know they are cash-strapped. I think we would all plead with the Minister and the Government to listen to the north and make Brexit an opportunity. That opportunity will be lost if the north is not encouraged and supported. I stress again the need for a positive dialogue between the Government and the north to achieve our ambitions.
Burma: Rohingya
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the current treatment of the Rohingya in Burma.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a board member of the Burma Campaign UK and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy in Burma.
In November 2015, Burma had its first free and fair elections, after over two decades of remorselessly oppressive military rule. Supporters of liberty across the world, including many in this House, rejoiced. It seemed that the resilient bravery of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy had triumphed and another cruel dictatorship had been ended.
Thirteen months after that election result, the reality in Burma is, I am afraid, tragically different—so different that two weeks ago 14 of Aung San Suu Kyi’s fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates and nine other distinguished internationalists issued an open letter to the UN Security Council, saying that,
“a human tragedy amounting to ethnic cleansing … is unfolding in Myanmar”.
They went on to detail the well-documented reality, supported by satellite images, of multiple killings, huge mass displacements of people, destruction of villages, torture, arbitrary arrests and murder of children in the Rohingya communities of Rakhine state.
These atrocities were ostensibly an armed response to the killing of nine Burmese policemen in October. As the laureates have clearly said:
“The truth about who carried out the attack … is yet to be established, but the Myanmar military accuse”,
Rohingya groups. They continue:
“Even if that is true, the … response has been grossly disproportionate”.
The laureates say that it is,
“one thing to round up suspects, interrogate them and put them on trial. It is quite another to unleash helicopter gunships on thousands of ordinary civilians and to rape women and throw babies into a fire”.
Together with denial of access of humanitarian aid to areas that have been devastatingly poor for many years, these atrocities have created an appalling humanitarian tragedy. UNHCR estimates that more than 43,000 have fled to Bangladesh, only to be sent back. Some international experts are warning that there is a real potential for genocide. The Bangladesh head of UNHCR has accused Myanmar’s Government of ethnic cleansing, saying:
“It has all the hallmarks of recent past tragedies - Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Kosovo”.
In an unprecedented passage that conveyed their deep concern and sense of urgency, the laureates said:
“Despite repeated appeals to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi we are frustrated that she has not taken any initiative to ensure full and equal citizenship rights of the Rohingyas”.
Daw Suu Kyi, they say, is surely the leader who has the,
“primary responsibility to lead … with courage, humanity and compassion”.
Instead of such leadership, the Myanmar Government’s response to the outrages taking place in Rakhine has been to establish a manifestly sham presidential commission of inquiry. It simply sustained the deceitful propaganda of “no human rights violations”, “no malnutrition” and “free access” for the media. All of it is, so far as we know, endorsed by Aung San Suu Kyi. Last week, Anna Roberts of the Burma Campaign UK called the commission’s report a “farce” and said that,
“it is time for the UK to support the establishment of a genuinely independent UN Commission of Inquiry to look into the totality of the situation in Rakhine State”.
It is also essential that the UN Secretary-General leads in negotiating access for humanitarian aid.
Those demands echo the concluding paragraphs of the powerful letter of the Nobel laureates, who want the UN Secretary-General to visit Myanmar within weeks:
“It is time for the international community as a whole to speak out … more strongly. After Rwanda, world leaders said ‘never again’. If we fail to take action, people may starve to death if they are not killed with bullets, and we may end up being the passive observers of crimes against humanity”,
wringing our hands “belatedly”,
“and say ‘never again’ all over again”.
In November, in an Answer following evidence of malnutrition among Rohingya children and reports that the Burmese forces were restricting humanitarian aid to Rakhine state, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, listed the detail of UK assistance to Burma and Rakhine and said:
“We will continue to monitor and support the delivery”,
of the Burmese Government’s commitment “to restoring humanitarian access”. I ask the Minister first for the results of the monitoring and any action taken, especially when the presidential commission makes the derisory claim that access to Rakhine for media has been unimpeded. Secondly, will the Government give urgent and insistent support to the calls for strong action by the UN Security Council and the Secretary-General made by the Nobel laureates?
When the UNHCR speaks of “ethnic cleansing”, and Prime Minister Razak of Malaysia, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Dr Azeem Ibrahim of the US Center for Global Policy all speak in measured, well-informed terms of impending genocide of the Rohingya people, there is surely a grave reason for sounding the alarm. We act now to safeguard those whose ethnicity makes them victims of this most terrible persecution.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for securing this debate, which, due to the events she outlined from late last year in Rakhine state, is very timely. No one underestimates the progress that has been made in Myanmar and the challenges that lie ahead, especially as the military finds its proper constitutional place. Change will not come overnight for Myanmar, but there should be red lines for Her Majesty’s Government and the international community. Transition will not always suffice as a reason for Myanmar’s problems.
The UK taxpayer is funding development and democracy-building work. DfID’s budget is nearly £100 million this year alone. Will Her Majesty’s Government provide details on how much of the £19.2 million allocated for humanitarian assistance to Rakhine has been delivered? Relief NGOs have to deliver aid regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or religion and so do Her Majesty’s Government, so I look forward to the update on whether the aid blockade has been lifted so we can comply with these international standards.
Also, will my noble friend the Minister say why Her Majesty’s Government were not alongside 14 countries, including Canada, the USA and Turkey, that released a joint statement on 9 December demanding humanitarian access to north Rakhine state? I have raised before in the House the need to ensure that UK visas to Myanmar citizens should also be issued on a non-discriminatory basis, so will she please contact the Home Office to investigate the numbers and types of visas issued and whether any have been issued to the Rohingya Muslim community?
DfID’s programme for democratic change in Myanmar has a fund of £25 million, so I wonder how we can evaluate this project when the Rohingya are disenfranchised and the situation has gone backwards. A Rohingya Muslim, Shwe Maung, was elected as an MP in 2010, but then the Government removed temporary identification cards so the community—his voters—were disfranchised. He is seeking asylum in the United States. In addition to DfID, there is FCO funding for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s work. In fact, Parliament’s Library and research facility services are being offered to support the new parliament. Will my noble friend outline how, without an independent inquiry into the allegations of potential crimes against humanity being conducted, we can possibly assess the situation, which should help us inquire as to whether we should give the further support to Myanmar that I have outlined?
The UK has a role in many multilateral institutions. On 29 December the Nobel laureates that the noble Baroness mentioned, including Malala, asked the UN to put the issue on the Security Council agenda. Have Her Majesty’s Government put this on the agenda, and is it on the agenda for the Human Rights Council meeting next month at the UN? A week today, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, under the auspices of the OIC, will hold a meeting relating to the situation of the Rohingya Muslims. Will Her Majesty’s Government send a representative to observe that meeting in the light of the forthcoming Human Rights Council meeting? The Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, led by the Kofi Annan Foundation, will report in the second half of this year. Will my noble friend please extend an invitation to him to come to the United Kingdom Parliament so we can ask questions of him once the report is published?
Finally, as our noble friend Lady Anelay is Minister for the Commonwealth, and as Bangladesh as well as Malaysia is being significantly affected by the displacement of the Rohingya Muslim community in the region, will she speak to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth? Perhaps her engagement might assist. Should DfID money for Rohingya, rather than being given for humanitarian assistance in Rakhine state, be redirected to Bangladesh, so that it might be able to accommodate some of the 43,000 people who have fled over the border?
In four minutes it is not possible to ask all the questions that, in light of recent developments, noble Lords need to ask, so will my noble friend Lady Goldie arrange a meeting with our noble friends Lady Anelay and Lord Bates so that interested Peers can get a full briefing on all aspects of this issue and where and when red lines will be drawn? A democracy that is religiously, ethnically and racially discriminatory will at some point become something that the UK taxpayer can no longer support.
Lord Williams of Baglan (CB)
My Lords, I, too, commend the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, on securing this important debate. I first visited Myanmar nearly 30 years ago, in 1988, shortly after the putsch that brought the military to power. At the time I was a correspondent for BBC World Service, which to this day has a reach in Burma unequalled by any in the contemporary world. In the past few years there have been many changes in the country, especially after the 2015 elections, the first democratic elections in decades, which brought Aung San Suu Kyi to power as Prime Minister. There is a freedom of the press now which would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.
In September 2015 I chaired a conference for Chatham House in Rangoon, the first held by any international think tank there. But substantial and wide ranging though the reform programme has been, there is still much to be done, nowhere more so than in the treatment of minorities, especially the Rohingya. Historically, minorities have always found difficulties in south-east Asia, as states too often have been defined by majority faiths, whether Buddhist, Islamic or Christian. An exception in that regard is Indonesia, whose 1945 constitution guarantees all faiths. It is fair to say that none of these minorities in recent years have faced problems as great as the Rohingya of Rakhine state have faced.
The present Government have taken some steps, notably the commission headed by my former boss, Kofi Annan. The suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, of inviting Mr Annan here when his report is concluded is helpful. The establishment of that commission was a step forward, but I remind the House that it is an advisory commission and is not scheduled to report for six months. I am not sure we have that much time and the danger of a new exodus of boat people from Rakhine state is all too real.
With the appointment of António Guterres as UN Secretary-General on 1 January I believe we have a new opportunity. No one has come to the post of Secretary-General of the UN as well qualified as he, not least because he is a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He has visited Burma/Myanmar several times. In his address to the Security Council on 10 January he asked the Council to make greater use of chapter 6 of the charter, which allows the body to investigate and recommend procedures to resolve disputes that could endanger international peace and security. I urge the Minister to look at those possibilities. As a permanent member of the Security Council and as the former colonial Government in Burma, we have a particular duty and responsibility on our shoulders. Rakhine state is an issue that threatens not only regional peace but potentially international peace. It is a threat to peace that could all too easily feed into the mythology and ideology of global jihad. That is the last thing we need to see.
Finally, we are a substantial aid donor to Burma. Can the Minister clarify how much aid is actually going to Rakhine state—if she cannot say now, perhaps she will write to me—and whether some of our aid is specifically earmarked to bolster the fragile peace process there? An escalation of present tensions, which is all too possible, could pose very substantial dangers to the wider achievements that have taken place in Burma in recent years.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, the plight of the Rohingya Muslims is indeed desperate and the emergence in 2016 of an organised militant insurgency has only deepened the severity of that crisis. But such an escalation is hardly surprising. As the excellent report into the situation in Rakhine state by Crisis Group puts it:
“People pushed to desperation and anger, with no hope for the future, are more likely to embrace extremist responses, however counterproductive”.
The systematic persecution of the Rohingya people by the Burmese Government, most obviously manifested in the denial of citizenship to Rohingya Muslims, has created a fertile recruiting ground for militants. It is a simple human truth that people who have no say in their future and no means to participate in the democratic life of their country are liable to resort to extremism in order to achieve those means. The violence of the recent Government crackdown, with reports of mass killings, rape and the destruction of villages by the Burmese military, will only further stoke anger in the Muslim community at both a domestic and an international level and increase the threat of a spiralling cycle of radicalisation.
Yet the Rohingya community is not, for the most part, a radicalised community. According to Crisis Group, community elders and religious leaders have repeatedly eschewed violence as harmful to their ultimate goal of democratic participation in the life of their country. While that remains the case, there is still hope that progress can be made towards reconciliation, but the longer progress remains stalled, the greater the danger that Rakhine will plunge into ethnic cleansing and civil war. The situation is delicate. The fledgling civilian government of Burma still sits in a perilous position. The path to community reconciliation and full citizenship for the Rohingya people will inevitably be tempered by the very real threat that Burma could slide back into military rule.
However, progress towards those goals remains a real possibility. There are parliamentarians in Burma who are committed to defending religious freedom, and every effort should be made to equip and support them. The Rakhine commission, set up in August at the request of Aung San Suu Kyi and chaired by Kofi Annan, is also a positive development and it is vital that the international community support its work. Of course, little can be achieved if the violence in Rakhine escalates further. If reconciliation is to remain a real possibility, the military must cease its heavy-handed response to recent violence. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government are making that message clear to the Burmese authorities.
It would be helpful to know what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to push for independent monitors to be granted access to northern Rakhine and what can be done to encourage the Burmese Government to move towards full citizenship and rights for the Rohingya community in the medium term. Without cause for hope that the situation can and will improve through peaceful, democratic means, more angry young people will turn to extremism and militancy and the cycle of violence will only deepen.
Baroness Nye (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Kinnock for initiating this debate. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Burma Campaign UK. The Amnesty International report on the situation in Rakhine quotes a Rohingya farmer, whose home was burned down by the military. He said:
“There is no one in Wa Peik now. All the houses are destroyed. We are in very difficult times, no food, no clothes, we are just sleeping in the fields ... we are at breaking point”.
The Rohingya have been described as the world’s most persecuted people. They are not welcome in Burma or in neighbouring countries. As we have heard, this most recent attack on the Rohingya started with the October killing of police officers—an act that cannot be condoned. However, the security forces have retaliated with such violence that many innocent Rohingya have suffered. According to Human Rights Watch, credible reports of killings, rapes, burning of villages and forced relocations have occurred. Humanitarian access has been denied by the Burmese Government to the thousands of Rohingya who are reliant on that aid and healthcare.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, said, in early December, the diplomatic missions of 14 countries—allies from Europe, Scandinavia, the US and Canada, but not the UK—joined to issue a statement as friends of Myanmar. It said that they were “concerned by delays” and urged,
“all Myanmar authorities to overcome the obstacles that have so far prevented a full resumption … tens of thousands of people who need humanitarian aid, including children with acute malnutrition, have been without it now for nearly two months”.
That has not happened.
The Foreign Office Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made a visit to Burma in November while the violence was taking place. According to the press release before her visit, she was going to discuss civil and political rights as well as the situation in Rakhine and have discussions on sexual violence. I hope the Minister today will give a report of that visit including whether the violence—including sexual violence—against the Rohingya that was taking place during that visit was raised and whether she called for humanitarian access to be reinstated. Can she also explain why the UK did not sign up to the joint statement? Surely only concerted international action and pressure has any hope of achieving a change of approach by the Burmese army.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been rightly criticised for her approach to the current crisis but we must be clear that the Burmese army is committing these human rights violations. The army still has a block on constitutional change and retains control of the key ministries that command the police and security forces. The military is operating with impunity at home while being welcomed with open arms abroad. As far as the army is concerned, it has no need to go further down the road to more democracy. That is why I think the British Government must reconsider their programme of free training of the Burmese army. The atrocities against the ethnic groups, most especially the Rohingya, that were happening before the elections are continuing even after the election of the NLD Government. We have no idea if the soldiers we have trained have gone on to commit sexual violence and human rights violations in Rakhine or elsewhere in Burma. How long are we prepared to let this situation continue? That is why the international community and the British Government’s attitude to Burma should be reappraised.
In September, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office wrote a blog celebrating success with Aung San Suu Kyi. He said:
“A big focus for us will be the UK’s ongoing commitment to supporting the peace process and promoting inter-communal harmony”.
I commend that commitment but we need to change our approach. We should provide assistance and support in the areas where progress is being made but maintain or even increase pressure in other areas mainly where the army is involved. That is why I hope the Government will support the establishment of a UN commission of inquiry into the situation in Rakhine state.
I believe that we best support Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD Government by putting pressure on her to speak out over human rights violations She has the ability to mobilise international opinion which is the only hope of getting the army and the country to change. As friends of Burma, being critical may be the best way forward.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, the election of the NLD Government was an event from which the whole world took hope. The election of “the Lady”, who is a remarkable person, not least because she is probably the world’s most famous supporter of Cowdenbeath football club, was something from which the world took hope.
That hope was perhaps overestimated because she was taking over some powers in a country which is largely Buddhist. We have a perception of Buddhism as a religion which is peaceful, and for the most part it is. However, as people who work around the world in countries such as Sri Lanka will tell you, there are some quite fanatical people within the Buddhist religion. I have friends who work in an LGBT organisation in Sri Lanka, Equal Ground. They face appalling intimidation and threats of violence from Buddhists. The situation into which the NLD Government came was more complex than we recognise.
We have perhaps also underestimated the extent to which the Burmese army remains a powerful force within that country. Whichever Government had been elected democratically was always going to have to calibrate and judge which battles they would pick with the Burmese army. None of that defends what is happening in Rakhine. It is unfair that those people who have the worst public provision, the worst poverty, are not being supported by their Government.
Given that we are a former colonial power and we have connections with Burma in ways that other countries do not, are the British Government going to use their unique power and influence with the Government in Burma? For example, there is a document in our briefing pack which others may have passed by. It is a document from UKTI about the opportunities for British companies to sell health services to Burma. I agree that that is right. The health services in Burma are some of the worst in the world. The Burmese economy is growing and the NLD has come to power on a promise of developing a universal health network throughout Burma. I hope that some of the best of the NHS and the private health companies in this country would be there helping Burma to develop those health services. However, will they do so on the basis of the values to which we subscribe in our NHS: universal access to healthcare according to need and not according to ethnicity or ability to pay?
It is only by the UK as an international player with a unique relationship in Burma being able to bring influence which the NLD Government cannot that we are going to hasten the access to universal justice in Burma.
My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie is unable to speak today because he had to get a plane. He has visited Burma on a number of occasions with the Speaker of the House of Commons. It has been clear for many years that the relationships between the rest of Burma and the Muslim community in Rakhine are not good. It is for us as outsiders to try to ensure that this situation does not escalate to the point at which the military can seize another opportunity to intervene. It is also for us to hold the NLD Government to universal standards which we believe to be necessary for them to be considered an acceptable Government.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, even as we meet today for this important debate, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Yanghee Lee, is there. When the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, comes to reply, I would be grateful for her assessment of that visit and the contribution the UK Government are able to make to it. What is her response to the well-documented reports which detail the plight of the Rohingyas and, as we have heard in the debate, point to mass rape, mass displacement and the murder of men, women and children; the burning of houses; and crucially, the denial of access to the affected areas for humanitarian aid.
In a letter to the Guardian on 28 November a number of us, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Kinnock and Lady Nye, and my noble friend Lady Cox, called for the international inquiry which has been referred to during the debate. We said:
“The international community cannot stand idly by while peaceful civilians are mown down by helicopter guns, women are raped and tens of thousands left without homes”.
When I raised these atrocities in a Parliamentary Question, the Minister referred me to the Rakhine Investigation Commission. That commission’s interim report said that there were,
“no cases of malnutrition, due to the area’s favourable fishing and farming conditions … and … no cases of religious persecution”.
That is palpably risible. Human Rights Watch has described the investigation as little more than a “Myanmar government whitewash mechanism”. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government will support the calls that she has heard throughout this debate for the establishment of a United Nations commission of inquiry so that the truth may come out? Let us recall what the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said to us about 23 of the world’s most prominent human rights voices, including a dozen Nobel Laureates, calling on the Security Council to end,
“ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”,
in the Rakhine state.
Just as the emergency in Rakhine requires an urgent response, so does the conflict in Kachin state and the northern Shan states. Kachin camps for initially displaced people have been bombed. On Christmas Eve, following the bombing of a church at Mongkoe, two Kachin Christians, Dumdaw Nawng Lat and Langjaw Gam Seng, simply disappeared, believed to have been abducted as a reprisal for taking journalists to see the bombed church. Have Her Majesty’s Government raised this case and taken action to secure their safe return to their families? How does the Minister respond to Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s campaign to end restrictions on humanitarian aid to Rakhine, Kachin and the northern Shan states, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, referred earlier?
Burma’s courageous cardinal, Charles Bo, whom I had the privilege of hosting in this place last year, said in his Christmas message:
“Just sixty years of history—more than 22 to wars and now three wars going on. In the last sixty years, we have buried thousands in these wars of mutual hatred, displaced millions … Wars have exported our girls to modern forms of slavery … At this very moment, thousands are refugees—they have no home”.
We all have a responsibility to ensure that Burma’s history and present are not its future, and that the hopes of a democratic, federal and peaceful Burma, in which people of all ethnicities and religions have an equal stake, are realised and not dashed. Along with others, I pay tribute to the extraordinary and phenomenal work that the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, does with the Burma campaign and with the all-party group here in the House, and thank her for giving us the opportunity to raise these important questions on the Floor of your Lordships’ House today.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Kinnock for raising this vital issue today. Since 2012, following communal violence, tens of thousands of Rohingya remain in camps. Hundreds of thousands had already left for Bangladesh, and since the October crackdown, an estimated further 43,000 have fled across the border. But even fleeing across the border is not the end of the story. Amnesty International says hundreds been detained and forcibly returned, with an uncertain fate. The UN refugee agency says Myanmar’s neighbours should keep their borders open if we are to avoid the desperate scenes we saw in 2015 of thousands dying at sea. What representations have the Government made to the Bangladeshi authorities on the status of fleeing Rohingya people?
In the historic election campaign that has already been referred to in this debate, Daw Suu Kyi said she wanted to improve relations between the two communities. But as we have also heard, the question is whether she has much leverage over the military, which still wields great power and controls the most powerful ministries. At the end of December last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said in Written Answer HL4205 that when she visited Burma from 9 to 12 November, she,
“urged Burmese Government Ministers to set up a full and independent investigation into all reports of human rights violations”.
