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Oral Answers to Questions
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
Prosecutors can apply for special measures to allow victims and witnesses to give evidence in court unseen by the defendant. The Government are making available the opportunity for vulnerable witnesses to give pre-recorded evidence without going into a courtroom at all. In addition, recent CPS guidance, now implemented nationwide, makes it clear what prosecutors can do to explain what is likely to happen at court, so that victims and witnesses can better understand the trial process and give the best evidence they can.
Tim Loughton
I am encouraged by the Attorney General’s words, but half of all cases going through the courts at the moment are connected with sexual abuse, and with police investigating no fewer than 70,000 claims of historic child sex abuse this year alone, that figure is likely to remain high. Given the traumatising impact on historic survivors and children especially of reliving their experiences in the witness box, what additional measures are being taken to make the process less intimidating and ensure that appropriate counselling services are readily available?
The Attorney General
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is important that the system does all it can to reduce the effect, particularly on vulnerable witnesses, of giving evidence in these difficult cases. That is why I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has decided to extend what I believe was a successful pilot of pre-recorded cross-examination. It means that vulnerable witnesses, particularly children, can give their evidence outside a courtroom environment and have it all done and dusted before the trial begins, which also means that they are not affected by any delays that the trial may then be subject to. That is hugely important, as is the opportunity for prosecutors to speak to witnesses and explain what is going on, and I am pleased to say that that has resulted in much improved satisfaction rates among witnesses for the support they get from the CPS.
Nigel Huddleston
Will the Attorney General join me in thanking the NSPCC and Esther Rantzen for their campaigning work to reduce the intimidating environment in courts for children, and will he confirm how many children give evidence in court?
The Attorney General
I will have to write to my hon. Friend with the figure he asks for, but I entirely agree with his comments about the NSPCC. It is worth noting that a variety of organisations assist tremendously in the work of the criminal justice system in making sure that all witnesses can give their best evidence. That is in the interests of the whole system, and it is particularly important when we are dealing with children.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have only attended one trial—a murder trial—where, in the summing up, the family of the young lady who had been brutally murdered had to listen to an absolutely appalling character assassination. It was totally fraudulent, but they had to sit there and listen to that. Has anything been done to stop that horrible practice?
The Attorney General
I understand entirely the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. He will recognise that in a criminal trial it is necessary that the defence case is put. That is what we need to see to make sure that the process is fair, but we are doing what we can to ensure that the experience of those who are in court not of their own volition—because they are the victim of an offence or a witness to it—is as easy as it can be, although we accept that it will never be wholly easy.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister outline what steps have been taken to address the 2015 report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate, which revealed that some vulnerable people are being let down by the inconsistency of approach to criminal case file management, and will he say how successful those steps have been?
The Attorney General
I recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. This was a troubling report in some ways. One of the most troubling aspects is the way in which victims of crime in particular are communicated with by the CPS—the language used and the sensitivity shown. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General and I have been particularly keen to ensure that the CPS takes those lessons on board and acts on them, and I am confident that it is doing so.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
What steps has the CPS taken to support victims and witnesses with mental health issues?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend makes a good point. There are many people within the system, both defendants and witnesses, who have mental health difficulties and it is important that the system is sensitive to that. What we need to do is understand better what the particular needs of each witness may be and then respond to them as best we can. The way to do that is to have the maximum number of tools available and ways in which evidence can be given, whether that is pre-recorded cross-examination, as I have mentioned, or the assistance of others in court who can help those who give evidence.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Attorney General ensure that no witness or defendant can give evidence to a court while wearing a full-face balaclava or the burqa?
The Attorney General
What is important is that the court and in particular the jury can assess the evidence that a witness gives, so it is important that that witness is able to give evidence in a clear way, so that a jury can assess whether they think that witness is telling the truth or not. Anything that gets in the way of that, I am sure the court will wish to consider very carefully.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
We committed ourselves in our manifesto to extending the scope of the scheme. As a first step, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced that we would extend it to sentences in the Crown court for terrorism offences, and we are working with her to implement that.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for confirming that our manifesto commitment is still on track, but I should also be grateful if he was a bit more specific about the dates on which we might be able to make some headway, because these reforms are long overdue.
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend is right to press the Government for a commitment to action. Work is being done with the Ministry of Justice, and both the Attorney General and I are committed to ironing out the obvious inconsistencies in the system, which cause understandable frustration among victims and their families.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Over the last 12 months, how often has my hon. and learned Friend been asked to review sentences handed down by the courts?