As we have heard, the presidential commission, which is headed by a general and includes the head of police, has presented an interim report saying that there have been no human rights abuses. Does the Minister believe that the commission’s membership meets the criteria set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay? What is the Government’s response to the interim report published on 4 January?
As we have heard, separately, Kofi Annan is heading another advisory commission, looking into the general situation in Rakhine state, after being asked to in August by Daw Suu Kyi. A problem with Kofi Annan’s commission is that its mandate focuses on broader development issues and building the relationships between the two communities. That is an important job, but it is not investigating the human rights violations which we have heard so much evidence about. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, indicated in the same Written Answer:
“Any judgment on whether crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide have been committed is a matter for competent national or international courts”.
That is of course the case, as we have heard in other debates. Nobody challenges that, but the key concern that we have heard from Members of this House is to ensure that evidence is gathered and that any investigation is independent and effective.
I conclude by asking the noble Baroness whether she will respond to the call from my noble friend and other noble Lords and at least acknowledge that it is now time for the UN to step in.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for initiating this timely debate. As the debate has indicated beyond doubt, we are very fortunate to have in the House a wealth of expertise on Burma, and I am indebted to colleagues for their valuable contributions.
Indeed, there are Members of this Chamber who have done much over many years to encourage the political transition to democracy in Burma. We welcomed the election last year of a Government who are more accountable and democratic and have less military influence than has been the case in many years. However, we should be under no illusions. Members have consistently referred to the anxiety about this, and political transition in Burma still has a long way to go before it can be regarded as being completed.
Let me make it clear to Members who expressed justifiable concerns about events in Rakhine state that this Government share the deep concerns that have been articulated about the situation in that area. It is a region with a long history of intercommunal violence. Both the Rakhine and Rohingya communities have been marginalised, but the Rohingya have suffered particularly bad discrimination and periodic waves of violence. British Ministers have raised this issue many times, both in this House and in direct discussions with the Government of Burma. We fully support the Burmese/international Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which aims to provide independent advice on resolving intercommunal tensions.
I turn to the recent escalation, which has naturally featured prominently this afternoon. We condemned the attacks on police posts in October that triggered the latest wave of violence, and we also have grave concerns about the security response to them. The media blackout means that it has been hard to ascertain exactly what has been happening. Nevertheless, a substantial body of reporting from credible sources, including human rights organisations, witness testimonies and satellite images, suggests the military is carrying out serious human rights violations, including arson, sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrest. The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, quite rightly and very eloquently referred to these concerns.
The latest assessment from our embassy in Rangoon is that some areas outside the main area of security operations have received limited and partial humanitarian assistance, with improvements in December. Within the area of operations in Maungdaw township, some localised humanitarian access has been resumed since December, but this remains patchy and changeable, and the majority continues to be denied.
We are deeply concerned about the lack of humanitarian access to the 160,000 Rohingya who remain dependent on food aid. We are especially concerned for the 5,000 children and the pregnant women who were being treated for severe and acute malnutrition before the latest wave of violence. Organisations working on the ground estimate that more than 27,000 refugees have fled to Bangladesh since October. We are grateful to the Government of Bangladesh for giving them sanctuary. The UK is also the largest provider of food aid to the 34,000 Rohingya refugees already living in official camps in Bangladesh. Since 2014 we have provided nearly £8 million to address the humanitarian suffering of Rohingya refugees and the vulnerable Bangladeshi communities that host them. UK-funded humanitarian programmes have benefited 82,000 people in the south-east of Bangladesh.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, raised the question of United Kingdom Government action and our particular response to Rakhine state. I reassure the noble Lord that the UK has long been one of the biggest bilateral humanitarian donors to Burma and to Rakhine state. Since 2012, we have provided over £23 million in humanitarian assistance, including food and sanitation for over 126,000 people.
Over the last three months, this Government have intensified work behind the scenes to respond to the escalating crisis. I understand and sympathise with the sentiment almost universally expressed across the Chamber about who is doing what, who is saying what and what is happening. I reassure noble Lords that the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my noble friend, Lady Anelay of St Johns, visited Burma in November and raised our concerns directly with the Minister of Defence and the military-appointed Minister of Home Affairs. She met Rohingya leaders and called explicitly on the Government of Burma to allow full and immediate humanitarian access to the affected areas in northern Rakhine. She also pressed for a thorough and independent investigation into all reports of human rights violations. I emphasise that these messages have been reiterated by our ambassador in Burma to State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and five different Cabinet-level Ministers. The messages were repeated by our Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development to the Burmese Minister of Commerce when he visited London in November. We also expressed our concerns in the UN Security Council. I noted the call by my noble friend Baroness Berridge for a meeting between my noble friends Baroness Anelay and Lord Bates, and her view that an invitation might be extended to Mr Kofi Annan. I am sure that these interesting suggestions will be reflected upon. I reassure noble Lords that there is already a liaison between my noble friends Baroness Anelay and Lord Bates—a “liaison” in the most respectable sense, I hasten to add.
The Government of Burma have responded by committing to resume humanitarian access and to conduct an investigation into allegations of human rights violations. Some aid has begun to return. As of 27 December, the United Nations World Food Programme reported that it was able to reach 28,000 beneficiaries in 169 villages in northern Rakhine state. However, much of the aid is still being blocked by local authorities reporting to the military, especially in the area where security operations continue.
As noble Lords have indicated, the Burmese Government have established a Rakhine Investigation Commission headed by the military-appointed Vice-President Myint Swe to investigate both the October police post attacks and the subsequent security response. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred specifically to this. However, the commission’s interim report largely denies the accusations of human rights violations. We do not find this assessment credible. The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, articulated such concerns in a very cogent manner. We urge the commission, when it issues its final report at the end of January, to abide by its stated mandate to conduct an independent investigation. That is the key: it should be independent.
I will try to cover some of the issues raised by noble Lords in the course of the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, raised the role of the United Nations and to some extent I have covered what has been happening there. The new United Nations Secretary-General has been in office for only a few days, but as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, rightly pointed out, this is a person with impressive experience and he will have a definite desire to use his office to good effect. The United Nations is already actively engaged on Burma.
My noble friend Lady Berridge raised the matter of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. This is a multilateral negotiation with concerned international partners and Ministers are currently considering our position and how we should engage with that. She also brought up the issue of support to the nascent Parliament in Burma. We are proud to be supporting that Parliament in putting through the secondment of two members of staff of the House of Commons. Making this support dependent on the actions of the military could perhaps impede Burma’s legitimate democratic development. This is a very delicate situation, to which some noble Lords alluded, and I will deal with that in further detail in a moment.
An issue that particularly exercised my noble friend Lady Berridge and the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, was the ambassador’s statement on 9 December. I would not want any confusion or misunderstanding to arise about that. Well before that statement was issued, the British Government, through the diplomatic reach of our Ministers and our ambassadorial presence in Rangoon, had been engaging with all levels of the Government of Burma to urge an immediate resumption of humanitarian aid and access. We have also discussed the issue in the United Nations Security Council. On 12 October our embassy made a very clear statement about its views on what had been happening. We have not only expressed our views on the record, but have been trying to engage with diplomatic initiatives and endeavours that will produce a tangible consequence. That is why we have proceeded as we have.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans reflected with great sensitivity and wisdom on the delicate political balance in Burma. That is at the heart of how the international community responds. This is a nascent democracy, and though others may have their individual views on how that democracy is functioning, in my opinion it is immeasurably better than the regime that has ruled Burma for decades. We have to be very careful and recognise that under international law Burma is an independent state. The international community wants to support, provide help where it can or, indeed, challenge when events seem to be taking place that raise huge concerns, but at the same time we must be respectful of the status of that embryonic and very young democracy. Nevertheless, Her Majesty’s Government are pressing for openness and respect for human rights.
A number of other matters were raised, but I am running out of time to deal with them. There were some specific questions: the noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised the case of a journalist, but I will have to write to him because I do not have the information that he requires. My noble friend Lord Collins raised a number of issues, but I hope that I have been able to deal with those in my general remarks.
In conclusion, it is clear that a solution must be found to the enduring problem of intercommunal tension in Rakhine. In order to reach that solution, all parties must work constructively with the democratically elected Government to de-escalate tensions and identify ways to build intercommunal harmony. More immediately, this Government are deeply concerned about the current situation in Rakhine. We continue to express our concern to the Government of Burma at every possible opportunity. We continue to impress upon them the urgent need to facilitate humanitarian access and to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. We will continue to do all we can, working with our key international partners, to encourage progress and to alleviate humanitarian suffering.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for bringing this very important debate to the Chamber.
Armed Forces: Capability
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Robertson of Port Ellen
That this House takes note of the future capability of the United Kingdom’s armed forces in the current international situation.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)
My Lords, let me start by paying just a moment of tribute to Lord Lyell, who died yesterday. He was the secretary of the All-Party Defence Group and a formidable and energetic supporter of Britain’s Armed Forces. He will be greatly missed by the House and by many of those whom he met.
This is a very timely debate—never more so to those of us who watched yesterday’s press conference in New York. On a distinguished panel last year, I was asked what I believed was the greatest threat to the safety and security of our country. I considered some of the immediate and looming challenges and threats, some of which are pretty formidable: the migration flows that have suddenly ended up on our shores; the spread of religious experience extremism and jihadi violence plumbing new depths of savagery; a restive and resurgent Russia; a rising China; and the disruption by North Korea. Add to that fragile and failed states spreading mayhem across borders, international conflicts, climate change, cyber warfare and the global proliferation of lethal technology and weapons. On top of all that, there is the rise and dominance of organised crime, population growth, pandemics and financial instability.
That is a pretty formidable cocktail of trouble for us to face. However, my answer to the question of what was the greatest threat is actually different: it is ourselves. We are our own worst enemies. We are short-sighted, penny-pinching, naively optimistic, complacent and ostrich-like to the way in which the world has become interconnected and more fragile, unpredictable and incendiary. We are grossly unprepared and underresourced to meet the challenges of the coming years. These threats are potent and deadly, and some of them are very urgent.
At the end of the Cold War, I made a speech at Chatham House in which I coined what was to be a much-quoted phrase when I said that there had been a “bonfire of the certainties”. The fall of the Berlin Wall had unleashed a flood of optimism that had made Kremlinologists redundant overnight and robbed us of the albeit dangerous manageability of the Soviet/West confrontation. Some were even rash enough to say that it was the “end of history”. All of us took a substantial peace dividend and defence budgets were cut radically over the next five years. I believe we are now seeing another bonfire, this time of the post-Cold War certainties. In doing so, we have left ourselves vulnerable and, in many ways, unready. If we look at the way in which we have responded to this new world of regional conflicts, violent civil wars and other violent manifestations of the turmoil that I have already listed, we see that it hardly measures up to the scale of what faces us.
If anyone doubts my contention that we are our own worst enemy, just let them look at the debate in both Houses of this Parliament on 29 August 2013. The President of the United States had drawn a red line on President Assad using chemical weapons on his own people in a conflict that was already tearing his country apart and spreading to every part of the Middle East and beyond. Consequently, when the sarin gas attacks on civilians were confirmed, President Obama rightly decided that a military attack should be mounted to degrade President Assad’s war machine. Our Prime Minister at the time agreed, said he wanted to join this wholly justified action and recalled Parliament in order to put it to the House of Commons. The Commons, with my own party playing an opportunistic and disgraceful part, refused to give permission for the UK to join the response to the hideous chemical attacks on civilians.
The Prime Minister, having been defeated on an issue of grave military consequence, not only did not resign, which you would have thought in all honour he should have done, but instead swiftly closed off the possibility of even reconsidering the decision. It did not need John Kerry, the outgoing US Secretary of State, to remind us of this last week and lay the blame for President Obama’s retreat from his red lines on the British House of Commons on that August day. We all already knew it and we must all share the responsibility, even those of us who supported the government position, for the carnage that followed. Tears for Aleppo will never be enough. I love my country. I care about its future and the safety of our people in a very troubled world. That is why I am ashamed that that night this Parliament, where I have served for 38 years, did what it did. As events have spiralled into horror since then, with a line coming directly from that vote, my shame turns to anger.
Now, in eight days’ time, we will have President Donald Trump as the leader of the western world—the Donald, with his Mexican wall, with new protectionism and isolationism, with his serious questioning of NATO solidarity, with a belief in torture and with Lieutenant-General Michael Flynn as his key security adviser. Perhaps we do not actually need more enemies in the world today.
We in this country have Brexit. Going against the grain of history, our country is about to embark on a tortuous journey, with no known destination, that will absorb people, time and talent and will suck the energy out of our political system just as the challenges to Europe come crashing in on us. Our influence on our European neighbours will dramatically and inevitably diminish. Although they will still need our military, as Europe finds Trump’s America turning away we will find it difficult to take the lead that we usually claim. Reports this week that Britain’s claim to the Deputy SACEUR position has been challenged by France are just the latest evidence of that slipping influence. Our Foreign Office, the soft-power arm of government, at the same time as bearing the burden of maintaining our influence in the rest of the world, will be eclipsed by the Brexit vortex as its budget, already smaller than the budget for the US Embassy in Baghdad, will come under renewed pressure.
In our crazy complacency we seem quite oblivious to the fact that the relative peacefulness of the world today, as we look over a new precipice, has been achieved by our nuclear deterrent and by our institutions and processes, which require diplomacy, intelligence, involvement and, crucially—when it is required and at the end of the line—decisive interventions. Where will the space be left for all that as we paddle through the treacle of dismantling 40 years of integration?
What confirms again that we are our own worst enemy is the attitude to spending on defence and security. Yes, I agree with and welcome the fact that we are spending the NATO target of 2%; we are right in many ways to crow that we are among the few who do. That is good so far as it goes, but we should wait for a moment. After all, have we stretched the definition of 2% to get there? Are we not confusing percentages with capabilities? Who can doubt, as well, that the Brexit devaluation of the pound will now have a serious effect on the defence budget? I hope that the noble Earl the Minister will tell us how much it is estimated that blow will cost his department.
In 1997-98, as Secretary of State for Defence, I led the strategic defence review with, among others, my noble friend Lord Reid. It radically remodelled and modernised our post-Cold War forces. In the preface to the review, I said that post-Cold War problems,
“pose a real threat to our security, whether in the Balkans, the Middle East or in some trouble spot yet to ignite. If we are to discharge our international responsibilities in such areas, we must retain the power to act. Our Armed Forces are Britain’s insurance against a huge variety of risks”.
That is as true today as it was when I wrote it. The question is whether we in this country have properly retained that power to act. Some doubt will be cast on that by the distinguished speakers who will speak after me in this debate.
The Minister will undoubtedly tell us at the end of the debate that there is formidable hardware in the pipeline, from Trident to the carriers that were the centrepiece of my 1998 review. The question remains, though: is it enough to meet the challenges we are facing when so many of them are urgent and so potent?
My worry is that we are sleepwalking into a potential calamity. My depressing catalogue of threats, after all, does not even take account of what I said in 1998 of trouble spots yet to ignite. As I wrote those words, we could not have foreseen the conflict the very next year in Kosovo, the attacks of 9/11, the implosion of Syria, the whole of the Arab spring and, indeed, the rise of Daesh/ISIS. We have today a crisis of optimism—hoping for the best and failing to prepare for the worst.
You might legitimately ask, having heard my gloomy assessment and warning, what we should be doing. Here are just a few of my thoughts. First, we must retain and protect our own defence industrial base. That alone gives us some real control in the UK. At the same time, we must encourage and participate in joint projects with our European NATO allies. European contributions to NATO are not just limited by financial shortcomings but by wasteful duplication, and we must continue to press our NATO allies to boost spending and capabilities. If they—and we—did that, we might help expand the growth in our economies.
Secondly, we must continue to promote our values and principles on the world stage. We must defend NATO as the cornerstone of our national and collective defence and tell the people of this country, and indeed the wider world, how essential the alliance remains. Article 5, where an attack on one is an attack on all, is not a choice; it is a solemn obligation. Anybody who questions it questions the whole basis of collective security. Our communication policy on this whole issue is, frankly, pathetic.
Thirdly, we must be aware of and act on the dangers inherent in the present confrontation between Russia and the West. Without the tripwires and warning arrangements of the Cold War, we are in grave danger of making a mistake or a miscalculation with potentially catastrophic results.
Our much-reduced military is still among the very best in the world. Our diplomats have few peers internationally. Our intelligence services are relied on by most of the free world. It is now time for our Government to recognise the dangers to Britain and to live up to their high standards. Never in my lifetime was bold and courageous leadership more necessary and more urgent.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, before we hear from my noble friend Lord King, I remind the House that this is a time-limited date with Back-Bench speeches limited to four minutes. Timing is particularly tight, so I entreat Peers to wind up immediately when the clock displays four minutes.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I think I can say to my noble friend Lord Younger that no Member of this House taking part in this debate is unaware of the restriction he has just put on it. They deeply regret it as well. It is very disappointing that the House has not had an opportunity for more time on this debate on such an important issue very commendably launched by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. We say this House should draw on its wisdom and experience. I see in the Chamber at present four former Defence Secretaries and three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, all of whom—expect for the noble Lord, Lord Robertson—will be limited to four minutes for their contributions. I have probably lost a minute already by this intervention.
I broadly support a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has said. The House of Commons Defence Committee in its report said:
“The world today is at its most dangerous and unstable since the end of the Cold War”.
I recognise that the Government face severely limited resources and an extremely difficult situation, inheriting what I think is a pretty unbalanced procurement programme. As a result, we have some impressive capabilities coming forward and, as long as nobody attacks us before 2025 or 2030, we will be in good shape to meet them. I do not want to be too cynical about this, but there is a real imbalance in the resources and the capabilities we have at present.
Julian Lewis, the chairman of the Defence Committee, said that the last time we faced a combination of a threatening Russia and a growing terrorist threat was in the 1980s. I notice the proportion of GDP we spent on defence was about 5% then. While we pat ourselves on the back and say we must stick to 2% and make sure we do not go below it, it is important to draw that illustration. I was much criticised when I conducted “Options for Change” for daring to reduce our Armed Forces to 350,000 men in uniform. As I look at the 144,000 that are now indicated as our present strength, you will understand that I have great concerns.
I also have great concerns about the present programme. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, already mentioned the problems of the Brexit exit—the effect on the currency and what that might mean on the cost of £12 billion of overseas procurement. I also look, as all Defence Secretaries have, at “efficiency savings” and wonder how they are actually always going to be achieved.
President Putin’s reassertion of Russian interests in many parts of the world and what seems to be a pretty dangerous undercover media operation at the moment, which may be seeking to destabilise some of the Russian minorities in the Baltic countries, illustrate a major problem there. Some noble Lords may have heard a Polish Minister on the “Today” programme this morning welcoming the 10,000 American troops who have just moved into Poland. On their very border there are 100,000 Russian troops exercising in a fairly provocative manner at present.
I want to make a few final points. I hope sincerely that President Putin and his colleagues realise how easily accidents can happen with mobilisations and provocations and how easily conflict can start. We do not have to have the memories of the First World War and our memories of the Second World War where war started by accident involving the wrong people at the wrong time that was not meant to happen. I take that factor very seriously.
I have two further points. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, mentioned what has added to the Russian reassertion of its interests: the problems of ISIS and the total destabilisation of the Middle East. Added to that now we have Brexit and the new President Trump. On Brexit, I hope that there is no question that the sensible co-operative arrangements that currently exist, such as on anti-piracy off the coast of Somalia, will continue. It is in our national interest and in the interests of our European friends and partners because they need some of our capabilities. I hope those undertakings and operations will go ahead, Brexit or not, without interruption and without too much legal argument about whether they should now be permitted.
The key point I want to make, which was well made by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, is that the key to our defence is NATO. While we were concerned about certain comments from President-elect Trump, I am encouraged by the further remarks he has made in his conversations with our Prime Minister. I also hope that the appointment of General Mattis may reinforce support for NATO. That is the core of our defence and, if I have one thing to say today in the lavish time allotted to me by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, it is that we must ensure that, through all these instabilities, the importance of NATO and support for it are fully maintained at the present dangerous time.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, Russia, a superpower in nuclear terms, is massively investing in military capability, yet with the financial clout of Italy. Its economy is on a war footing: something has to give. There are its actions in Crimea and Ukraine, and now threats to the Baltic states and cyberattacks in Estonia, France, Turkey, Ukraine and the USA. There is aggressive intrusion into NATO air space and near misses. Russian nuclear submarines are threatening our SSBNs. Why is Russia doing all this? Putin is a revisionist, believes in spheres of influence and understands hard power. His loose talk of the use of nuclear weapons is a particular concern. We must strain every sinew to understand him and keep open a dialogue.
There is instability in the Middle East. It is difficult to identify a country that is not in turmoil—Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya—and countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt are under severe strain. The flexing of muscles by Iran and Turkey, as regional powers; the Sunni/Shia divide; Russia’s recent success as a key power broker—where will this all go?
The threat of terrorism, grown as a result of events in the Middle East, is not at present existential, but should terrorists ever get hold of improvised nuclear devices or a lethal virus, all that changes. Afghanistan is still at risk of collapse. Stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan is still a cause for concern. In Korea, will the US allow Kim Jong-un to develop a functioning ballistic nuclear-tipped missile able to strike the US? I doubt it very much. What then?
China is threatening freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, there is the Senkaku Islands stand-off with Japan and the re-emergence of the Taiwan issue. That is all made more worrying by the stalling of China’s economy. As the largest European investor in that region, with responsibility for global shipping, can we ignore it?
Then there is cyber. The growing reliance of our society and military on the internet entails lots of vulnerabilities that were not foreseen. The Russian takedown of a French television station, had it been a bomb, would have been an act of war, but nations do not know how to respond as there are no international agreements. All I would say is that some rather naive politicians in the Treasury think this means that we can save money on defence; it actually means that we will have to spend more.
In the face of these threats—and there are others—what have the Government done? They have shown staggering complacency and self-delusion, when it is quite clear to experts and lay men that defence needs more resources. When in coalition, they reduced our military capability by 30%, and our forces remain underfunded. There is minimal new money. It is in theory being produced by efficiencies. The HCDC has pointed out the creative accounting in the 2% of GDP spent on defence, the figure that the Government gave. Spending on pensions does not win wars, and the 2% of GDP is not the target but the very minimum that any NATO nation should spend. Our nation should spend more.
Having robust defence forces makes a war involving our nation less likely. If a small conflagration in a distant part of the world developed into a war that threatened our national survival, the best welfare provision, National Health Service, education and foreign aid programmes in the world would be as nothing. Preventing war, and defending our nation and people if it happens, are more important than any other government spending priorities. If Ministers get defence wrong, the nation will never forgive them. The costs in blood and treasure are enormous. The Government have a choice of whether we spend what is required to ensure the safety of our nation, dependencies and people or not. At present, I believe they are getting the choice wrong.
The US military and, to a lesser extent, ours, have together ensured that there has been no world war for more than 70 years. The US now expects us and others to step up; it is right that we do so. It is no use the Government pretending otherwise. There is not enough money in defence. In particular, notwithstanding the Defence Secretary calling this the year of the Navy, the Navy has too few ships to do what the nation expects. Our great nation has effectively only 11 escorts fully capable of operations, which is a national disgrace. Delays in ordering the Type 26 frigate have led to the ordering of extra, highly overpriced offshore patrol vessels to fill the Clyde yard with work, because there is an agreement that we will subsidise the yard whether ships are being made at all or not.
However, I congratulate the Government on their commitment to the deterrent successor programme, but I and many others believe that the capital cost of the programme should be met from the central contingency fund. Does the noble Earl agree?
The really good news in defence is the new aircraft carriers, welcomed and eagerly awaited by the US and our other allies. The Government must purchase enough Sea Lightnings to have the squadrons on board. I was very surprised to see articles in the papers recently about mothballing the second carrier and the date for the “Queen Elizabeth” slipping. I end by asking the noble Earl to confirm that the “Prince of Wales” will be completed and operated concurrently with the “Queen Elizabeth”, and that HMS “Queen Elizabeth”, will sail in March for sea trials and enter Portsmouth for the first time before the summer, as previously stated by the Defence Secretary?
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow such well-informed speeches as the three that have launched the debate. In particular, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on introducing the debate. He spoke with great sincerity and sometimes considerable passion.
As I remember, Phileas Fogg had 80 days to go around the world; four minutes will not allow me any kind of tour d’horizon, so I will confine myself to a number of propositions that underpin my views on defence. Some have already been hinted at in the debate
First, Russian ambition will be emboldened by the military, political and diplomatic success it has enjoyed in Syria. Some months ago, the noble Earl who will respond to the debate expressed reservations when I described some behaviour and achievement on the part of Mr Putin as being game and first set. I hope he will excuse me if I say that it is not that any more: it is game, set and match in Syria.
The transatlantic alliance is essential for the security of Europe and for the United Kingdom, whether we are inside or out of the European Union. Every effort must be made to convey to the new Administration in the United States that it is not just Europe’s interest that is served by that relationship but that of the United States as well. I believe that the United States would be more likely to be persuaded in the way I suggested if every European member of NATO were urgently to achieve the minimum—as has been pointed out—target of 2% of GDP per annum on defence spending.
In the face of Russian ambition, Europeans can no longer get defence on the cheap. It is an interesting reflection that whereas the term “burden-sharing” used to be used when one went to Washington, the assessment of Europe’s contribution is now expressed in—shall we say—more trenchant and less suitable terms for this debate.
Proposals for a European army in the circumstances are not credible, because they would inevitably create duplication and divert necessary expenditure from the main thrust of NATO. If European members want to increase their contribution to NATO, they can best do so—again, this was hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson—by adopting the principles of force specialisation, interoperability and common procurement. Remember, it is not how much you spend, it is how you spend it. It is necessary that NATO—and Europe, given some of the remarks that have come out of the United States—is able to provide a full spectrum of capability.
Two developments ought to attract our attention most particularly. The first is the deployment by Russia of nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad. The second is the report that Russian generals have now endorsed the use of battlefield nuclear weapons—eerie echoes, one might think of the Cold War. These developments, in my judgment, underline beyond question the conclusion that deterrence is best provided by both conventional and nuclear means, all as set out in NATO’s strategic concept.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the independent-minded noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. The Royal Air Force that I had the privilege to lead in the mid-1980s was close to 100,000 personnel and more than 30 combat squadrons. Today’s Chief of the Air Staff has a force of less than a third of that in personnel, and a quarter in squadrons. Yes, airframes and perhaps even people are more capable than their predecessors, but with such small numbers, they lack a key fighting quality: resilience in combat against other than a very poorly equipped or incapable foe.
The Army and the Royal Navy have faced similar reductions in the past 30 years in their musclepower. What, then, should the Armed Forces be expected to do? Rule out unforeseen operations of the scale or intensity fielded in 1982 to recover the Falklands, or in 1991 to throw the Iraqis out of Kuwait? Indeed, enduring operations on the scale of those in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer feasible without strong Allied involvement. Even the more limited scale of offensive operations now in hand, mainly by the RAF, is stretching the human side of this activity.
Brexit adds a new dimension for the Armed Forces. We must surely maintain the many excellent military-to-military contacts we enjoy with forces in Europe and North America. The increasing vision of trade with Commonwealth and overseas partners should be matched by greater contact with their military units.
A good start was the recent visit by RAF Typhoon aircraft to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, and by the successful Red Arrows displays in the Middle East and China. These deployments demonstrated operational reach and logistic support over thousands of miles. They made many new contacts and were widely noted and appreciated.
What is the bottom line? We lack strength in numbers. We are not well placed to deal with an inevitable unforeseen, least of all against a capable foe. The more independently minded we become, the more capability we need in a dangerous world. Surely the two must go together.
The first choice in threat resolution has to be soft power, whether by diplomatic, economic or other non-military means. But success in such endeavour will surely be strengthened if it is backed by well-found hard power. We do it for the ultimately adverse scenario with the nuclear deterrent. We need more conventional hard power for the rest.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Robertson for bringing forward this debate today and to my noble friend and colleague Lord West for his machine-gun delivery of detailed points crammed into four minutes. I would prefer to lob the odd artillery shell—I will reduce the number to four—in order to speak more slowly.
The first is the situation in which we find ourselves in the world. My noble friend Lord Robertson admirably outlined it: a revanchist Russia asserting itself politically and diplomatically as well as militarily; the Middle East partially undergoing radical transformation and partially in war and turmoil; in the Far East, China flexing its muscles; a complete sea change in the battlefield through international terrorism—asymmetric warfare has already occurred; and cyberwarfare and hybrid warfare, updated versions of PSYCH-OPS on a global scale, which are being deployed by Russia in particular but also by others. That is the situation.
I am not one of those who believe that we can respond to all of that merely by military means or by arms—of course not—but they are an essential component of any comprehensive response. Yet, as has been said, we are now below critical mass in numbers, power and range of capabilities. The Army is at its smallest since the Napoleonic era, and even targets for the number of trained personnel are not being met. I was surprised that the Government’s response was not to increase the numbers but to redefine what was meant by “trained”—which rather begs the question about the capability behind it.
In the Navy, our surface fleet has halved, even in the period since my noble friend Lord Robertson and I were at the Ministry of Defence. A very unfair comparison is sometimes made in the form of the old cliché that we have more admirals than we have ships. It is unfair because the service produced by our admirals goes well beyond the number of our surface fleets, but it illustrates where we are now. We have 19 in our surface fleet, possibly 11 at any given time in operational terms, and 35 admirals. Arithmetically, that is not quite double the number of ships, but then of course admirals do not have to be regularly refitted—at least most of them do not. So we effectively have half the number in our surface fleet as we have admirals. Similarly in the RAF, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, pointed out, we have between five and seven operational squadrons, compared to 30 to 35 only 20 to 30 years ago.
Thirdly, at the bottom of this is finance. Let us leave aside whether the efficiency savings quite properly pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord King, can ever be achieved, and let us leave aside even the £700 million cost of the fall in the value of the pound. The truth is that our spending, including our contribution to NATO, has been subject to what I can only kindly call “creative accountancy”—cooking the books. We are now including in the 2% a substantial amount of wages and pensions. I recall that when a Belgian official was explaining to Andrew Neil, the well-known commentator, how 80% of their budget went on pensions, he said, “What you have to understand is that we really don’t have an Armed Forces; we have a very well-defended pension scheme”. I abhor the prospect of that thin end of the wedge being used. I am not suggesting that our expenditure on wages and pensions is anything like that of Belgium, but it is very worrying indeed—and the leadership after Brexit must come into question.
My final point is unashamedly political. It would be easy and very tempting for the Minister in response to point to the shambles of the Labour Party leadership on defence. But I know that he is too big a man to do that—I say that hopefully. I hope that he will be wise enough not to do it for this reason: one can accept that while accepting that almost everyone who will speak here from every side of this House has a long-standing commitment to sound defence and the defence of this country. So first, I ask the Minister with a political P to bear that in mind.
Secondly, I understand that there will always be the normal robust exchanges with the Treasury, but there have been occasions in our history—I was part of one of them with my noble friend Lord Robertson—when our whole defence team was so concerned about the situation that we said to the Treasury, “Thus far and no further—because otherwise you will have to do it without any of the Defence Ministers”. I congratulate the Minister on what he has done so far and hope that he will bear those last two points in mind when it comes to future discussions with his colleagues.
Lord Walker of Aldringham (CB)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the discussion opened by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. In my meagre four minutes, I will address merely one issue that has come to the fore recently: the notion of a European army—a European military capability, because of course it would have to have the other sorts of capabilities.
Brussels has made no secret of its wish to set up its own joint headquarters, which would oversee, and presumably in due course command, the shared military assets provided by member states. Details about the wider development of that force are few, but the argument is that it would enable the Union to be taken more seriously as an international force.
Rather more worryingly, it has also been suggested that our agreeing to support the setting up of such a capability could be the price we pay for access to the single market in our Brexit negotiations. Britain’s contribution to any European force is seen as essential for such a capability to be convincing. Apart from the French, we all know that the other EU member states simply do not have the resources or capabilities necessary. I know that the Government are currently opposed to the notion of a European army and I very much hope that they will continue so to be.
First, the development of the force is unclear, but the EU has a track record of getting increasing jurisdiction over its instruments and it is highly probable that, ultimately, Brussels would control the military assets of member states, rather than member states retaining the authority to decide whether they wish to involve themselves in a particular EU security initiative. As a nation, we must retain absolute control over all our Armed Forces. Such powers should never be ceded to anyone. That does not mean that we cannot take part—there have been some very successful examples, including EUFOR in the Balkans and security operations tackling people-smuggling gangs in the Mediterranean and piracy in Somalia. Those are entirely satisfactory.
Secondly, as has already been discussed, we are seeing the not unexpected re-emergence of Russia as a formidable military neighbour of the European Union. But if Europe were to rely solely on the contribution of European member states to defend their interests, it is unlikely they would be able to summon the resources necessary to deter President Putin, who makes no secret of his ambitions for greater influence in the Baltics and eastern Europe. Moreover, the very establishment of a so-called European army could well be perceived in Moscow as a threat to Russian security interests and a sign of a more aggressive European posture. This is the last thing that we need in the coming decade.
Thirdly, the establishment of a fully fledged joint operational headquarters would consume considerable resources. Senior officers would have to be contributed by member states, with all the necessary and expensive infrastructure to support them and their families. In 2008 the EU as a whole spent more than €200 billion on defence. By 2013 the sum had dwindled to €170 billion and all analysts reckon that it will soon shrink to about €150 billion. In the face of such declining resources, creating yet another major EU structure simply does not make sense. To imagine that European nations would be more prepared to increase their defence expenditure for a European military capability when they have shown a collective reluctance to meet the 2% target for their NATO capabilities seems wildly optimistic. But, of course, unless they did so there is no way that that the Union could be taken more seriously as an international force.
Fourthly, and most fundamentally, by establishing its own command structure, the EU would be setting itself in direct competition with NATO, with the duplication of a structure that works well already and has shown itself to be adaptable. Why on earth would we want to replicate it? We have a situation—others will no doubt talk about it well—in which we are suffering from inadequate military capabilities, inadequate financial resources, inefficient use of defence expenditure and limited defence industrial capabilities. Surely we do not want to compound the problem by going to Europe. I ask the Minister to ensure that we stick very firmly by our non-support for the European army and that any suggestion that it could be a bargaining tool in our Brexit negotiations is killed dead.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, realising the need for brevity, I must begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for his admirable speech. I will make just one point. I endorse the initiative by NATO to move battalion-size battle groups into each of the three Baltic states and Poland. It is a sign that NATO has, to a limited extent, roused itself in posting around 1,000 personnel in those four countries. I certainly welcome today’s movement of United States troops into Poland, where they will take the lead, with Romania, in one of those four battle groups.
I am concerned that the deployment in the Baltic states will not come earlier than the spring. Is it not possible to hurry up that deployment, particularly of the United Kingdom-led force—with France and Denmark—in Estonia? This is urgent. There is a period ahead of us when the United States Administration, under the new President, will take—as the custom is—until the spring before the political appointments are made. Therefore, there will be a period of uncertainty.
We are all concerned—many noble Lords have spoken about this—at the continued aggressive attitude of Russia, which threatens the NATO powers. Following its outrageous behaviour in Georgia, the Crimea and Ukraine, it has relentlessly threatened the eastern border of NATO. It was, I think, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, who referred to the large number of Russian troops along the border, the continued illegal overflight and incursions and the build-up of military resources, particularly nuclear weapons, in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Mr Putin will no doubt use his usual posturing to claim that the NATO four-nation battle groups are threatening Russia. He is, as we know, a master of disinformation, but I cannot understand how he might argue that this purely defensive move—which it is—can be construed as threatening Russia. Certainly 1,000 troops in each of the Baltic countries and Poland could hardly be suggested to be an invasion force. What the four battle groups will be is a warning trigger that any incursions by the Russian military, or even their “little green men”, will clearly trigger the Article 5 arrangements and all the consequences of that. I believe that Mr Putin must realise that any repetition of his Ukraine adventures in the territories of NATO members will lead to an immediate, full-hearted response. Surely this admittedly small but very important disposition of troops will cause Mr Putin to hesitate. He would fail to do so at his peril.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)
My Lords, I am very conscious that I am speaking after a number of people who have much more knowledge of the defence of this country and of defence internationally than I have. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Robertson for what was an excellent start to this debate. The only area to which I wish to address my remarks at the moment is cyberwarfare. However, before I come on to that, in relation to the conventional defence industries, we are awaiting an industrial strategy from the Government. It is critical that we take into account, within that strategy, the very significant effect of the defence industries in the economy of this country. It is something people frequently forget, particularly when they criticise expenditure on defence.
I was very much aware of the reference by my noble friend Lord West of Spithead to the fact that cyber is not the cheap option for defence—indeed, an increased investment in cyberwarfare will probably mean an increase in the defence budget—but I echo my noble friend Lord Robertson in saying that we are in danger of sleepwalking to calamity. That is particularly true of cyberwarfare. Just a few feet along the corridor, in the House of Commons, during the Second World War, democracy was threatened when bombs were dropped on the Houses of Parliament. Indeed—let us be honest about it—the allied bombings in mainland Europe were aimed at critical infrastructure.
The critical infrastructure of this country is so vulnerable that within minutes this Parliament could be brought to an end and this country to a complete halt, because our world is now so interconnected, so networked—from our heating systems to our communications, hospitals and transport. A clever cyberbrain could bring all of them to an end immediately. It is critical to understand that, particularly in the light of the very powerful words of my noble friend Lord Robertson about the situation in Syria. We have seen what has happened to Aleppo: brought to its knees—decimated—by bombing, over a period of months and years. The same consequences could follow the use of cyberwarfare.
My fear is that we are not investing enough in our cyber capabilities. Our enemies undoubtedly are, and there is evidence of their interest in cyber. We need to raise our game. We need to address skill shortages in certain areas. Many commercial cyber businesses can throw huge amounts of money at attracting the most talented, skilled people in cyber. They are expensive. We must make sure that they are part of the defence of our nation.
We have talked today about the decline in the numbers of our Armed Forces. I am not suggesting that we replace the troops on the ground with cyber capability: they must be complementary. How much better could we do, however, in our defence capabilities in the south Atlantic, for example, if we had a more sophisticated cyber capability alongside the garrison? Would we need a garrison in the south Atlantic if we had a more advanced cyber capability?
This country has ethics and morals around the operation of our defensive, and offensive, capabilities. There are ethical issues around the use of cyber as a tool of war or defence. You can cause chaos in a city by cutting off the power supply to hospitals and air traffic control—to any aspects of modern life. We need to ensure that we have that ethical debate as well as the concrete debate about how we fund our cyber capabilities. I hope that in doing so we get ahead of the game. We have heard about the decline in numbers in our defence forces. We see the threat to NATO and from Brexit. This is another threat, but because it does not involve great vessels, aeroplanes or anything that we can touch, and because it is complicated, we tend to forget about it. We cannot afford to do so.
Lord Burnett (LD)
My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my entries in the register of interests. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on securing this debate and his excellent speech, and many other noble Lords on their speeches, including the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke.
The threat to world peace has been vividly described, and we have far too little invested in defence. I was surprised to read in the Times of 6 January 2017 an article by Deborah Haynes with the headline, “Navy battling to save £500 million after bungled deal for ships”. I would describe the article as authoritative because it included much detail and quoted a former First Sea Lord. There was speculation that one option was to cut the size of the Royal Marines. The noble Earl, along with the Secretary of State, are political members of the Defence Board. Both of them know that recruiting and retention for the Royal Marines, despite the high standards required, is excellent. They know that the Royal Marines need core manpower strength to fulfil many of the specialist roles with which they are tasked. They also know the uniquely high proportion of badged members of UK Special Forces that is drawn from the Royal Marines and the uniquely high proportion of marines who pass the arduous selection process.
My noble friend Lord Slim, a great man, who knows more than most about these things, has often reminded the House that if you require Special Forces troops you need a sufficient pool of talent to recruit them from. The same is true of the other specialist troops drawn from the corps, not least the mountain and arctic warfare specialists. As the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke would be interested to know, we also have our own cyberforce, drawn from highly intelligent members of our corps.
There is insufficient time to list the other vital tasks performed by the Royal Marines, other than the main one: manning the 3rd Commando Brigade. I very much hope that the noble Earl, and the Secretary of State, will not permit any cuts to the corps. It would be deeply destructive to punish success and destabilise the morale of one of the few fully manned formations of the highest quality in UK defence—and, for that matter, elsewhere.
I have little time left but I ask the noble Earl to confirm that if there are barracks closures—and that is likely—new state-of-the-art barracks will be built in suitable locations with all the necessary communications, computer, fitness and other important facilities, and with proximity to challenging training areas. Will there be wide consultation with the chain of command before any final decisions are taken?
Finally, I understand that the new aircraft carriers will be able to take a commando unit with all attached ranks, weapons and helicopters. I understand that they will have all the necessary command communications and control systems that are crucial for amphibious operations. Is there currently a plan to replace the landing craft capability of the assault ships—the landing platform docks? That role is currently provided by HMS “Bulwark” and HMS “Albion”. If we as a country desire expeditionary capability, we must have the specialist and best troops to do the job.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on his admirable introduction and thank him for tabling this important debate. Inevitably with such a predictably large number of speakers and the four-minute time limit, there is little that is new or unknown that anyone can add, but I hope that the aggregation of some common concerns will have impressed itself on government.
Quite apart from being an old soldier, I must declare an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and I would like to begin my contribution from that viewpoint.
Like many other members of the Joint Committee, I had hoped that government would have learned its lesson from the disastrous 2010 SDSR, which contained so many imponderables and loopholes. Naively perhaps, we hoped that hints that the 2015 SDSR would follow and be based on a national security strategy would result in just that, because in logic other requirements, such as the comprehensive spending review, could have been based on the national security strategy as well. But no, they were published simultaneously, and I submit that 23 June 2016 rendered both out of date.
Many factors have to be taken into account when planning the defence of the United Kingdom, on which the capabilities of our Armed Forces must be based—not least partnership arrangements with neighbouring countries. Until 23 June, these were with fellow members of the European Union, but now bilateral arrangements will have to be made with each. It is true that some are members of NATO, but its continued existence, in its current US-reliant form, must be in doubt after 20 January, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and others have pointed out. It is also true that all are members of the OSCE, but since the early 1990s in former Yugoslavia this has not featured on the military horizon.