The Solicitor General
The number of sentences continues to increase. In 2015 we considered 713 requests, but of 80,000 passed in England and Wales in that year, only just over 100 were varied by the scheme. I think that that represents a vote of confidence in our judges and magistrates.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
The Government are working closely with the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and community organisations to monitor any changes in hate crime levels, and we will continue to do so after the triggering of article 50. However, it is not possible to predict prosecution trends, and the data on the nationalities of victims are not disaggregated.
Gerald Jones
What steps is the CPS taking to improve the conviction rate for hate crimes against disabled people? Does he support the call by the shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), for parity in the treatment of all protected characteristics in the aggregated offences regime?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that rates of disability hate crime prosecution continue to rise. The rise last year was 41.3%, the conviction rate for hate crime being just over 83%. The total number of hate crimes prosecuted last year was 15,442, which is the highest number to date. I do, of course, take very seriously the helpful and sensible submissions made by the shadow Solicitor General.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
What steps is the Department taking to prevent the spread of hate crime by the media?
The Solicitor General
As we know, in an age of social media it has become all too easy for perpetrators to spread hate and intimidation. The Crown Prosecution Service takes very seriously offences which cross the line to constitute grossly offensive communications, and prosecutions take place regularly. We will continue to work with social media to ensure that the detection of such crimes can be improved.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
The case that concluded in the Supreme Court last week dealt with an important constitutional issue. It was absolutely right that the Government both defended their position and appealed against the first-instance judgment in England and Wales to the Supreme Court, where the case was heard alongside connected litigation from the Northern Ireland courts. The figures for the total costs of those cases will be published in due course, but I can confirm that the Advocate General for Scotland and I, who appeared on behalf of the Government, received no additional fee for our work on the case.
Justin Madders
I thank the Attorney General for his response, although I am not sure that we have got any closer to learning the figure. Given that every serious legal commentator in the land said that the Government’s appeal was doomed to fail, will he please explain to the House why it was so necessary to waste taxpayers’ money on funding the appeal?
The Attorney General
I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s premise. Let me point out a number of things to him. First, I think that the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the right place in which to decide a case of such significance. Secondly, if the Government’s arguments had been as hopeless as the hon. Gentleman suggests, three Supreme Court justices would not have agreed with them. Thirdly, as I have already pointed out, the case was in the Supreme Court partly because judgments in Northern Ireland cases were appealed against to the Supreme Court, not by the Government but by the other parties. The Government responded to those cases, and, incidentally, were successful. Fourthly, the Supreme Court was dealing with arguments presented by the devolved Governments, which had to be dealt with by the Supreme Court. In that instance, the Government were again entirely successful.
Lastly, let me say this to the hon. Gentleman. I think it is a good thing that, in a system governed by the rule of law, a Government are prepared to go to court to argue their case, to make use of appeal mechanisms like any other litigant, and then to abide by the final outcome. That is what has happened, and I think it is a good example of the way in which a rule-of-law system should work.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that when members of the public bring cases on a matter of this importance against the Government in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales and there are conflicting decisions, our Government have no alternative whatsoever but to pursue this matter to the Supreme Court?
The Attorney General
I do agree. It is important that the Supreme Court resolved this matter and gave us clarity on what should now happen, and it is now for Parliament to decide what to do next—and I am pleased to see that last night Parliament began to answer the question it had been posed.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
When the costs are eventually published, will the Minister ensure that the price that was exacted was for liberty and freedom from the bureaucrats in Brussels, against which it is very difficult to attach any cost?
The Attorney General
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. This will be an expensive case, but the answer the British people gave should be respected and acted upon, and that, as I say, is now a matter for Parliament—it is no longer a legal matter—and I hope very much that Parliament will answer it clearly.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
The Attorney General maybe needs to think again about some of the dubious shorthand that he uses in respect of the devolved cases. The Supreme Court really only made clear judgments in relation to two of the five matters that were referred in relation to Northern Ireland, and on one of them some of its observations are politically telling in ways that the Government are yet to respect.
The Attorney General
The other three issues were not determined because they did not need to be, as other aspects of the case were decided as they were. But I am afraid the position is very clear: in relation to the arguments being made, particularly by the devolved Administrations, that there should be the capacity for those Administrations to veto the process of leaving the European Union, the court simply did not agree and rejected those arguments unanimously.
Mr Speaker
On the subject of the cost to the public purse, I hope, rather than a rerun of all the arguments, which would be very tedious.