In thinking about the current inadequacies in each of our Armed Forces, which other noble Lords have spelled out in some detail, I could not help casting my mind back to the options for change exercise in 1991, to which my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig referred. As Adjutant-General, I was responsible for implementing the reduction in the size of the Army by a third over three years, from 156,000 to 104,000. Our key worries about implementing the requirement can be encapsulated in two words—uncertainty and sustainability. Uncertainty coloured our thinking about force structure, in the context of the lessons of the first Gulf War, which included the inadequate size of infantry battalions, not having been assimilated, and the emerging requirement to provide contingencies to peacekeeping operations and post-conflict reconstruction.
Sustainability coloured our thinking about the ratio between cuts to teeth or tail. Noble Lords will therefore appreciate that we wondered whether we were being required to make a jump too far, in isolation of consideration of the current international situation. To jump to today, plans to cut the Army yet further, to 82,000, were made before 23 June, and I submit that that needs to be rethought in the light of the changed international situation.
Of course resources are the key, and we all know that there is unlikely to be any more money. I have mentioned before in this House that Field-Marshal Carver, whose military assistant I was once privileged to be, had two definitions of the word “affordability”—can you afford it, and can you afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it? One of my main reasons for calling for a review of both the national security strategy and SDSR 2015 is to enable an affordability test to be carried out on the capabilities of the United Kingdom Armed Forces planned before 23 June 2016 to determine whether they are appropriate in current and future international situations.
Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)
My Lords, I draw the attention of your Lordships’ House to the interests I have declared in the register. I act as an adviser and consultant to Lockheed Martin here in the United Kingdom. I start by associating myself with the words of my noble friends Lord Robertson, Lord West and Lord Reid, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, all of whom I agree very strongly with.
I believe that the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review is a more coherent and impressive strategy and framework than the 2010 document, which, as we all know, was largely designed to make painful and difficult cuts in the capability, capacity and strength of the UK Armed Forces. The most important element in the 2015 strategy is the Government’s very welcome and positive commitment to ensuring that the United Kingdom and our Armed Forces are able to contribute large-scale expeditionary and amphibious war-fighting capabilities against a technologically equivalent power. That is a very important commitment and aspiration. But, as we all know, herein lies the rub: even though that capacity and capability are vital for Britain’s long-term strategic goals, after several years of cuts to our defence forces we are trying to deploy and maintain that capability with pitifully few platforms and too few trained and deployable personnel.
If one looks at the strategy that the Government have set out—consciously and deliberately limiting salary increases to our Armed Forces—at a stroke, it made the work of the pay review body superfluous. They are restricting the important elements that will attract and recruit the people we want at a time when wage growth is significant and employment is high, so there is a very serious problem here. We have too few platforms and too few people who are readily deployable and trained.
In the time I have, I will make two or three points. Some have been made by noble Lords but it is worth dwelling on them. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, was the first to mention the importance of attrition. As far as I can see, no allowance at all is made in the strategy for any attrition of our key weapons and platforms. In times of peace that may be fantastic, but at times of war it is not such a clever strategy—particularly if, heaven forbid, we found ourselves pitted against a technologically equivalent power; that is not an impossibility.
Of the three armed services, my real concern today is the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy is under the greatest pressure of all the three services and has been cut disastrously to below a sustainable level, both in platforms and in people. I do not dispute for a second that the Type 45 destroyers and the Type 26 frigates will be much more capable platforms, delivering much more kinetic power. But there is one problem: they can only be in one place at a time, and we simply do not have enough platforms, particularly if we have to prepare for the possibility of the carrier battle groups. The Queen Elizabeth class ships would have to be defended entirely by Royal Navy assets. I think we are going to struggle to do that, and it is critical that the Government address that point.
The RAF is already operating flat out on its existing missions. The air police work in the Baltics, in Syria and in Iraq, and provide quick-reaction aircraft in the Falklands. Those are all fairly modest operations, and I do not see any spare capacity there at all. Although I strongly welcome General Carter’s new focus on deploying the Army at divisional strength with new strike brigades, no provision at all seems to be made in SDSR 2015 regarding where the air defence role is going to come from. Our Rapier forces are fully committed to defending the Falklands. Pulling them out of there would send a very unfortunate signal.
There is more work to be done. I do not think the strategy is complete. Of course, Ministers will have to make a very difficult set of decisions about resources. But the bottom line is simply this: these are the most dangerous times since the end of the Cold War. We are taking more risks with the defence of the United Kingdom than we reasonably ought to be taking.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for introducing so ably this important debate today. I speak with some trepidation as, like the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, I do not have the level of experience in defence of many others who are taking part in this debate.
I begin by paying tribute to the many outstandingly brave men and women who serve in our Armed Forces. Through visits with the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, I have had the privilege of seeing the extraordinary level of service they provide for our country.
It is important to acknowledge the commitment that this Government have made to spend 2% of GDP annually on defence—one of only five NATO countries to do so last year. The significant new investment in defence equipment is also to be welcomed, as is the pledge not to reduce the overall size of the regular Armed Forces. However, I also understand that there is some concern over what exactly should be included in defence spending and whether there are enough resources for the spending commitments that have been made, and I worry whether any shortfall will lead to further cuts.
We live in a dangerous and unstable world today with conflict in many countries, as we have already heard from other noble Lords. A consequence of this turmoil has been the refugee crisis; the UN estimates that there are approximately 65 million refugees across the world today, more than at any time since World War II, with thousands trying to come to Europe. It is hard to know exactly how wars will be fought in the years to come. As we have already heard, Russia again seems to be a threatening presence, and several hundred of our troops will join the NATO exercise in Estonia—our largest long-term deployment to a Russian neighbour since the end of the Cold War—to ensure our preparedness for a conventional war. Meanwhile, terrorism and cyberwarfare are two of the biggest threats we now face.
The year 2015 saw the formation of the 77th Brigade, as the MOD realised that,
“the actions of others in a modern battlefield can be affected in ways that are not necessarily violent”.
When one looks at how effectively Daesh has utilised social media, the importance of this specialist work cannot be overestimated. Our forces need to have all the tools to counter complex threats. Perhaps now more than ever, our Armed Forces must ensure a good understanding of other cultures. They are already deployed in more than 40 countries across the world in a range of roles, including building relationships and detecting early vibrations in order to help prevent conflict. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have taught us lessons about the dangers of failing to understand how our interventions will impact on a country.
It is the people in the Armed Forces who are so important. Thus it is imperative that we recruit and retain the right people. That can be challenging. The previous cuts to the Armed Forces created insecurity, and in today’s competitive world, industry can pay much higher salaries for those with technology skills and the engineers that we so crucially need. Are we able to recruit the people we need? Should more be done to attract reservists and support their employers? Most importantly, we need to keep the best. We must ensure that we look after those who serve, and their families, well. We rightly have a duty of care towards them.
I and other noble Lords debated the Armed Forces covenant in your Lordships’ House earlier this week. Perhaps we should do more to recognise the strain that military life places on families. It is with the support of their families that our military are able to do their jobs, and we in turn need to do all we can to support them and make their lives easier. Tomorrow’s future warfare is hard to predict in such a fast-changing and interconnected world. We must ensure that defences are in place to protect the UK, through adequate resources, a flexible approach to warfare and personal support for those who serve and their families.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)
My Lords, I join with others in thanking my noble friend Lord Robertson for this debate today and for introducing such wide-ranging coverage of the issues that we face. I was not at all surprised that he included personnel in that. As the very new chairman of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body, I was called in by the first Defence Secretary of the new Labour Government to be told that the staging of the pay award by the Tory Government that had caused so much demoralisation in the Armed Forces for several years was going to stop. Whatever the review body recommended, our Armed Forces would get—and the Labour Government honoured that agreement right the way through.
On the personnel that we have and the capability of our Armed Forces, we can have the best policies in the world, get a real 2% defence budget, make the changes and invest, but unless we have the continuation of professional Armed Forces personnel, backed and supported by their families, we will not succeed. Part of the worldwide reputation our Armed Forces have for their professionalism, talent and whatever they bring wherever they go is because we have this concordat.
The Armed Forces have their covenant, which is welcome and has been improved over the past few years, and they have the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body, which is independent. There is a report due out shortly but I looked at its report from last year and it makes worrying reading. I looked at the previous three as well and they make incrementally worrying reading.
What do Armed Forces personnel and their families see? They—and I—see a Prime Minister who has been in office for nearly a year and has not made one major speech on international security or defence. How are they supposed to feel about that when so much of our security as a nation depends on them and their ability? Many of them see the 2% as smoke and mirrors. They do not understand why pensions should be included in defence spending. An accountant may be able to argue that but you will never convince our people, or many of us in the Chamber today, that that is spending on defence equipment and personnel. They saw last year the announcement by the Government that from 2016, for four years, the maximum pay award they will get year on year will be 1%. Our Armed Forces people are not slow off the mark; they know what is going on and in evidence to the review body they asked why that should be imposed on them when the very people who are imposing it—MPs—are getting more than 1%. Yet we expect our Armed Forces to continue to give the commitment that they have given.
The review body is independent. It has been respected by Governments across the piece. Yet in 2010, and again last year, the Treasury quite arbitrarily, without reference to the review body, cut the commitment bonuses—the commitment to go and do the job. It is in the report. It makes worrying reading indeed. Just 14% of our Armed Forces think that morale is high. If that were a company, it would be looking at itself and at what it could do to improve it. Just 36% were satisfied with their lifestyle and remuneration package. Just under half of them were dissatisfied with the impact on their partner’s career. Many partners have to put their career in abeyance when their Armed Forces partner is serving.
Paragraph 2.14 of the report was one of the most worrying aspects. The review body said:
“One of the most powerful messages … was that personnel were losing trust in their employer”—
the MoD, the Government. So I ask the Minister: do the Government intend to maintain the 1% for the next four years? If they do, do they not agree that that will affect recruitment and retention? Will the impact that the drop in the value of the pound—£1.50 the night of Brexit; £1.20 last night—will have on the MoD budget have to be met out of the MoD budget?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, as I am in charge of time management, I make a further strong entreaty that remaining speeches must conclude as the clock reaches four minutes.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, we all know that this issue has huge significance for the UK as we approach a new US Administration. As a layman, I am as concerned as anyone that NATO itself may be reconfigured under a new US President. The litmus test may well be in countries such as Ukraine. Even outside the EU, I believe we should remain true to the doctrine of EU enlargement and maintain the closest possible links with eastern Europe, Georgia and the Baltic states.
The prevention of war, our security and even the containment of migration are just as important for our Armed Forces as the ability to engage directly in conflict. I would like to make the case for the UK’s increasing involvement in peacekeeping, specifically in the UN and EU missions in conflict states. The 2015 SDSR vision describes a United Kingdom with “global reach and influence”, and it is right that we see the wider context of our defence policy. The strongest argument for increasing the UK’s role in UN and EU peacekeeping is the need to strengthen the international protection of civilians in civil war. A pressing example of this is in South Sudan, where we have committed up to 370 personnel to UNMISS. Training in the protection of civilians and in combatting sexual violence is now the priority following massacres and rapes that have prompted investigations and have caused aid agencies such as Christian Aid and Oxfam considerable concern.
Peacekeeping activity has one material advantage over the deployment of conventional forces. In certain areas such as the CSSF, the new version of the joint Conflict Pool, it can draw on the international aid budget. That indeed is one justification for keeping that budget above 0.7% of GNI.
Our security already depends on global co-operation, but is security taking over from conflict prevention? There are signs that Downing Street is taking a greater interest in the uses of the CSSF for reasons of security. I mentioned the containment of migration. The EU’s Khartoum process in north Africa is one diplomatic response to migration currently favoured by the FCO. This programme cultivates closer relations with Sudan and even tighter border controls along some of the continent’s longest frontiers. I am not sure that the programme will work, for all sorts of reasons—although the UK is currently chairing the process.
What about the EU CSDP missions in the Mediterranean, the sub-Sahara and the Horn of Africa? In the past 10 years, we have taken part in 11 EU missions, including Operation Sophia and Operation Atalanta, which were notable achievements. These are programmes to which we subscribed troops, personnel and resources successfully. Will the Minister confirm that our participation will continue, at least on a voluntary basis?
The commitment to South Sudan doubles the number of personnel assigned to UN-mandated operations, but this must be seen in context. The numbers are well below the thousands committed under John Major’s premiership in the 1990s. After the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, our Armed Forces, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, said, are already developing a more subtle approach to defence policy through the use of smaller, irregular, specialised detachments that might be used in peacekeeping.
Finally, I hope that we shall stand by our friends in the Balkans, whatever our relations with the EU. Will the Minister confirm that our commitments to the programmes in Kosovo and Ukraine and to the monitoring mission in Georgia will continue? In defence, as in trade, we should not neglect our current partnerships in the search for new horizons.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth
My Lords, agree with it or not, Brexit was a decision to determine our own path. This debate requires us to consider critically whether we have the capacity to determine our own strategic path in the realm of defence and security. The extent of our global reach must reflect our economic and strategic interests as well as our security and military concerns in these changing times, which now make these considerations, as one analyst has put it, “supercharged”.
My anxiety is that there is a gap, if not sometimes a gulf, between rhetoric about our concerns and ambitions on the one hand and our constrained capability on the other. For example, not long ago the Foreign Secretary declared that we are “back east of Suez”. It is true that the Gulf and Asia are regions of growing global importance, and this country has new defence centres in Dubai and Singapore. We have some Army presence in Oman and joint training with Singapore after 70 years of this co-operation with only the US. A naval support facility has opened in Bahrain and the new aircraft carriers will have what is called “a presence” in the Pacific.
We may welcome and applaud the strategic intent but our capacity to sustain and resource effective presence and capacity remains limited. Our only garrison in Asia, in Brunei, is funded by the Sultan. We have small quantities of advanced, expensive equipment, of which the new carriers are the most obvious example, but sparse support capacity. In a navy of 19 surface vessels, an effective carrier group needs most of the deployable capacity. My spellchecker has substituted “deplorable capacity” for my intended words “deployable capacity”. The iPad technology seems to know a thing or two. We are talking not only about defence and security capacity. Intelligence, influence, diplomacy and trade considerations are part of our strategic reach and so affected by financial limitations.
This is surely the time to recognise the opportunities open to us, as well as the threats, and with realism to reconsider our ability to resource needs and ambitions. I, with others, including my colleague the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, who regrets the necessity for his late withdrawal from the debate, have already suggested a new SDSR that addresses a global situation so changed in a short time. Peace in Europe and US commitment to NATO are no longer reliable bases for our policy. We must surely conclude that, as we see a more assertive Russia to the east and a new American President questioning the orthodoxy we have long accepted.
I am not proposing a crude attempt at empire restoration, but rather a recognition of opportunity and the need for us to resource new partnership and leadership roles. I need hardly add, too, that increased defence spending would move us beyond the mere preservation of an industrial base by stimulating innovation, employment, morale and prosperity in regions that have suffered most from deindustrialisation. Our words, aspirations and actions must be much more consistent.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for introducing his debate. I remind the House that I might still technically have an interest.
I return to just one issue that I raised at our last defence debate about the need for a large-scale overseas deployment exercise. That is where a division with at least two brigades is moved along a land line of communication of at least 500 kilometres and then the two brigades are manoeuvred around the area of operations. In other words, how do we know that our aspiration to be able to deploy at divisional level against a peer opponent is realistic? Computer-simulated or assisted exercises are no substitute. The British Army’s deployment on Exercise Saif Sareea in 2001 significantly improved the outcome of Operation Telic 1. Vital lessons were learned about equipment capability and hygiene in desert conditions.
We still have a fabulous officer corps and we should be proud of them. However, while they may be experienced in very difficult and complex operations, they are not experienced in large-scale deployments, moving brigades around the area of operations. That is a serious weakness.
Unlike many Armed Forces, we maintain a comprehensive capability and can deal with most threats. Most importantly, our capabilities are balanced—a strength that many overlook or are unaware of. But, to be a bit Rumsfeldian, there are known weaknesses, of which the staff are aware and are taking a known, calculated risk. The maritime patrol aircraft would be a good example. The risk has now become so unacceptable that something has been done about it. But there are also unknown, or at least unacknowledged, weaknesses. I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I forget about the sexy G3 stuff and produce a boring and, I hope, fictitious G4 example. I do not know whether my illustrative example is real, but neither does the Minister.
Take, for instance, a rough-terrain container handling truck. This equipment is absolutely mission-critical to the logistic operation. It is very low population, especially in theatre, it is expensive and it requires specialist equipment to move it around because it is rather large and awkward, but it is not immune to breakdown or operational attrition. How can we be sure that we have enough of this equipment and other types of specialist equipment, especially if we have not tested its capability in realistic conditions on exercise? It may well be that an SO1 somewhere is well aware that we have too few, but perhaps, given that there are two spare ones in the depot, no one really listens to the problem. It is unfortunate to experience serious logistic problems on a deployment exercise, but an absolute disaster on an operation. How can we be sure that our logistics work if we do not test them realistically?
Yes, such exercises cost money, but not very much compared to the positive effect and benefits. If we do not demonstrate the capability to deploy at large or even medium scale, we still have the cost of having that capability but without our opponents being deterred by our conventional capability or our friends feeling that they need our capability. We do not necessarily need to deploy in strength in, say, the Baltic states if we can demonstrate that we are able to deploy a potent capability. Therefore I hope my noble friend will tell me that I am ill informed if I believe that the forthcoming Exercise Saif Sareea in the Middle East is to be a pathetic battle group rather than a proper medium-scale deployment.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, when the military capacity of a nation or an alliance of nations becomes demonstrably inadequate, then it serves not as a means of defence but as an encouragement to the ambitions of its potential adversaries. Britain’s military capacity is utterly inadequate to meet the threats that are posed to us and our European allies by an expansionist Russia. We have allowed our Armed Forces to decline because for many years following the demise of the Soviet Union we failed to perceive any major threats to our security and that of our allies.
Nowadays, Vladimir Putin’s expansionist policies are posing a threat to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Such expansionist policies were pursued by Russia at the end of the Napoleonic era, when it annexed what are now Ukraine, Finland, Belarus, Poland and Lithuania. However, on Russia’s withdrawal from participation in the First World War, the Bolsheviks, who were eager for peace, signed away these possessions to Germany and its allies in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. A main agenda of post-revolutionary Soviet Russia was to regain these lost territories. By the end of the Second World War, it had achieved most of this and made further acquisitions in eastern Europe. Most of these gains were ceded at the end of the Soviet era.
I am recounting this history because it explains the desires and intentions of Putin’s regime, which aims at regaining lost territories and re-establishing Russian imperial hegemony. A factor that affects the Baltic states is the presence of large numbers of ethnic Russians. There is preponderance of ethnic Russians in the northern part of Estonia, close to the Russian border. Notwithstanding their allegiance to Estonia, these people could provide a ready pretext for a Russian annexation.
Wedged between Poland and Lithuania is the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, previously known as Königsberg and once part of East Prussia, which nowadays has an exclusively Russian population. The Baltic Germans of East Prussia, who were the pre-war population, were expelled en masse at the end of the war. Kaliningrad is now a heavily fortified Russian base containing nuclear-capable Russian missiles and probably much else besides of which we should be fearful.
NATO is committed to defending the sovereignty of the Baltic states. Britain has contributed 500 combat troops to the region, to which it has also consigned four Typhoon jets for periods of four months in the year. At any one time, only two of these jets are operational. This provision, together with the lesser contributions of our NATO allies, does not constitute a realistic deterrent.
If the US were to disengage from NATO, as Donald Trump proposes that it should, then Britain would be expected to become a natural leader of the alliance. We are ill-equipped for such a role. The leader of the Labour party has proposed that, rather than sending troops to defend the borders of the Baltic States, we should aim at mutual demilitarisation. There could be no greater encouragement to Russia to pursue its territorial ambitions.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, not one member of the UK Armed Forces was killed in operations in 2016, thankfully. It was the first time since 1968 that no one had died, although sadly there were deaths on exercises. And yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said with crystal clarity in his brilliant opening speech—and I thank him for leading this debate—the challenges that we face globally are, in his words, a “bonfire of certainties”.
The head of the Defence Select Committee, Julian Lewis, said that the last time this country faced a threatening Russia as well as a major terrorist campaign, the UK invested between 4.3% and 5.1% of GDP in defence. A measure of just how low our expectations have fallen is that here we are celebrating the minimum of 2%, and there are debates about how this 2% is measured. He suggests that 3% would be a much better level of spending. Does the Minister agree?
General Sir Richard Barrons, retired head of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, said that we are “dangerously squeezed” in manpower. Can the Minister confirm that there is a shortfall of 22% in our Maritime Reserves and 12% in the Army Reserves? As far as the Defence Medical Services are concerned, we no longer have military hospitals and what exists now is within the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham—attached to the University of Birmingham medical school, where I am proud to be chancellor of the university. There is a shortage of medical doctors being recruited, retained and motivated. Such undermanning has led to a reliance on Reserve Forces, which are also underrecruited. Can the Minister confirm this? This negatively impacts our capability.
Sir Richard Barrons also said in 2016 that the UK and its NATO allies had,
“no effective plan for defending Europe from a Russian attack because of splits in the alliance”.
He said that, while Russia could,
“deploy tens of thousands of troops into NATO territory within 48 hours, backed by warplanes and ships”,
NATO would take “months” to do that.
Professor Malcolm Chalmers of RUSI has said that the overall capability in defence and diplomacy has been severely restricted after Brexit. As we have heard before, RUSI also said that the position we have held as number 2 in NATO for more than 60 years could be transferred to another EU member to retain links to the EU. Can the Minister give his view on that?
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, spoke about the EU army. We have had the best of both worlds being part of the European Union. We are not in Schengen, we are not in the euro, and we are not into any further integration. There is no way we would have been into an EU army; it would have been a bridge far too far. And yet, we have to acknowledge that the peace for the last 70 years has not been because of NATO alone; it has been because of the existence of the European Union and NATO.
We are the fifth largest economy in the world—we were the fifth largest economy in the world, but because of the uncertainty the world sees before we leave the EU and the devaluation of the pound, we are no longer fifth. India has overtaken the UK as the fifth largest economy in the world and will soon overtake the UK as the fifth largest defence spender as well.
Can the Minister say whether we are doing enough in furthering defence collaboration with universities, particularly with regard to innovation and research? At Birmingham we have a defence club. The noble Lord, Lord West, has spoken there and the CGS General Sir Nick Carter will be speaking there next week. Collaboration would help with our strategic thinking and with our defence manufacturing base. Manufacturing is still 10% of our GDP; we must not lose that. The 2010 SDSR was negligent—thankfully, the 2015 one was much better—as 2010 was all about means before ends.
I conclude on the covenant. We have had a debate on the covenant. The covenant is wonderful; it is the promise that we make as a people to our Armed Forces for the service and sacrifice that they make. But are we doing enough to publicise the covenant within the Army family, within the troops, within the families, within the veterans and, most importantly, with the public so that we never take the Armed Forced for granted?
Finally, we are a strong soft power. We have oodles of soft power, but that soft power is no good without the hard power. The combination of those two makes Britain not a superpower, but definitely a global power, and we must never lose that.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Robertson for his excellent introduction to this debate. I also take another opportunity to thank him for his particularly distinguished and longstanding service to this country and the international community in the roles he has fulfilled. If we are paying tributes, it is also right to take the opportunity of this debate to put on record, without qualification, our appreciation and gratitude to all our service men and women and their families.
I have never been persuaded that percentages are a good estimate of what is necessary and how things ought to be done. It seems to me that we have to analyse very toughly what the real threats and dangers are in the uncertain future ahead, and then ask ourselves what we must do for ourselves in that situation and for the collective effort—the UN, NATO and the rest. That analysis is the starting point. What are the real threats, dangers and issues we face and what is necessary to meet them? We then have to face up to the issue of cost. Of course, a stable, secure and inclusive society in Britain is very much part of our longstanding defence.
I suppose I have to declare an interest in that, way back in the 1970s, I was Minister for the Navy, and I take a particular interest in it. I am totally persuaded that in the uncertain future ahead, the ability to deploy widely across the world with independent operating platforms is essential. Such platforms need the equipment and personnel to operate from them. What is perhaps a challenge is that the immense costs of our two carriers as currently planned could end up as a trap, because we could become so inflexible that we are not able to respond quickly and adequately to the real issues that confront us. Hence, the saga with the Type 45 destroyers is absolutely deplorable, because of course they are essential to the defence effort.
I will just say this as well. We have been talking about the essential availability of personnel and equipment, and it is irresponsible and wicked to send our service men and women into action unless we are confident about the ability to provide the necessary quantity of personnel and equipment. We also have a special duty of care and responsibility to look to the young people we recruit. We know that a disproportionate number of the young people going into the armed services are going into the infantry and that the attrition level in the infantry is higher than in any other part of the services. We must take that point very seriously indeed. We have spent hours in this House debating the care of children and our responsibility to them, and these people are very often little more than children. We have a duty of care and a responsibility to them, just as great as to anyone in society as a whole.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for his brilliant speech. A key factor that he commented on is that percentages are meaningless. I am fed up hearing about this famous 2%—it is the capabilities that really matter. We had such a debate on 8 December. I re-read the whole of the debate, which I had the honour to lead. Much of it has been reiterated today. The noble Lord, Lord King, brought up an issue that we spoke about before, and I checked it out. Given that the key factor of government following the Prime Minister’s kissing the Queen’s hand is defence of the realm, it is absolutely ludicrous that we have only had two hours of debate on this issue. I checked with the Library and there has not been an open debate in government time on this subject, with no time limit, in anybody’s living memory. That is ridiculous and I ask the Minister for that to be considered. Leaving myself to one side, we have here so much experience and knowledge, and in these dangerous times it is ludicrous that we do not have such a debate.
This is a wealthy country. On the idea that somehow we have not got the moneys and we ought to cut back, it depends how we want to allocate it, which has been talked about. In practice, of course, it could be allocated. The Treasury does not have the last word about what does or does not happen, any more than a finance director does in a company. Following noble Lords’ comments earlier, if we get it wrong, the public will never forgive us. I would put it more strongly than that. If we get it wrong and the leadership gets it wrong, that would be criminal, to use a strong word—the idea that we cannot possibly have that sort of support. Having said that, with courageous leadership—and it is up to No. 10 and others to take note of what we have talked about today—it can certainly be done. We have said before that we need more moneys. Unquestionably, the real figures are such that to meet even the present programme we need at least another £2 billion a year. Could it be found? Of course it could, if, as I said before, it was said to the chiefs, “I want us to go on to a war footing tomorrow morning”. Of course, they would do a marvellous job, as I have said before, but we would be putting them in a pretty difficult position.
I ask the Minister whether we can have a major debate in due course. I will not go on; I have said it all before and many noble Lords have said it today. There should be a major debate on these subjects, in the interests of the realm.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate and pay tribute to my noble friend, Lord Robertson, on a masterly introduction to and analysis of the current situation. It was a fitting beginning to a very interesting debate. The noble Lord, Lord Sterling, and I were both founding members of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. A few months ago that Committee reported and said that the Armed Forces,
“will not be able to fulfil the wide-ranging tasks described in the NSS & SDSR 2015 … with the capabilities, manpower and funding”,
allocated. Doubtless, in half an hour’s time, the Minister will tell this House that the Government spend so much money that we are the fifth largest defence spender on the planet and that we are one of only five NATO members that spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. Both of course are true; but a number of Members of this House, over the last hour, have indicated that the 2% figure is not really what it seems. As we know, it includes £820 million on war pensions, £400 million on our United Nations peacekeeping missions and £200 million for pensions for retired Ministry of Defence civilian staff. For the very first time, it includes spending on the single intelligence account and on one-off items that cannot be counted towards the 2% in years to come.
On top of that, it should be seen in the context of so-called efficiency savings, which the noble Lords, Lord King and Lord Reid, both referred to earlier, which are the most nebulous things in government accounting. It is not surprising to me that the Defence Committee of the House of Commons said that this was “shifting the goalposts”, my honourable friend Nia Griffith, the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, called it a “sleight of hand” and my noble friend Lord Reid today has called it “creative accountancy”. It is fiddling the figures a little, I suppose, and I would be interested in the Minister’s response on those points.
The 2% figure should not be a target: it should be a minimum. That is the importance of it. In The House magazine back in the autumn, this was written: “It was a Labour Government who committed to the 2%, and a Labour Government who were a founding member of NATO—every time Labour have been in government, they have taken a responsible view of defence”. Those words were written by the current Conservative Secretary of State for Defence. He was of course right and, despite the rather daft musings of people in my leader’s office, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Touhig will also confirm that this responsible view of defence is the view of the Labour Party.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, speaking as I do towards the end of a long list of wise and knowledgeable contributors to this debate, I run the risk of having little new to add and merely repeating what has already been said with such eloquence by others. But there is one important point that bears additional emphasis because it is all too often forgotten—or, if remembered, it is usually paid only lip service. Throughout the history of warfare, surprise has been one of the most critical factors in achieving success. This may seem a statement of the obvious, but we should bear in mind that our opponents and potential enemies also recognise the importance of this dictum and, not unnaturally, they will usually seek to surprise us. They will also, if they are sensible, try to attack us where we are weakest. We should therefore not expect to be able to predict the location, timing or nature of any future conflict.
Most past wars have surprised us to some degree, and we have found ourselves inadequately prepared for the demands that they make on us. This is not, or at least not entirely, because of a lack of planning or foresight. The future is to a degree not only unknown but unknowable, and no amount of horizon scanning or scenario planning can make up for that. I am not suggesting that such activities are unnecessary; there are after all many facets of future conflict that can and should be subjected to careful analysis and for which we should prepare. One such example is the increasing importance of the cyber domain, to which several speakers have already referred, and on which I will merely say I entirely agree with them.
However, we run the risk of persuading ourselves that because we have new challenges we can forget about old ones. Just because the cyber domain is such a promising field for our enemies does not mean that we will never again face a violent attack in the physical world. It does not mean that our use of airspace above the battlefield will never again be contested or that antisubmarine warfare is a thing of the past. None of these, or similar, propositions is safe. We must prepare for the future as best we can, but we must also prepare to be surprised.
There is, however, an answer to this conundrum. The most important capabilities that we will need in our Armed Forces in the years ahead are the ones that have served us so well in the past: agility and adaptability. In this context, agility is our ability to use existing systems in new and innovative ways, and adaptability refers to the process of altering those systems quickly in order to meet the unexpected and unforeseen.
The design and production lead times for weapon platforms are long, and we have to do our best to match them with future needs. At the same time, we must recognise that something will come along that will surprise us, and make allowances for this. We therefore need a broad spectrum of capabilities that can be adapted rapidly to meet new challenges as they arise and as they are recognised, and the agility of mind, of doctrine and of training to employ our capabilities as the situation demands, not just as we have done in the past.
Finally, and as has been said frequently during this debate, all of this requires investment—in equipment, in research and development, in industries on which we rely for our adaptability, and in our people. We are currently doing a little better in this regard, but still not well enough; there are danger signs on the horizon. The noble Earl the Minister will no doubt point rightly to the quality of our forces. Quality is indeed more important than quantity, provided that we have lots of it. In this uncertain and dangerous world there can be no greater priority for the Government than matching our defence investment to the high level of risk that we face.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for the opportunity to engage in this discussion about the future. I also acknowledge the work that our Armed Forces carry out on our behalf, away from home and here in the UK, day in and day out, with little or no complaint or question. We also need to thank their families who are their rock and their support. As a team, they are the best.
The picture is not particularly rosy. The current international situation is becoming less stable and predictable. The post-Cold War global order may be at risk. Institutions such as NATO and the EU are weaker and global threats to the UK are increasing. Russia has re-emerged as a conventional and strategic antagonist. Right now all eyes are on the US, but the President-elect needs to be our ally and we should be his.
Unconventional terrorist threats continue, requiring international co-operation. In addition, climate change and mass migration are growing issues, which may effectively be tackled only multilaterally. Within this context, our Armed Forces do not currently have the capability to address the range of threats. Spending is down across NATO and the UK conventional Armed Forces are the smallest in the P5—and, of course, there is the Brexit factor to consider, which reduces our buying power.
Technologically and in terms of equipment, we do not necessarily hold an advantage. To ensure that the UK is able to insure itself in an unstable world, while promoting stability, trade and liberal values overseas, we must do everything possible to preserve and build our alliances and international institutions, while re-evaluating current defence policy in light of fast-changing global circumstances. New strategies should be developed to stay ahead of adversaries, not a commitment to fighting yesterday’s war.
In a globalised world, the UK Armed Forces will need the ability to deploy rapidly and take quick and parallel action across the globe. There is also a need to have sufficient conventional capabilities to be able to respond to any situation without having to resort to nuclear deterrence—short of course of the threat of nuclear attack.
The rise of hybrid warfare, cyberattacks on western interests and large-scale online assaults on allied nations’ systems mean that cyberspace should be considered an additional, non-kinetic strategic space. Informational systems and institutions must develop resilience against cyberattacks and the effects of anti-satellite warfare. Lawfare—the strategy of using law rather than traditional means to achieve an operational objective—is likely to be used more prominently.
On a more specific level, the UK must retain the ability to respond to any Russian attempt to test NATO’s commitment to Article 5 defence of the Baltics and other allied countries and interests in a resolute but proportionate way. To preserve the domestic and global economy, the UK must have the ability to ensure safe and open trading routes across the global commons, especially in the South China Sea and the Arabian Gulf.
The challenges faced by the UK are global, and require close co-operation with allies. These include the ongoing threat of foreign-initiated and foreign-inspired domestic terrorism, global terrorism, the migrant and refugee crises, climate change, and countering piracy. UK deployments of the early 21st century have largely been asymmetrical conflicts, with elements of peacekeeping, counterterror and nation building. UK defence policy may have focused on specialising in this operational environment at the expense of other capabilities. It should be reassessed in the light of future conflicts and not only in the light of counterterror operations.
In 2015, our defence spending was equivalent to about £46.5 billion, or 2.05% of GDP. In 2015-16, 56,860 UK Armed Forces members were deployed around the world. In April 2016, the number of regulars was 151,000, with 84,000 reserves—the smallest force of the UNSC P5. This was a reduction on the previous year.
Just before Christmas, General Sir Richard Barrons produced a private memorandum for the Secretary of State for Defence criticising the state of UK defence policy. Some of the key criticisms were that the MoD was working to “preserve the shop window” while critical technical and logistical capabilities had been “iteratively stripped out”. Sir Richard said that there was no military plan to defend the UK in a conventional conflict. He wrote:
“Counter-terrorism is the limit of up-to-date plans and preparations to secure UK airspace, waters and territory … There is no top to bottom command and control mechanism, preparation or training in place for the UK armed forces”,
to defend home territory. I would add that recruitment is sluggish at best, in particular in specialists and engineers, both regulars and reserves. I would expect the MoD to be defensive about the letter, but I am sure that many will see a grain or two of truth in it.
So what might the future look like? We should by then have cemented our defence relationships with key EU states, for security as much as defence. The challenges faced by the UK are global and require close co-operation with allies. These include the ongoing threat of foreign-initiated and foreign-inspired domestic terrorism, global terrorism and, as I mentioned, the migrant and refugee crises and countering piracy. More specifically, the UK must retain the ability to respond to any attempt to test NATO’s commitment to Article 5 defence of the Baltics or other Allied countries.
When the 2020 SDSR team sits down to start its planning, it will need to look at our defence policy in the light of possible future conflicts—which I have highlighted—and not only in the light of counterterror operations. With a clearer idea of our economy in the post-EU world, there may be a need to review our expenditure commitments in 2015 against the pressure to spend more.
What could be done to mitigate some of these issues? Investment in research and development. Falling behind adversaries in terms of numbers or spending may be fine if the UK is ahead technologically but will be a disaster if it is outnumbered and outgunned. The US invests a huge amount of money in its defence research programmes. We need to increase our work in conjunction with both universities and the private sector. The defence industry should become a sizeable part of the soon-to-be-published industrial strategy.
Perhaps we should consider less future spending on enormously expensive pieces of equipment. Our adversaries have only to knock out one, with comparatively cheap munitions, to hurt us enormously. We should spend more on equipment and forces prepared for a range of scenarios up to and including large-scale mobile warfare. Alliances for intelligence need to be secured. We need to review and increase cyber defences and technologies. This will help to deter our opponents and ensure that military forces can be deployed with maximum effect and efficiency. We still need more efficient procurement. The UK has smaller physical capabilities than comparable countries but spends more money on defence.
We were top of the soft power league both in 2010 and 2015. This position was deserved and in our current situation is no bad thing, but we need to use our diplomatic and soft power wisely to ensure that our allies take defence seriously. Collective self-defence is cheaper and more secure than all the alternatives.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, like others, I must commend my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen for securing this debate and for the manner in which he introduced it.
The title of the debate is most apt and highly relevant in today’s world. Change is sweeping the globe. People’s long-held views are changing, populism is in the ascendency and many political predictions have turned out to be false. However, in defence terms, we have always to be ready for any eventuality. We may be drawn into a conflict tomorrow and need to question whether we are prepared. I would like to spend a few minutes painting a picture of our defence capability as I see it.
My noble friend Lord Reid pointed out that we now have an Army smaller than the one we put in the field against Napoleon. The Navy has just 19 escorts, six of which have propulsion problems. We have no aircraft carriers and will have none until early 2020s. There are currently only seven RAF fighter squadrons, but two of those exist only by extending the life of the Typhoon until 2040. More, in an Answer to a Question from my noble friend Lord Moonie, the Government revealed that a third of our Typhoon and Tornado aircraft are in long-term maintenance and unable to fly. We have no marine patrol aircraft while the Russians increase their submarine activity around our seas. There is an overdependence on recruiting reservists and, despite millions being spent on recruitment, targets for all three services have been missed. Morale is poor. Fifty-four per cent of service personnel are dissatisfied with service life. This is made worse for the Army. A report by the National Audit Office on accommodation stated that poor housing was affecting morale, recruitment and retention.
The failings that I have identified are not the responsibility of our Armed Forces but rather the consequences of the Government’s policy of cuts, mismanagement and poor forecasting. I am sure that the Minister will dispute this, but the concerns and criticisms expressed across the House cannot be ignored and will not go away.
One thing that we can all agree on in this House it is that the service men and women in our Armed Forces are committed professionals and the best in the world. They are the best trained, the most highly motivated and very effective at what they do. But we have to make sure they remain so. That means that we have to make sure that our Armed Forces are adequately funded.
Two challenges face us: more investment and better use of current resources. Without that investment, we will not meet the challenges posed to NATO, the challenges posed by Russia—which has invested millions in modernising her weaponry—and the challenges posed by the growing sea power of China, not to mention the terrorist threat.
NATO remains the bedrock of our defence and is essential for ensuring the security of Britain and our allies at a time of increased global instability. Notwithstanding spin doctors, that is the official policy of the Labour Party. So I welcome the Government’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. However, I have to stress that that is a minimum spend. During the 13 years of the previous Labour Government, we averaged a spend of 2.3% of GDP on defence.
The second challenge is better management of our resources. HMS “Ocean”, essential to providing amphibious capability, had a £65 million refit completed in 2014 only for the Government to announce one year later that she would be decommissioned in 2018. We will now spend £60 million adapting one of our new carriers to perform its tasks. RFA “Diligence” is our only at-sea repair ship. Between 2007 and 2015, the Government spent £44 million on refits only to put the vessel up for sale last year. This is an appalling waste of scarce defence resources. We have to find more money for our Armed Forces, but we certainly have to manage better the resources that we already have.
Since this Government took office in 2010, defence has faced severe cuts. On these Benches, we think that that is enough. From the Labour Party’s point of view, my colleague, the shadow Defence Secretary, Nia Griffith, has announced a major review of defence spending. My noble friend Lord Murphy spoke about the 2% spending on defence, referring to the comments recently made by Nia Griffith. I share her concern that the present spending of 2% includes £825 million of war pensions, £400 million on UN peacekeeping and an estimated £200 million on pensions paid to retired civil servants. She said:
“Pensions are very important but they in no way contribute to … defence capabilities”.
Faced with a potential aggressor, how will the Government use pensions to defend Britain? Perhaps, like some latter-day Ethelred the Unready, they could use the pensions to buy off the threat.
I conclude my remarks by raising one major concern, which others around the House have also raised: the threat posed by a resurgent Russia—a Russia skilled in the use of cyberwarfare, because warfare is what it is, and a Russia that has one big and possibly critical advantage, as pointed out in a Times article on 22 December, written by Edward Lucas, in its President, Vladimir Putin. He wrote:
“Putin is decisive; we are not. He is willing to accept economic pain; we are not. He is willing to break the rules; we are not. He is willing to use force; we are not”.
I share Lucas’s concern that we may not be able to rely on the United States to help defend us in the future. President-elect Trump unsettles many of us—as he reassures some who are not our friends—with his pronouncements about Russia, NATO and the defence of Europe. In the past few years we have seen the Russian willingness to create problems and conflicts even on its own borders. The Russians then suggest mediation to mitigate and divert attention from the cause of the problem—Russian aggression in the first place. When they propose mediation, we in the West get excited because Russia appears to be co-operating in providing a solution—a solution to a problem that it created. We cannot secure world peace and security by pretending that an aggressor is not an aggressor and hoping that sanctions alone will be enough to prevent further incursions.
We in Britain, NATO and the West have to make it clear that the cost of aggression is a price too much to bear because, like it or not, in order to deter we have to be able to threaten. We are an island people with a proud history of defending freedoms. We are an international trading nation relying on keeping open the shipping lanes of the world to our commerce. We are on the verge of a major shift in our relations with our nearest neighbours in Europe. We face major threats from terrorists who will commit acts of war against our own people here in Britain. And we face state-sponsored cyberattacks. The phrase “We face an uncertain future” may be overused but, my God, it is most relevant today.
I readily confess to making some party political points in today’s debate because that is the right thing to do when we have such clear differences between the Government and Opposition, but I passionately believe that there is one issue that unites us all in this House: we want to continue to enjoy our freedoms and our British way of life. But to do that we have to be prepared to invest more in our defence.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for tabling this Motion, and appreciate the obvious wisdom that he brought to it. I also warmly thank all noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords who have contributed to this important debate so powerfully.
It has been said repeatedly in this House in recent times, and it is undoubtedly true, that the world is a more dangerous and uncertain place today than it has been for many years. Despite encouraging advances, the threat from Daesh remains substantial. Russia, as noble Lords have said, continues to show its force through both conventional and novel means. New theatres of conflict, most notably cyber, demand new and complex capability. The transition to a new US Administration has been seen by some as an opportunity to question, perhaps even attempt to undermine, the role of the rules-based international order.
In the 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review, we wrote:
“The world is changing rapidly and fundamentally”.
We cannot claim to have foreseen the seismic political events of the past 12 months, but we recognised the uncertainty and volatility characterising our current era and we conducted our analysis and reached our conclusions accordingly. I align myself with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, in this area: no Government can predict the future, but we can prepare for the unpredictable. The SDSR presents a clear plan for doing precisely that.
I remind the House of the four most pressing challenges to UK defence and security, as identified in 2015: first, the increasing threat posed by terrorism, extremism and instability; secondly, the resurgence of state-based threats and intensifying wider state competition; thirdly, the impact of technology, especially cyber threats; and finally, the erosion of the rules-based international order, making it harder to build consensus and tackle global threats. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, rightly warned us against complacency. We cannot be complacent about recent developments in our strategic context, but I am confident that this list of challenges is as accurate today as it was just over a year ago, and that the plan we have constructed to respond to them stands up to scrutiny.
In the context of enduring change and uncertainty, two principles must be central to our response. First, we must plan to be adaptable: the threats we face are varied and diffuse, and we must be ready to respond rapidly and effectively however and wherever they become manifest. Secondly, we must strengthen and deepen our international partnerships and alliances: now more than ever we must place an international approach at the heart of all of our defence and security plans. I will address both of these in turn.
Noble Lords will by now be familiar with the vision set out in the SDSR for Joint Force 2025. We start from the firm foundation of already world-leading Armed Forces. In 2010, however, the Government rightly optimised our forces around the ability to conduct a single, medium-sized, enduring operation, of the sort we were familiar with from Iraq and Afghanistan. Today we face a wider range of more complex tasks and more sophisticated potential adversaries. Joint Force 2025 has therefore set us on a path towards Armed Forces that are more agile, versatile and deployable than ever before.
We cannot plan with certainty for a discrete type and size of operation, so we must plan for flexibility. Joint Force 2025 will have the capability and skill mix required to conduct a wide range of complex operations concurrently, from deployments on the scale of the current counter-Daesh mission to more specialist operations, support for humanitarian assistance, and training and capacity-building with international partners. Furthermore, at the heart of Joint Force 2025 is the ability to deploy a highly capable expeditionary force of around 50,000. That is a step change in our ambition from the “best effort” deployment of 30,000 planned for in the 2010 SDSR. It will fully prepare us for the most substantial challenges to our national security, including a call to war fighting under NATO Article 5.
Increased agility and versatility increases our security. It sends a powerful message of deterrence to our adversaries, and lets our allies and partners know that we are willing and able to tackle our shared problems side by side. This point cannot be over-emphasised in the wake of last year’s referendum. We may be exiting the European Union, but—as I made clear in our defence debate before Christmas—we are neither withdrawing from Europe nor turning our back on the world. On the contrary, I assure my noble friend Lord King, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, that NATO will continue to be at the heart of UK defence policy, and we will remain a strong and influential European voice on the world stage.
That leads me to our second strategic imperative: the need to strengthen and deepen our international partnerships and alliances. In the SDSR, we wrote that our defence policy and plans will be “international by design”. Our interests are inextricably linked to global security and prosperity, and we will continue to play a leading role in protecting global stability. We cannot, and do not, hope to do this alone. It is not just a policy choice but a necessity that we become more deliberate in our international approach across all defence activity. We will build an international dimension into defence planning from the outset.
In practice, that means strong, strategic bilateral and multilateral relationships. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was right. This begins with our closest allies—the United States, France and Germany. The US remains our pre-eminent partner for defence and security, and interoperability is at the heart of our relationship. Building on the Lancaster House treaty, we will further deepen our collaboration with France on capability, operations, science and technology, and counterterrorism. Germany shares our aspiration to expand our partnership on defence and security, and we will do so across all areas of defence.
But that is not where it ends. The UK will work to strengthen bilateral and multilateral relationships across the globe. We will build and sustain alliances and partnerships through a more comprehensive approach to defence engagement, which is now a funded core task for the Ministry of Defence. We will build and strengthen combined international military formations, whether with NATO or with partners and allies further afield.
I mentioned interoperability. That is being developed all the time. NATO remains the key vehicle for maintaining an integrated and interoperable military force, and we will work with alliance members to train and exercise together, and to share doctrine, tactics and procedures. We will also continue to develop collaborative capabilities with our key allies wherever there is an opportunity to share expertise and cost in the development of new defence technology. Taken together, and supported by the Government’s global defence and diplomatic network, this will allow us to build coalitions throughout the world in the pursuit of shared interests and in support of the rules-based international order.
Strengthening our Armed Forces and employing a comprehensive international approach to defence is the plan set out in SDSR 2015, and the Government stand by it. However, a plan is nothing without action, so I shall just outline briefly the significant progress that has been made. First, the ambitious plans for Joint Force 2025 are in train. The innovative 77th Brigade has reached initial operating capability; work has now begun on the first Dreadnought-class submarine; the first of our new aircraft carriers, HMS “Queen Elizabeth”, will begin sea trials this year; design and manufacture will begin on Crowsnest, the early-warning system for the helicopters that will protect the new carriers; RFA “Tidespring” will arrive in the UK in the spring for customisation; the contract has been signed to purchase nine P8 maritime patrol aircraft; and July 2016 saw the delivery of the RAF’s 14th and final Voyager aircraft for air tanking and transport. We are already delivering.
Internationally, we have also done a lot to demonstrate our commitment to working with allies and partners. My noble friend Lord King referred to the vulnerability of the Baltic states, as did my noble friend Lord Jopling and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. That is exactly why we have agreed to deploy a battalion to Estonia in the spring and an infantry company to Poland in support of the United States, strengthening NATO’s enhanced forward presence. We are also deploying UK fighter aircraft to contribute to the NATO southern air policing task in Romania.
I understand my noble friend Lord Jopling proposing that we should try to hasten the deployment of UK forces to the Baltics. I was at the ARRC headquarters at Innsworth yesterday and can reassure him that plans for the deployment are well advanced. A careful judgment has been made and it is felt to be well worth ensuring that our forces are comprehensively trained and equipped prior to deployment. I am sure that my noble friend would agree with that.
It is not surprising that defence spending has formed a major theme of this debate. A number of noble Lords referred to the Government’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence in every year of this Parliament. We should not downplay that; nor should we draw what appear to be very easy comparisons. Comparing like with like is, I suggest, flawed reasoning because the nature of defence spending inevitably changes over time. In the past, we have reported significantly more operational spend, such as during operations in Afghanistan. That has changed. New threats also require new spending. We have not historically included any spend on cyber. Therefore, it is right that, from time to time, like all NATO allies, we ensure that we are capturing all appropriate spend, and I emphasise that all adjustments are fully in accordance with NATO guidelines.
The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, warned that we should not confuse percentages with capability—and he is absolutely right. He asked the right question: have we retained the power to act? The SDSR laid out a clear and affordable strategy for delivering one of the most capable armed forces in the world, including an expeditionary force, as I have said, of 50,000 by 2025; £1.9 billion in cyber investment; new capabilities for special forces; and a commitment to spending more than £178 billion on equipment and equipment support—more than in previous plans.
I do not accept the accusation of creative accounting. I will just say to the noble Lord, Lord West, that defence spending is going up. When defence spending will increase by £5 billion over this Parliament, it is nonsense for anyone to suggest that there is no new funding. I hope that my noble friend Lord Sterling, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and others will be at least somewhat reassured to be reminded of that figure.
The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and other noble Lords spoke about manpower, particularly that of the Army. It is true that ensuring efficiency was a driver in force design in 2010, as it was in 2015. However, strategic rationale was the primary basis for the figure of 82,000 regular Army personnel. The figure was based on an assessment of the type, frequency and concurrency of tasks that the Army will be required to conduct. Future Force 2020 described a move away from enduring stabilisation and towards a more adaptable posture. Joint Force 2025 builds on that principle, increasing the adaptability of all the services, including the Army.
The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, rightly emphasised the threat from Russia. We are not complacent about Russian behaviour or capabilities. We remain fully committed to NATO, as I have emphasised, and to our European partners, with whom we will deter threats across a wide spectrum in order to protect our people. NATO has developed a readiness action plan that gives it the tools needed to respond to short-notice or no-notice incidents in order to protect and defend alliance territory.
I understand the call by the noble Lords, Lord West and Lord Hutton, for more platforms for the Royal Navy. The Government share that desire. Not only is our fleet set to grow for the first time since World War II, but its high-end technological capabilities will allow it to provide a better contribution and to retain a first-class navy up to 2040 and beyond. We will maintain a destroyer and frigate fleet of at least 19 ships and look to increase that number by the 2030s, as has been mentioned; and I am sure that we can all take pride in the fact that the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers will be coming into service.
The fleet will also be supported by a very capable and renewed tanker fleet. A fleet of up to six offshore patrol vessels will support our destroyers and frigates in delivering routine tasks and will enhance our contribution to maritime security and fisheries protection. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord West, that the in-service date of the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier has not slipped, and nor are there any plans for the Prince of Wales, the second carrier, to be mothballed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, criticised my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and questioned her interest in defence. I respectfully reject that criticism. The Prime Minister has a close and abiding interest in defence. Indeed, one of the visits she made as Prime Minister was to the MoD headquarters to speak with the service chiefs. She has also visited our service personnel around the world, including recently on board HMS Ocean in the Gulf.
My right honourable friend is also well aware of the need to invest in security across the piece. That brings me to the subject of cyber, which was rightly emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, among others. Cybersecurity is vital to defence. As she said, our adversaries present a real and rapidly developing threat to our networks, systems and platforms. We are enhancing our cyber defence capabilities through the development of the Cyber Security Operations Centre. As I also mentioned, £1.9 billion will be invested in cyber across government over five years. We are ensuring that our Armed Forces are able to project power in cyberspace, are ready to assist in the event of a significant cyber incident and can respond to a cyberattack as they would to any other attack using whichever capability is most appropriate. We are building a dedicated capability to counterattack in cyberspace as part of our full-spectrum capability. Defence is delivering this capability in partnership with GCHQ through the national offensive cyber programme.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, rightly criticised the concept of an EU army. I hope that I can reassure him by saying that no one is seriously proposing that idea. Despite the rhetoric and speculation that we have all read, we have seen nothing to suggest that any major European country wants an EU army. The joint letter published by the ministries of defence of Germany, France, Italy and Spain explicitly ruled that out, and we will continue to resist any EU initiative that risks undermining or duplicating NATO’s central role in European defence.
The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, called for greater collaboration with universities. I understand and agree with his point. Our innovation initiative has included the horizon-scanning unit known as IRIS, which will forge close ties with the academic community.
My noble friend Lord Attlee asked about the robustness and resilience of our logistics systems, the importance of which he rightly stressed. I can reassure him that we have the strategic base and associated enablers to underpin SDSR 25 and its wide capabilities. I will write him with an answer to his question on exercise Saif Sareea.
The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, raised several issues relating to the Royal Navy. In terms of investment and manpower, the Royal Navy attracted significant investment as a result of the SDSR, as he well knows. With regard to new assault ships, we currently have no plans to commission any. On the matter of our use of landing craft, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark provide the capability needed to deploy and sustain the lead commando group ashore, by air and sea. They will remain in service until the end of the next decade.
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, raised issues of conflict prevention and peacekeeping. I have mentioned the Government’s intention to be international by design. That is in no small part motivated by the principle of conflict prevention: by working more closely with allies and partners we strengthen our shared ability to prevent conflict and ensure our own security. I can tell the noble Earl that we are increasing our contribution to UN peacekeeping operations in South Sudan, Somalia and Kosovo, we are continuing to support CSDP missions, and we are fully committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
My time is up. I shall write to those noble Lords whose questions I have not addressed. I hope that it is clear that the Government fully recognise the breadth and severity of threats that face our country today. We know that in this era of uncertainty we can take nothing for granted. The approach that we have taken in the SDSR is the right one for strengthening our defence and security, and it is the one to which this Government are fully committed.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen
It is difficult to mount any form of attack on the noble Earl who is so gentle and so apparently reasonable that we are all disarmed at the end. But there is a long-standing belief that no plan survives the first engagement with the enemy. Since the SDSR was published last year, we have had the Brexit referendum, with profound implications for the direction of British defence policy.
Secondly, Donald Trump has been elected as President of the United States of America, with all the statements that he has made about NATO undermining, in many ways, a lot of the solidarity that is there. So there is a genuine reason for looking at SDSR 2015, if only to look at the activities of President Putin now that he is a major player in the Middle East.
I asked a question in the middle of my speech which the noble Earl may have missed. What will be the cost of the devaluation on the defence budget? Perhaps he could write to me.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, the time allotted for this debate has now elapsed and I must put the Question. The Question is that this Motion be agreed to.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill
Thursday 12th January 2017
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted that the first Bill I am taking as Commercial Secretary is about supporting people to save. As we know, saving is a hugely important topic and a very personal one for people up and down this country.
The reality is that families in the UK are not saving enough. The saving ratio is near a record low and it is estimated that 21 million people in the UK do not have £500 in savings to cover an unexpected bill. In the current economic climate it is important that households keep setting aside what they can afford to build their financial resilience and save for the future. Saving benefits the economy, helping to create stable, long-term economic growth, and it benefits individuals, helping them meet their aspirations and prepare sensibly for the future. So we want to make sure that all people in this country, no matter their circumstances, have the tools at their disposal to save money in a way that works for them.
There have been a number of initiatives in this area over recent years. The personal savings allowance put an end to 17 million people having to pay tax on the interest they received on their savings. There have been substantial increases to the ISA allowance: from April people can save up to £20,000 in this tax-advantaged wrapper. The Autumn Statement announced further support for savers with the introduction of a new market-leading three-year savings bond from NS&I in spring 2017.
To help even more people save for the future, this Bill brings in two new schemes: the lifetime ISA and Help to Save. I will introduce them in some more detail. First, the lifetime ISA provides a new option for younger people who are looking to save for the long term. Essentially, this is designed to offer people more flexibility in how they save. For some people, the existing support that is available will be sufficient. There is already, for example, a good level of support provided through the pensions system, particularly thanks to automatic enrolment, a policy that has attracted support, rightly, on all sides of this House. It makes it compulsory for employers to enrol people into a pension scheme and contribute towards it.
However, when we did a consultation on pensions tax relief back in 2015, we found that younger people in particular could find pensions inflexible. So we looked at what more we could do to provide more choice and flexibility for them. That is why we designed the lifetime ISA to offer that as a complement to the pensions system. Adults will be able to open an account from the age of 18 to the age of 40, and carry on saving up to the age of 50. They can save up to £4,000 a year. They will earn a 25% tax-free bonus on their contributions from the Government, paid straight into the account, which represents a clear and attractive incentive to save.
The flexibility comes in how the lifetime ISA can be used. Savings under this scheme can be used to supplement your income in later life because you can withdraw funds, including the bonus, any time from the age of 60. But you can also use your savings to get on to the property ladder for a first home costing no more than £450,000. We know how important that is for many young people today. We were clear in our manifesto that we believe the chance to own your own home should be more widely available. Through the Bill, from April next year, people will have a new and more flexible way to save, which may be more suitable for their individual needs.
The other policy introduced in the Bill is Help to Save. This is another way in which we are looking to help people build up their savings, and this is specifically targeted at people on low incomes, for whom it can be a particular struggle to do so. In fact, research from the Centre for Social Justice estimates that 3 million low-income households have no savings at all. This is a serious statistic and one that we cannot ignore. Instead, we need to support and encourage more people to build up their resilience and become more financially secure. That is why it is the Government’s view that we should support those on low incomes who are trying to do just that by putting money aside on a regular basis. This Bill would therefore introduce a new Help to Save scheme no later than April 2018.
The scheme will be delivered by National Savings and Investments, building on its reputation as a trusted savings provider and ensuring that accounts are available nationwide. It would be open to any adult who is getting working tax credits, or who is getting universal credit and working enough to earn the equivalent of at least 16 hours pay at the national living wage. This means that there are around 3.5 million people who would be eligible for the scheme. Those eligible will be able to save up to £50 a month for two years—£1,200 in total—and then receive a 50% bonus on what they have saved. If, after those two years, they want to do that again for the next two years, they will be able to do so.
Help to Save offers a flexible way to save which we know that people value. First, there are no restrictions on what people are able to do with the bonus once they get it. Secondly, people will be able to take the money out at any time. There will not be any charge or penalty for doing so. That is why we see Help to Save as an attractive new scheme that would support and encourage people to save what they can. Having savings to fall back on can make all the difference to how well people can cope with unforeseen events that come their way.
Money Advice Service research in 2013 showed that 71% of UK adults faced an unexpected bill during the previous year. Research from the debt charity StepChange suggests that if a family has £1,000 in the bank, it is almost half as likely to fall into problem debt, by which is meant being in arrears with at least one bill or credit commitment. It is therefore really important that we take forward this scheme to help more people on low incomes build up a pot of money that can be spent however they want, but that might be particularly important in case of a rainy day.
The lifetime ISA and Help to Save are designed to do the same thing—namely, to reward those who are trying to save for the future and to encourage more people to follow their example. Whether it is young people saving flexibly for their futures or people on low incomes trying to set aside a bit of money each month, they deserve to have the tools to do that in a way that works for them. That is what these two new products offer. It therefore gives me pleasure to commend this Bill to the House.
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, increasing saving in the UK is good for people and for the economy. In recent years, the Government have introduced a raft of reforms to incentivise saving. Freedom on accessing pension saving and LISA are just two. The Explanatory Notes observe that this,
“range of reforms”,
is needed,
“to ensure that the right incentives and products are in place to meet savers’ needs”.
Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult to understand exactly what the Government’s strategy is for savings, and for pension savings in particular. What are the “right incentives”, and why? What outcomes are they intended to achieve? What are the characteristics of the “right products”? Do they differ for different groups? What is the Government’s intention on tax relief to support savings? For employers, providers and consumers, the answers are increasingly confusing, complex and uncertain.
A LISA is another new savings product, but its introduction raises two fears that the Government have not addressed. The first concerns the risk that some people will opt out of a workplace pension in order to save into a LISA, believing that it offers a better proposition when it does not. The second is that the LISA is a government stalking-horse to trail the reform of pension tax relief and replace current workplace pension arrangements with a pension ISA. That would mean that the current pension saving regime—whereby income paid in pension contributions and investment growth on savings are both tax free and on retirement when savings are withdrawn, the first 25% is tax free, the rest being subject to tax—would be replaced with an ISA regime where contributions are made from taxed income but investment growth on savings and future withdrawals are tax-free.
Those fears germinated when, in July 2015, the Government issued Strengthening the Incentive to Save: Consultation on Pensions Tax Relief. Concerns grew that the Government wanted to address current fiscal demands and reduce the current budget deficit by heavily reducing pension tax relief at the point of saving, which, for those who had those concerns, would be at the expense of building an adequate level of pensions savings, undermine the momentum in workplace pension saving, have a negative long-term impact on the Exchequer, and mean that people retiring in the future would make a limited tax contribution but consume high levels of public services, which would be deeply unfair on future generations. Pensioners on modest retirement incomes would lose out from the removal of tax relief at the point of saving and gain little from tax-free withdrawal of savings as they would not be paying tax anyway.
A fairer distribution of pension tax relief from the higher to the lower-paid saver is desirable. What is a sustainable level of fiscal support for long-term savings, given today’s public deficit and debt, is a legitimate question. Tax relief for private pension contributions through incentives to employers and employees is big—£48 billion last year, although that is a noticeable fall on previous years, with the lion’s share going into defined benefit schemes. But there is a real tension that the Government are not acknowledging between a Treasury that sees tax relief at the point of saving as an undesirable cost, given the current state of public finances and Brexit anxieties, and those who believe that tax relief at the point of saving is an integral part of supporting people in building an adequate and sustainable pensions system for the future.
Under current arrangements, an individual choosing a LISA rather than a workplace pension may end up with a smaller savings pot in later life—50% smaller. For a basic rate taxpayer saving into a workplace pension, 50%—half—of the minimum 8% contribution would come from the employer contribution and tax relief. If they opted into a LISA, they would receive only a 25% bonus from the Government on their savings from taxed income. The more generous the employer pension contribution, the greater the potential loss from saving into a LISA rather than a pension.
The LISA is a long-term saving product, with penalties for early access, with the exception of the add-on access for house purchase, but ISAs do not have the governance, value for money and regulatory requirements that workplace pensions have. Mis-selling risks abound. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury commented in the other place that,
“we heard that the pensions system on its own is too inflexible for young people”,
so the LISA is,
“giving people a new option that has been designed with flexibility in mind”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/16; col. 606.]
But the DWP evidence contradicts her. It reveals that young people have the lowest opt-out rate from auto-enrolment of any group. If there is a problem with accumulating savings for house purchase, Help to Buy schemes are the answer, not a new, long-term saving product.
The Treasury costings do not assume that people will opt out of their workplace pensions to pay into a LISA. That may be right: the majority of people save into a pension by inertia. But if the Government turn pensions into an ISA into which employers auto-enrol their workers, workers will save into an ISA through inertia too. The concern is that that is exactly what the Government intend to do. A LISA is likely to be of benefit to people who have reached the limit of their allowance in tax-free pension saving, or who earn sufficient to save in both a LISA and a workplace pension. That may well increase the UK’s savings rate—there may be an element of substitution. It will provide a new option for the younger self-employed—40 is the age limit for opening a LISA—but, given that the average age of self-employed people is 47, it will not be accessible to the majority.
The real concern with the LISA is that the Government are further blurring the line of vision on savings. The distinct concept of pensions saving is at risk. The Minister may well dismiss my concerns, but if employers are not confident in the direction of government policy on private pensions, that will influence their behaviour and put a downward pressure on employer contributions into workplace pensions. I believe firmly that it is already happening.
Financial capability in the UK is persistently low, so measures to tackle persistent undersaving are welcome. The Money Advice Service 2015 Financial Capability Survey highlighted that lack of saving is a key risk to the financial resilience of households. The statistics make depressing reading: 17.3 million—44% of the working-age population—do not have £100 in savings; only four in every 10 save something every month; low income is a barrier to saving for families with children and those paying down debt; 44% of working-age people in the UK with no savings are classed as overindebted. But some on lower incomes do save: 26% of working-age adults in households with incomes below £17,500 are saving every month. A buffer against financial shocks helps to avoid inappropriate debt. For a mum in a low-income household with young children, replacing a broken washing machine is her financial shock. Some 71% of adults experienced an unexpected bill in the past 12 months, resulting in unexpected costs of some £1,545, yet of the people with no savings, 76% could not spare the money to pay an unexpected bill of even £300.
The Government’s Help to Save scheme is welcome as a measure to help boost the resilience of low-income households. I just wish that the Government were more ambitious, particularly given their recent high-profile commitment to address the challenges faced by those who are just about managing. The Help to Save scheme is targeted at 3.5 million people in lower-income households, costing up to £70 million in 2020-21. This compares with the expected cost of £850 million a year by 2020-21 of the LISA bonuses and increase in ISA limits. A fairer distribution of those incentives should have been considered.
The intended government match on savings up to £50 per month could be greater than 50%. Many of the target population will not be able to save £50. If they save £30, with a match, it will take them two years to save the £1,000 figure which StepChange, the debt charity, says is the minimum amount needed to reduce the number in problem debt by 500,000. Why is it necessary to wait two years before the match is paid? Financial shocks can hit people every year. The Government argue that two years is the optimal time to embed a savings habit, but their own evidence suggests it can be nearer 18 months.
Only one in seven, 500,000 of the target 3.5 million, are expected to take advantage of the scheme. That is low. The Government have a lot of contact with this group through the social security system, so I conclude by asking the Minister whether the Government will commit to bringing forward a plan, no later than six months after Royal Assent, which targets achieving a 50% participation rate by the eligible population in the Help to Save scheme.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, this important debate has significant implications for younger generations. First, I congratulate the Government on the tremendous improvements they have made in recent years to the UK pensions landscape. As defined benefit schemes are on the brink of extinction in the private sector, I am delighted that the Government have made improvements that ensure defined contribution pension saving is now more user-friendly than it has ever been. Of course, if people have the opportunity of a good defined benefit pension, underwritten by their employer, that is hard to beat. However, some people with very small deferred entitlements in a final salary-type scheme may well be better off transferring their pension into a modern defined contribution scheme. We could not have said this a couple of years ago, but it can now be a sensible strategy for part of people’s past pension accruals.
Of course, defined benefit guaranteed pension income will not normally meet the costs of social care that many citizens will face. There is virtually no pre-funding of social care, either at public or private sector levels. Families are suddenly finding that a pension income is not all they need for a decent retirement. If you need looking after and have enough income or assets to be above the draconian care means test, you have to fund all your care costs yourself. That is why having some money saved up in case you need care is sensible advice for most families, especially baby boomers in our ageing population. But they do not know this. Most think the NHS will look after them from cradle to grave, as Beveridge’s national insurance scheme was often believed to achieve.
I am proud that this Government have acted to reform defined contribution pensions so that they can provide much better and more appropriate support for millions of people in later life. Some people will be able to use them to help to pay for social care, once the new pension freedom system is better understood, and perhaps with a little extra nudge from the Government. That would be a worthwhile focus of new saving incentives.
To be frank, I do not think the public or even the Government themselves, including my noble friend the Minister, have yet realised how positive the defined contribution pension changes are, how much better the landscape now is and how much more suitable for 21st-century realities. This is evidenced by last week’s astonishing infographic purporting to educate the public about retirement saving, which does not even mention the word “pension”, only lifetime ISAs, other ISAs and premium bonds. It is vital that the Government urgently revise this public guidance and recognise the important difference between short-term saving and long-term investment. Young people saving for retirement require the latter and also need extra money for care. Defined contribution pensions can offer more than just a guaranteed income. Of course, a pension is typically thought of as a lifelong income in old age but that is not necessarily enough to look after today’s or tomorrow’s elderly people.
With the new pension freedoms that ensure all pension savers should have flexibility and choice to use their pension savings as best suits themselves, the Government have already achieved the kind of flexibility that the Minister was talking about for younger people. Rather than effectively requiring most defined contribution pension savers to buy an annuity, pensions can better fit in with people’s changing lives.
The new regime does not stop anyone buying annuities if that is the right product for their circumstances, but they do not now have to do so and especially not when they are still relatively young. Most people reach their defined contribution scheme age and are still working. They will be best served by being in a pension and keeping it intact to grow, paying in more each year, so that they will have more money to support them after they finish working. That is also an important potential purpose of pension saving—to provide as much private resource as possible to support individuals during their retirement years.
There are also new behavioural nudges for people so that they do not have to worry about leaving money in their pensions for as long as possible. Under the old regime, with a 55% death tax, people would not want to die with money in their DC pension, because more than half would be lost in tax. Now, they can just leave the money there into their 80s and 90s. As I have said, if they need to pay for social care, they may have money in their pension fund. If they are lucky enough not to need care, the money passes on tax free to the next generation.
Pensions are now a product that we can be proud of and that can help people in different ways with the retirement costs they may face, rather than focusing only on ongoing income. We should be building on this success, not putting it at risk with the measures in this Bill. Of course, most people may not yet have enough money saved up, but as we look to the future and as the baby boomer generations reach later life, many of them will have—or could have—money that they could keep, rather than spending it too soon as will be encouraged by the lifetime ISA.
The combination of reforms we have seen since 2010 fits well with the theories of behavioural economics too. Behavioural science has proven powerful in driving much wider coverage of pensions across the workforce. The policy of auto-enrolment is just starting, bringing in millions more people to pension-saving, often for the first time, supplemented by a good employer contribution. The theory of inertia is ensuring that opt-out rates are far lower than anyone predicted, especially, as the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said, among the young. The vast majority of those who are automatically enrolled into a pension are staying there. The young are clearly willing to stay in pensions, and this is a massive success so far. So it is simply not correct for Ministers to assert, as in the past, that people do not like pensions. That is yesterday’s story and is also partly a function of the fact that many do not yet understand just how good pensions are these days.
We are on the cusp of a major success in extending pension coverage for millions of people, but the measures of this savings Bill put us in danger of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Auto-enrolment is only just beginning, and has been a great success so far. Once again, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, through her work with the Pensions Commission, can be rightly proud of sowing the seeds of this success. But it is work in progress—auto-enrolment will not reach all relevant workers and the full minimum contributions until 2019. Even at that stage, contributions will still be too low for most people, and millions, especially lower-paid women and the self-employed, will be left out altogether. More needs to be done, but the programme is working, and I and other former Ministers have had to battle to keep auto-enrolment in place. I congratulate the Government on doing this, but I truly fear the lifetime ISA in the Bill could derail the project before it is properly up and running.
As the state pension is being cut—the new state pension will mean lower pensions in the long run for most younger people in this country—it is vital that we ensure more people have more private income to add to their basic level of state support. That is why it is so important to continue to incentivise saving for retirement and help people build up as much money as they can to see them through their ever-lengthening later life. Using pensions could best achieve that. Distracting them with a lifetime ISA risks it.
Pensions have the right behavioural nudges. Individuals are automatically enrolled, to take advantage of initial inertia, and they receive extra from their employer to add to their own contributions, and hopefully even more money in tax relief from the Government. So the individual who puts £1,000 of their own money into a workplace pension scheme where the employer matches their contributions could receive a further £1,000 from their employer and an extra £250 in basic-rate tax relief—or even more if they are on higher-rate tax—and possibly even more from salary sacrifice. This means their own £1,000 can be more than doubled on day one.
When they reach later life, the money they have saved up will be waiting for them. They can take a quarter tax free and can leave the rest invested. Any money withdrawn will be taxed as income in that year, so there is a built-in tax brake on taking the money out quickly. The pension tax structure deters early unnecessary spending. Future Governments should therefore have fewer poorer pensioners to support. Is that not what we incentivise retirement saving for? It is also important to mention that the new state pension does not just lift all pensioners above means testing; it only lifts them above pension credit. But if all they have is a new state pension, a future Government, and younger taxpayers, could still have to provide housing benefit, council tax benefit and other means-tested help. So those who have no other private resources will potentially fall back on the state.
That is why I am so concerned about the introduction of this so-called lifetime ISA and why I beg your Lordships’ indulgence for my long speech today. This is the only opportunity to put on record the strength of feeling on this matter. We do not have an opportunity to amend the Bill, but it is important to make these points. It is a dangerous distraction that could undermine pensions and increase future poverty. There are many concerns and all I can do is put on record what the problems are and hope that the Government will take notice before it is too late. This is a money Bill, so I cannot change it, but I believe that it needs radical rethinking.
If used for house purchase, this lifetime ISA is okay—but we already had a help-to-buy ISA, so why did we need something new to complicate the ISA landscape further? However, when masquerading as a pension, this product is dangerous. It is also a complex product and should not be sold carelessly—although I fear there will be inadequate suitability checks. “Lifetime” ISAs will not last a lifetime, even though the purpose of giving a taxpayer bonus is supposed to be to ensure that people can support themselves privately in their old age. Today’s taxpayers are subsidising the under-40s to build up a fund that is likely to be spent at around age 60. This new product has the wrong behavioural structure and I am warning now that it risks becoming a new mis-selling scandal in coming years.
I cannot see who will be better off in their old age saving in a lifetime ISA than if they had put the same money into a pension instead. But people will be confused. Young people I have spoken to—some of whom are on higher-rate tax and have access to a generous workplace pension—have already been attracted to the idea of using a lifetime ISA instead of a pension. Only when I explain that they will lose their employer’s contribution and higher-rate tax relief do they realise this could be a mistake. How many people will be misled and may come back in future years and complain about being mis-sold this product? I have spoken to 30-somethings who clearly misunderstand. Here are some further examples.
Workers on basic-rate tax mistakenly believe that the 25% Government bonus is better than 20% tax relief. Of course, they are exactly the same. A 20% grossing up is equivalent to a 25% extra bonus, but who will explain that to customers? I urge the pensions industry to do more to help people to see the extra money from government, or other taxpayers, which is paid into their pension.
Some people have been attracted to the idea that they can get their money back if they need to, whereas pensions are locked until age 55. What they do not understand is that the Government take a heavy “withdrawal charge” from their fund if they want to spend it before 55. Unless they are buying their first home or are terminally ill, they face this so-called 25% penalty. But people think that that is merely taking back the 25% bonus. Once again, who will explain that it is far worse than that? They will lose far more than the government bonus and, indeed, some of their original amount. If they put in £1,000 and saw no investment growth at all, it would be worth just £937.50—which is another big danger of using the lifetime ISA for saving for retirement.
The dual purpose of this lifetime ISA will confuse people. Just when we have the opportunity to capitalise on the success of pension reform—auto-enrolment, pension freedoms—and the Pension Wise service, which offers real value to people and can help them save money until their 80s and 90s, along comes a new product that adds complexity and is unlikely to last so long.
Using a lifetime ISA instead of a pension will mean less money being put in on day one, less money growing, especially as much of it will be in cash—we know that that is what ISAs are predominantly used for—and more money spent more quickly in later life. Indeed, this lifetime ISA seems such a waste of taxpayers’ money. It will be good for those who have already filled their pension pot or their annual allowance, but it will not be good for those younger people saving for retirement. LISA contributions must stop at age 50. Fifty is only the start of the second half of one’s adult life, when pension savings could be stepped up, rather than suddenly stopping. I know that the FCA will try to impose regulatory requirements to protect customers, but with the best will in the world, reams of new disclosure documents are hardly going to help in practical terms. I believe that the LISA product introduced by this Bill is a—perhaps inadvertent—mistake. I have studied, managed and advised on pensions and pensions policy for nearly 40 years, and I share with noble Lords today my fears that this Bill risks worse retirement outcomes for generations to come.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, having just heard from two fantastic acknowledged experts on this issue, I shall be much more general and very brief. We ought to start by looking at the total lack of knowledge of financial services that the general population in this country have. They have no idea how long they are going to live or about what their savings are going to provide for them when they retire. There are worries at the moment as well about what will happen to our economy in the shorter term.
I congratulate the Government and their predecessor on introducing auto-enrolment, which is a great success. However, I share the worries that have been put forward about these being early days and we cannot really estimate at the moment quite what the benefits are.
The International Longevity Centre UK, which I am privileged to head up, recently published a report called Consensus Revisited. It elaborates on the ignorance that the general public have, saying that even with the planned changes to state pension age, people will still require sufficient savings to fund up to one-third of their adult lives in retirement, which is over 20 years. In 2012, women left the workforce at 63 while men left slightly later, which means that men are going to fund 21 years in retirement and women 26, which is a long time. I do not think the public really understand that or have grasped those figures.
In future, therefore, adequate retirement income will hinge on people saving enough through defined contribution schemes, but as yet we know that is not the case. Projections suggest that unless contributions into DC schemes rise, fewer than half of median earners will be able to secure an adequate retirement through auto-enrolment. On average, employees contribute just 2.9% of their salary to a DC pot, whereas members of defined benefit schemes put in 5.9%, so there is a big difference. The difference in the employer contribution is even starker: just over 6% for DC schemes but over 15% for DB schemes. So there is still quite a lot of worry, and there are many things to sort out before we get this right. Given the lack of knowledge about longevity and what the two previous speakers have so wisely said, I agree that we must be careful with the LISA because it could be a threat to pensions, damage pension saving and, at any rate, cause quite a lot of confusion.
I was privileged to attend a meeting of experts, who all agreed that we need to promote pensions and explain them much better. I hope the Government have plans to engage in that. User-friendly communications, more education and much more engagement are essential.
The other thing we ought to note is that there is quite a lot of feeling that more employer engagement is necessary. It is important to ensure that employers become more involved in pension provision and get engaged in retirement savings for their staff. I do a lot of work with Business in the Community, as I know the Minister has done for many years, and I have chaired the CSR All-Party Group for years and now do so jointly with a Member of the Commons. Perhaps through that we can do more to promote the best of this. At the moment, though, it is important that we wait and look again at the LISA threat. I agree with the noble Baronesses about its dangers. Perhaps there is a chance to look again in some detail at what we are discussing.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I share the frustration of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, that procedures on money Bills allow us only a Second Reading on the Bill. Although I see the noble Lord, Lord Young, blanching a bit at the prospect of a Committee stage on this Bill, we are not going to have one anyway.
I start by acknowledging the importance of encouraging individuals to save and accepting that there should be a role for incentivising saving through the tax system—although not necessarily exclusively through that—recognising always that support given through the tax system invariably does nothing for those at the lower end of the income scale. The Minister in introducing the Bill talked about the increase to £20,000 of the annual ISA allowance or the increase in the personal allowance, but those are so far beyond the circumstances of millions of our fellow citizens that it is difficult to see in this context how they will help.
I will concentrate most of my remarks on the lifetime ISA but first I have a few comments about the Help to Save scheme. This is targeted at those in receipt of universal credit and with household earnings at least equivalent to 16 hours at the national living wage, or to those in receipt of working tax credit. Entitlement to the latter—as I understand it—requires an individual aged over 25 to work at least 30 hours a week. If they are aged under 25 they will get it if they work at least 16 hours a week but have a disabled worker element or certain responsibilities for children. Can the Minister explain the differential working requirements for eligibility?
As other noble Lords have said, the impact assessment expects that around 500,000 people will open accounts in the first two years, saving an average of £27.50 a month. This will be from a potential eligible population of 3.5 million from 2.5 million households, 90% of which will have annual income below £30,000. As we have heard, the scheme will cost £70 million. Can the Minister say—or perhaps write to me if she cannot—what proportion of these individuals, who will be individuals in work, are likely to be within the scope of auto-enrolment? Can the Minister also say how the administration of the scheme will seek to ensure that the necessary savings have come from the eligible individuals and not been provided by family or friends, with the opportunity of sharing the government bonus when it arrives? That would seem to be potentially defeating the system.
Given the woeful level of personal savings in this country, the opportunity to build a small nest egg is important. The impact assessment cites the Family Resources Survey, which suggests that half the households with income below £30,000 have no savings at all—no wonder, given the battering they have endured under this Government. We have heard other figures as well leading to the same conclusion. The StepChange Debt Charity published research in 2015 which found that 14 million people had experienced an income or expenditure shock in the previous 12 months. This might have been a job loss, reduced hours, illness, a business failure, a relationship breakdown or even a washing machine breakdown—but without any savings they had to resort to debt to try to cope. The extent to which Help to Save will provide some small level of savings which can be available in such emergencies is to be supported—although, as my noble friend Lady Drake pointed out, the Government’s own ambition for the scheme seems modest.
A year ago, the FT carried a story that the then Chancellor was planning to overhaul the pension tax relief system. No wonder, perhaps, when the annual cost to the Exchequer was running at some £35 billion, including the national insurance issue, but netting for tax receipts on pension income. Moreover, two-thirds of pension tax relief was going to higher and additional rate taxpayers—a wholly unjustified distribution of outcome—notwithstanding a succession of tightenings of the annual and lifetime allowances.
The Chancellor was reported to have his sights on abandoning the current system, by which tax relief is given at somebody’s marginal tax rate, in favour of implementing a flat tax, suggested at between 25% and 33%. Since then, matters have moved on, including the Chancellor himself. The consultation on pensions tax relief has concluded, with no clear support for the Chancellor’s position, but it was expected that Budget 2016 would produce fundamental changes. What we got was the announcement of lifetime ISAs and Help to Save—hence the Bill before us.
The rationale advanced by the Government was that they wanted to help young people save flexibly and ensure that they did not have to choose between saving for retirement and saving for their first house. The lifetime ISA can be used to buy a first home at any time from 12 months after opening the account, and can be withdrawn with government bonuses from the age of 60 for use in retirement. Amounts can be withdrawn at any time, but with a 25% charge to recoup the government bonus—the equivalent of which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.
For retirement savings, the structure of the lifetime ISA is effectively a TEE system: individual contributions paid from taxed income—no tax relief on contributions—investment income tax-free at the fund level and retirement income tax-free. That is a wish of the Treasury secured and some of us—pretty much everyone who has spoken—fear that it is the thin end of the wedge. Despite the impact assessment assuming that individuals will not opt out of workplace pension schemes to save in a lifetime ISA, I share concerns voiced in another place and by my noble friend Lady Drake and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, that it could undermine the progress of auto-enrolment and add confusion to an already complicated pension system.
The impact assessment identifies several groups who are expected to save in the ISA, but there seems to be no encouragement to see whether needs currently unmet by auto-enrolment can be brought into that fold. Of course, this is the year of the auto-enrolment review. It is encouraging that opt-out rates have been below original expectations, but we should recognise that these are still early days, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said, and that, with increased employer and employee contribution rates, they are still due to increase.
Compared to the current pension tax arrangements —an EET system—individuals will typically get a poorer deal from the Treasury by using the ISA route to secure a retirement income. This is particularly because of the tax-free lump sum currently available, and because an individual’s tax rate in retirement will typically be lower than when they are in work. What the individual loses, the Treasury gains. Of course, these matters are not set in stone, and the tax system is likely to change—indeed, it should—but currently, an individual saving for retirement via an ISA rather than an occupational pension scheme, notwithstanding the limited 25% bonus, is likely to be worse off. How are these issues to be communicated to consumers?
As a retirement vehicle, it should be noted that contributions to the lifetime ISA must cease when someone reaches the age of 80. That is hardly a lifetime. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, made the point that that is just the age where one would expect pension contributions to be ramped up. Retirement income cannot be accessed tax-free until the age of 60, although there is an opportunity to access savings at any stage with a 25% tax cost.
There is little in the impact assessment about the extent to which it is envisaged that individuals will draw down on their savings for a house purchase or leave it for retirement. One might just comment that contemplating the purchase of a first home at up to £450,000 is a sign of the times.
The Budget 2016 document indicated that the Government would explore the prospect of borrowing against lifetime ISAs, provided the funds were fully repaid. Has any progress been made on that? One can see some merit in having an incentivised savings product that can be available to cover a number of circumstances, but this should not be used to apply a regime, particularly a tax regime, which is less favourable than the stand-alone arrangements would be for any particular component. That is particular mischief of this Bill.
The Bill is a missed opportunity. It was certainly a chance to address anomalies in the tax system and the skewed benefit to the better-off. It was an opportunity to address some of the access issues for auto-enrolment, but perhaps also to move away from tinkering with individual housing initiatives to do something more fundamental. It was also an opportunity to do much more to build resilience for the poorest in our communities.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, the provisions in the Bill appear at first glance to be quite straightforward. The Bill sets up the mechanisms to create lifetime ISAs and a Help to Save scheme. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, noted, the total cost to government in 2020-21 of the LISA is estimated at £830 million. The total cost to government of the Help to Save scheme in the same period would be £70 million. This is a very small amount. Can it really be correct? I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the impact assessment has this right. If it is right, does it not say something about the scale and ambition of the scheme? Does it not amount to tinkering?
According to the impact assessment, both schemes are driven by a desire to increase the level of household savings. In particular, the LISA will help young people to save flexibly for the long term and provide help with buying a first home. Help to Save will help working families on low incomes build up a rainy-day savings fund. All this sounds laudable, but there are some obvious questions and worries about both schemes.
The first worry is that neither scheme seems particularly likely to have much real impact. Both could be characterised as yet more confusing tinkering with the housing market and the tax system. Both are ways of avoiding directly addressing fundamental problems and both add to the complexity of an already very complex system. Neither scheme faces up to what is a major problem for households; namely, the level of debt that they already hold.
This debt is now again as high as it was in 2008. In the year to 30 November 2016, consumer debt rose by 10.8% and there are fears that, especially among less well-off households, some of this rise is being used to fund normal living costs when real wages are declining. The expected rise in inflation would make this problem worse. It may be true that increased debt-fuelled consumer spending is driving current economic expansion, but this is not a sustainable position. And it is true that for many households, particularly the low-income households targeted by Help to Save, paying down debt is a better option than saving.
The Government have correctly identified two real problems: the difficulty that most people now have in buying a first home and the lack of any financial cushion for those on low incomes. But the solutions to these problems need to be systemic and enduring; they need to be more than tinkering. To solve the housing problem, we emphatically do not need more demand-side schemes; we need more supply. Nothing else will have, or has had, any significant effect.
In July last year, your Lordships’ Economic Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, published a report which addressed the housing crisis. The report was called Building More Homes and, unsurprisingly, that is what it recommended. In particular, it noted that the private sector, as currently incentivised, would not build the number of homes needed, that the Government had no real prospect of reaching its target of 1 million new homes by the end of the Parliament, and that this target was itself much too low. The Committee recommended among other things that the cap on local authority borrowing to build homes be lifted. Only by doing this did we see any prospect of any real relief to our housing crisis. We did not feel that the many existing demand-side initiatives were likely to have much real effect. Most of these initiatives simply push those near the ownership threshold over the line. They probably contribute to price inflation and certainly do not provide large-scale or comprehensive help across tenure types.
I feel that this will be true of the LISA scheme in the Bill before us. It is not just that the measure is more demand-side tinkering, which it is; there is another serious problem and it is one of confusion. This issue was raised frequently as this Bill went through the Commons. The potential for confusion arises, as many noble Lords have said, from making a choice between a LISA, an employer’s pension scheme and auto-enrolment. How is this important choice to be made? Who will offer impartial guidance?
On 9 October last year, the Government announced their intention to create a new, single public financial guidance body to provide debt advice, and money and pensions guidance. This new body will replace the Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise. The consultation was launched on 19 December last year and closes on 13 February. This new replacement single body will not be in place before autumn 2018. The LISA will be introduced next April and Help to Save a year later, at the latest—both before the new financial guidance body is in place. This seems like bad timing.
The Government clearly do not believe that the current financial guidance system is working well, and they will replace it. But in the meantime, it creates further financial complexity for individuals by introducing these new products. This is surely dangerous, especially if it leads to individuals making wrong decisions about pension provision or if low-income households are encouraged to take up Help to Save when they would be better off paying down debt. This is not a small or trivial problem. For many low-income households, saving may be an unsatisfactory and expensive substitute for debt repayment. Who will these households turn to for impartial advice?
The Bill itself is silent as to who will manage the LISA and Help to Save schemes, although it says that LISA account holders will be able to transfer their holdings between plan managers. It also talks of “account providers”—plural—for the Help to Save scheme. This all sounds as though there will be more than one provider for each scheme. However, in the Commons, on 17 October, Jane Ellison explained that both schemes would in fact be administered by,
“a single provider, National Savings & Investments”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/16; cols. 607-8.]
Why is this? Why are the Government introducing a monopoly supplier across both these products and what is the point of the transfer provisions in this Bill if there is no one to transfer anything to? I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us why the Government have chosen to establish these monopolies. Can she say whether the Government considered commercial or mutual alternatives? If they did, why did they reject them or, if they did not consider them, why not?
It seems to me particularly important that we have answers to these questions in view of the provisions in paragraph 3(2) of Schedule 1, which seems to give the Treasury unlimited powers over claims for LISA bonuses and—more alarmingly—allows delegation of these powers to HMRC. This seems intrinsically unhealthy and probably not acceptable to potential commercial or mutual providers. Can the Minister say whether the Government have discussed these provisions with potential commercial and mutual plan managers and if so, what the response was? Schedule 2 gives the Treasury more or less the same powers to amend by regulation the details of the Help to Save product. It is extremely odd that Schedule 2 contains an entire section—part 3, paragraph 9—that defines an authorised account provider for Help to Save when there is to be only one monopoly provider. Is this a case of the Government changing their mind as the Bill progressed through the Commons, or of the Government preparing the ground for the introduction of multiple providers? I hope that it is the latter. The Minister was asked about this situation in the Commons, in particular why credit unions could not be providers of Help to Save schemes. There was no convincing or clear answer. When challenged, the Minister asserted that multiple providers would not offer value for money. As Gareth Thomas observed, no costings were produced to justify this claim; in fact, no evidence was given for it at all.
Rather confusingly, however, in the closing stages of the Bill in the Commons the Minister displayed an evident sympathy for using credit unions and a willingness to reflect on the idea. Can the Minister, therefore, update the House on the Government’s thinking on alternative providers for both schemes, and in particular on credit unions as providers for the Help to Save scheme? Can the Minister commit to allowing credit unions to be providers, and to allowing and encouraging alternative providers for both schemes?
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I start by welcoming the Minister to the esoteric world of Treasury legislation. In the light of the debate so far, she is no doubt taking some comfort in the words in parenthesis after “Second Reading”, which read “and remaining stages”. The noble Baroness will not always be quite so lucky.
I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill and those who have spoken in this debate. I will do my best to follow the pension experts and my noble friends Lord McKenzie and Lady Drake, who did a far better job than I could ever hope to do in mapping out the implications of this Bill for the pensions landscape.
Labour supports measures that allow more people to save for the future. At a time when household debt stands at record highs and when having tens of thousands of pounds of debt is regarded as the norm for many young people, policies that can contribute to bringing about a culture change towards saving must be welcome. That being said, we are not sure that the two measures outlined in the Bill—the establishment of a lifetime ISA and the Help to Save scheme—will do what they are designed to do. More worrying is the concern from some sectors that they will undermine the progress that has been made, specifically on auto-enrolment.
I will pick up on three points that have attracted cross-party consensus and discuss some of the issues that have arisen since this Bill left the other place: how lifetime ISAs will impact the pensions market, appropriate advice services and the factors involved in the Help to Save scheme.
One of the most contested aspects of the Bill is the impact that these measures, particularly the lifetime ISA, will have on the broader pension savings market. The Minister in the other place has said that the new ISA and traditional pension products are complementary, but pension experts do not share that confidence. Indeed, in the case of one or two pension experts, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, that is something of an understatement. We must avoid adding to the already complex quagmire that is the pensions landscape. These proposals came out of a government consultation on reforming pensions tax relief in July 2015, which seemed to acknowledge the scale of the challenge that reform would present without providing conclusions on how to tackle these challenges. Instead, the then Chancellor, George Osborne, stated that it was clear that there was no consensus.
We are concerned that these policies have been thought up without full consideration of the short and long-term implications. The FoI request by New Model Adviser confirms that the DWP has not carried out its own assessment of auto-enrolment opt-out rates caused by the lifetime ISA because there is a Treasury assumption that people will not opt out of workplace pensions. Therefore, it did not feel the need to carry out its own separate evaluations.
My colleagues in the other place asked the Government to consider reviewing annually the impact that the lifetime ISA was having on the rate of auto-enrolment. The response to the FoI request said that the DWP regularly meets the Treasury to discuss pensions and savings policy, but I wonder whether the Minister can expand on that and explain, in the light of this new information, why a review would not be appropriate. I believe that many of the fears voiced about the impact of this scheme on auto-enrolment could be sensibly assuaged if we knew that a regular review was being carried out. As Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, said:
“At this stage we are totally blind to the number of people who could opt out of a workplace pension ... Ideally the government would have tested how the lifetime ISA will interact with auto-enrolment ahead of the product’s launch next year”.
The Work and Pensions Select Committee was unambiguous when it said:
“Opting out of AE to save for retirement in a LISA will leave people worse off”.
A review would ensure that if such trends were identified, the worst effects could be mitigated. It is difficult to understand how the Government can disagree with something that seeks to safeguard one of the few positive changes to have taken place in the pensions industry in recent decades. I would be grateful if the Minister could address these concerns.
I now turn to the issue of appropriate advice which should accompany the rollout of lifetime ISAs and the Help to Save schemes. The Work and Pensions Select Committee, which I have just quoted, was clear about the possible negative impact that switching to a lifetime ISA could have on a person’s finances. Therefore, it is crucial that such implications are widely known and that information about these products is easily accessible. The FCA has stated that investors in the lifetime ISA should be given a specific risk warning about incurring the early withdrawal charge, which would lead to them receiving less from their lifetime ISA than they paid in. There are clearly concerns about how the product will work in practice. I think that the following quotation speaks volumes:
“I consider myself moderately financially literate. Yet I confess to not being able to make the remotest sense of pensions. Conversations with countless experts and independent financial advisers have confirmed for me only one thing—that they have no clue either. That is a desperately poor basis for sound financial planning”.
That was Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist. When he admits that pensions have become so complex that even he cannot make the remotest sense of them, I think it is time to reflect on the quality of the service being provided.
In Committee in the other place the Financial Secretary to the Treasury stated that people would be able to access the relevant information about these products through government websites, as well as by working with the Money Advice Service and its successor. What materials do the Government envisage that the MAS will produce, and how do they intend to ensure that, once the MAS is abolished, continuity in the accessibility and accuracy of information will be ensured? Furthermore, what correspondence have the Government had with the FCA regarding communication requirements? This concern has been echoed by a number of speakers in this debate. Surely we are entering an ever-more complex scene, with less and less assurance that the right advice will be available.
I turn finally to the Help to Save scheme, which has been designed for those in receipt of universal credit or working tax credits. As the IFS has stated:
“Key issue is whether those who use Help to Save will be the under-savers”.
The saving gateway scheme, piloted in 2010, offered similar support. However, the IFS evaluation found,
“no evidence of an increase in overall savings”.
Can the Minister explain how the Government have used this lesson and adapted the current scheme appropriately? Furthermore, can the Minister expand on the rationale for the two-year limit? It would be useful to get a better understanding of the Government’s thinking on this matter.
I will close as I began, by thanking those who have spoken in this debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate today, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his very kind welcome. I certainly look forward to working with him and other noble Lords in this esoteric and interesting area and bringing light to the issues.
I think we all agree on the importance of people having effective tools to help them save money. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, suggested, saving is important and we need the right quiver of incentives—and I welcome his support for Help to Save. I think there is an equal consensus around the need to encourage more people to save. I take the point that there may be more to do to publicise the progress that we have made on defined benefit pensions, described by my noble friend Lady Altmann—who is in a great position to encourage pensions saving and to explain how valuable it can be. However, I do not agree with her conclusion on the lifetime ISA: it has been supported by many, including the ABI, individual members and, indeed, Martin Lewis.
I turn to the link between the lifetime ISA and automatic enrolment, which was first raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. I am well aware of her great expertise on pensions and, indeed, her role in the seminal Turner commission report—I remember well that huge report, which was very authoritative, arriving on my mat when I was responsible for pensions at Tesco, where we really cared a lot about helping people both to have a good pension and to save for their retirement. Those of us who care about pensions can be champions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said. I share her respect for the work of Business in the Community, as she well knows.
I stress that we are fully committed to supporting people through the pensions system. Automatic enrolment will help 10 million people to be newly saving or saving more by 2018. The lifetime ISA is designed to complement that. It gives young people more choice in how they save for the long term. It is not a replacement for pensions. The Government’s policy towards employers reflects this. Employers have a statutory obligation to contribute towards pensions under automatic enrolment, as well as a direct incentive. Neither is the case with the lifetime ISA. Our impact assessment, based on an OBR-certified costing note, is clear that we do not assume that anybody will opt out of a workplace pension to save into a lifetime ISA—as the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said.
The Help to Buy ISA is similar to the lifetime ISA in that it gives a 25% bonus to support people to buy a first home.
Lord Tunnicliffe
May I check the logic of that? Is the Minister saying that the OBR has certified that it is a reasonable assumption that nobody will opt out as a result of a lifetime ISA, or merely that it took that as an input assumption in doing its analysis?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
As with all impact assessments, it is an estimate. We looked at the Help to Buy ISA, which is similar to the lifetime ISA in that it gives a 25% bonus to support people to buy a first home. That has not led to a surge in opt-outs. Instead, opt-out rates for automatic enrolment are still much lower than the Government expected, as several noble Lords said; they are currently 9%. The overall programme assumption was, I understand, 28%. We will of course regularly monitor the lifetime ISA going forward to make sure that it is achieving its aim—as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, suggested, and indeed as we do with all important policy areas. But I am not convinced, to respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that we need a formal annual review.
The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, asked how many people using Help to Save were eligible for automatic enrolment. We set out our expectations of take-up of Help to Save. I am afraid that, as with all forecasts, there is uncertainty, so at this stage we are not able to say how many of these people will also be eligible for automatic enrolment.
Several noble Lords talked about guidance and communication. The Government announced in October 2016 that they plan to replace the three government-sponsored financial guidance providers—the Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise—with a new, single financial guidance body, which I welcome. Through creating a single body we intend to make it as easy as possible for consumers to access the help they need to get all their financial questions answered. For example, this could be through helping families to balance their household budget or for individuals considering their options in retirement. Consultation on the precise design of the single guidance body is currently live and closes on 13 February. MAS, TPAS and Pension Wise will continue to provide guidance to consumers until the new body goes live.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised the issue of pensions tax relief, as did other noble Lords. Our responses to the Treasury’s pensions tax consultation indicated that there was no clear consensus for reform and, therefore, that it was not the right time to undertake fundamental reform to the pensions tax system. But obviously the Government have moved, with the Bill, to encourage younger people to save through the lifetime ISA—and that was a key theme that came out of the consultation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised the question of mis-selling risk, which was also a concern of my noble friend Lady Altmann. I agree that it is very important for individuals to have clear information on their products. That is why we will publish factual information about the lifetime ISA on GOV.UK, as well as working with the Money Advice Service and its successor to ensure that they make appropriate and impartial information available. As was said, it is the independent Financial Conduct Authority’s role to regulate account providers, including how they sell a product to consumers. It is currently consulting on the approach and has set out its proposals.
Having said all of that, the communication issue has come up under several different headings. If noble Lords would find it helpful, I will undertake to look through Hansard at the various points that have been made on communication and set out in a letter to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate just what our plans are. That will enable me, for example, to check with the FCA about its current plans and take account of any consultation responses that may already be available. We need to make sure that at the point of sale providers are transparent about risks, including any potential early withdrawal charge and with information on automatic enrolment. That theme came through from almost all noble Lords who spoke. It is a very important area. As has been said, this is a Money Bill, but that does not mean that we cannot set out how we see these things being properly communicated.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, questioned the impact assessment. I understand, from checking with the experts, that it is correct. I was glad that he raised housing because it is an important area. The OBR has noted that the effect of the lifetime ISA on house prices is highly uncertain and its predicted impact is significantly smaller than overall house price movements. As we know, a number of factors can affect house prices, which will be subject to change in future years. For example, we are taking steps to boost housing supply. Following the announcement of £5.3 billion additional investment in housing in the Autumn Statement, we expect to double our annual capital spending on housing during this Parliament. We will publish a housing White Paper shortly, which I hope will address some of the supply issues the noble Lord raised and allow this House to have further exchanges on this incredibly important issue for the future of our economy and our industrial strategy. I believe the lifetime ISA is one way to make sure that first-time buyers have the support they need to get on to the housing ladder.
I will address a number of technical points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. She asked whether the Government would commit to a 50% participation rate for Help to Save. The Government are not setting any specific target around take-up of Help to Save because we want opening an account to be an active decision by those who feel Help to Save is right for them. However, we will continue to work with the account provider and other interested parties to ensure that people are made aware of the scheme and receive the right support and guidance.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about eligibility for the under-25s. A person aged under 25 is eligible for working tax credit if they work a minimum of 16 hours a week and have a child or a disability—I am learning a lot from this debate. Our intention is to passport people into eligibility for Help to Save. This is a well-established way of targeting support at people on lower incomes. Importantly, it removes the need for people to complete a further means test to prove that they are eligible, which we know could deter people from opening accounts.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Perhaps the Minister will write in due course. There seems to be a disparity between the requirements for universal credit and for working tax credit. In universal credit you must have 16 hours at the national wage. For working tax credit, unless you fall within the disability or childcare categories, you need 30 hours of work. Why have the Government used those particular thresholds?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
It is an important but esoteric point. If I may, I will write to the noble Lord. I am sure that in time I will understand these arrangements better. On his point about saving on behalf of others, individuals will pay into accounts and receive a government bonus. There will be no restrictions on what individuals do with the bonus or savings, or where the money has come from. However, HMRC will carry out additional checks on a number of accounts and will respond to any intelligence it receives from third parties where this gives rise to doubt about a person’s eligibility.
The noble Lord asked about the Government’s latest position on borrowing from lifetime ISAs. The Government continue to consider whether there should be flexibility to borrow funds from an individual’s lifetime ISA without incurring a charge if funds are fully repaid, but have decided that it will not be a feature when it becomes available in April 2017.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said that the Help to Save scheme was not generous enough. On increasing the 50% bonus, our pilots for the saving gateway showed that a higher match rate of 100% made people only 5% more likely to open an account than a 50% match, and the amount of money saved into accounts was not significantly affected. On the two-year bonus period, I can make it clear that no one will be penalised for early withdrawals if they need to make any. The rationale of the scheme is to encourage people to develop a regular savings habit that will last beyond their participation in the scheme because it is valuable more generally.
Baroness Drake
I appreciate that this is a money Bill, but on the noble Baroness’s last point—I really do want the Help to Save scheme to work—the fact that the evidence shows that a matching contribution from the Government raises the participation rate by only 5% is not a reason not to match, because for those who are participating, their resilience is greater. A sort of apples-and-pears argument is being deployed here. A more generous match increases the resilience of those who do participate.
On the participation rate, all the behavioural evidence is that simply having good information does not necessarily deliver the level of behavioural response. More of a nudge, more of an active plan, may deliver more than a one-in-seven participation rate.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I take note of the noble Baroness’s point. There is a balance here. I have set out why we have got to where we have got to. Indeed, I look forward to debates on the statutory instruments for this Bill in the fullness of time. I am sure nobody has ever said that before.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, asked about other providers. He referenced a discussion in the other place about the involvement of credit unions. We have appointed NS&I as the scheme provider to remove significant administrative and compliance costs associated with allowing different providers to offer accounts. An option where we fund NS&I to provide accounts while allowing other providers to offer accounts on a voluntary basis would not provide value for money, but—this answers his question—we shall not rule out the option for a range of providers to offer accounts as long as they deliver national coverage. We felt that the credit union did not do that. That is why the Bill has been drafted to accommodate different models of account provision, although other models are not in the current plan.
Lord Sharkey
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that answer and I understand the position the Government have taken. Are there ongoing conversations with credit unions and other commercial suppliers of both these schemes?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I believe that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has had some discussions of which the noble Lord may be aware, but I should not want to suggest that we are about to change the situation. I have made it clear that the provision is written in an appropriately broad fashion. I can also confirm that the Government are not restricting the number of lifetime ISA providers. Provision will be open to any provider with the appropriate HMRC and FCA approvals.
When it comes down to it, this money Bill is all about supporting people who are trying to save, whether through increased support to those on low incomes through Help to Save or through the increased flexibility and choice for younger savers offered by the lifetime ISA. This is a Bill that supports people trying to do the right thing—those who want to save and to be financially prepared for the future. I am therefore pleased to commend this Bill and to ask the House to give it a Second Reading.