Richard Arkless
I think the whole House would like to know that we got value for money in that judgment, and of course there are lots of rights and obligations in many Acts of Parliament and it is the courts’ job to interpret them. Can the Attorney General explain why the Supreme Court held that the Sewel provisions in an Act of Parliament were not a matter for the courts?
The Attorney General
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will read the judgment carefully: it says that whereas the Sewel convention might be important politically, it is not a matter for the courts to enforce. That was perfectly properly for the Supreme Court to say. What respect the Sewel convention is given in political terms is of course not a matter for the court. The judgment made that clear.
Mr Speaker
The operative words are “public purse” and “fees”. Can we stick to that? It would be helpful.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
If the Government were genuinely motivated to spend this money by wanting a definitive answer from the courts on a constitutional question, why did they not thank the judges in the divisional court in November for such a clear answer, instead of being in a position where the Justice Secretary had to be pressured into giving a lukewarm defence of them?
The Attorney General
No, the Government have always been clear that, at every level, the courts are entitled to consider the cases brought to them and to reach whatever judgment they think appropriate in the light of the arguments they have heard. That was true in relation to the High Court and it is true in relation to the Supreme Court, too. But the hon. Gentleman knows, as an eminent lawyer himself, that the appropriate thing to do if we disagree with the court of first instance is to appeal the judgment. That is exactly what the Government did, doing exactly what any other litigator would do—and, incidentally, exactly what some litigators in this case did in Northern Ireland.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Is it not absolutely remarkable that we have significant numbers of litigants in person in our courts because of the Government’s legal aid cuts, yet when the Government wanted a lawyer, the money was found? Is it not the case in terms of access to justice that there is one rule for the Government and another rule for everybody else?
The Attorney General
I am tempted to point out that, as I said earlier, when the Government wanted a lawyer, two out of the three they used in the Supreme Court did not cost the taxpayer anything. I also point out to the hon. Gentleman that when cases like this one are brought—and I make no criticism of those who brought these cases so that these issues could be resolved—it is important that they are resolved through proper and full legal argument. That was done through the High Court and then the Supreme Court. That is the right way to get to the answer the Supreme Court has now given, and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I have made clear very many times that the Government will honour and respect the judgment of the Supreme Court.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
UK nationals can be prosecuted in our domestic courts for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes that have taken place abroad. My hon. Friend will know that the UK Government are also working with other Governments to explore international legal mechanisms whereby Daesh can be held to account for its crimes.
Fiona Bruce
It appears that no steps are currently being taken by the International Criminal Court to pursue prosecutions for crimes against humanity or genocide in Syria and Iraq, despite a substantial vote in this House advocating such action. Is the UK taking any steps to use its own legal competences to prosecute UK nationals who might be committing such crimes in those countries?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend will know that the UK Government sought to pursue a route whereby the International Criminal Court would consider offences of this type committed in Iraq and Syria, but that our approach was vetoed by the Russians and the Chinese, so there has been no lack of effort on the part of the United Kingdom. In relation to domestic law, we will certainly pursue those offences as and where we can. She will also recognise that the primary practical difficulty is that of obtaining the necessary evidence, and we are working at international level to determine how evidence can be properly collected and retained in theatre so that it can be used for prosecutions when the time comes.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
The Government want to ensure that all schools are safe, inclusive environments where pupils can fulfil their potential, and we are actively considering how to improve the delivery of sex and relationships education, including updating the existing guidance, which was originally drafted in 2000.
Helen Hayes
New clause 1 of the Children and Social Work Bill would make sex and relationships education compulsory under the safeguarding duties of schools. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will be supporting that new clause on Report so that all our young people can be equipped and empowered to keep themselves healthy and safe?
Justine Greening
I very much appreciate the support around the House for the fact that it is time to look at how we can do better in regard to sex and relationships education, and we are actively looking at how best to improve the quality of delivery and accessibility so that children can be supported. As the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson), has set out, the Government are committed to updating Parliament further during the passage of the Bill.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Police information released today by Barnardo’s shows a 73% increase in reports of children sexually abusing other children. We know that children are not being effectively taught in our schools about mutual respect, self-respect and consent. Will the Minister consider particular amendments to the Children and Social Work Bill that would address those issues? We are running out of time and letting children down.
Justine Greening
I have said that we will provide an update during the next stage of the Bill, but my right hon. Friend is right to suggest that a lot of time has elapsed since the guidance was drafted in 2000, and the world is now a very different place. It is time to look at how we can ensure that children have the right access to what I might rename relationships and sex education, and to ensure that it is high quality education. That is why it is right to ensure that the next steps we take are the right ones, and that they can move this forward for the long term. We need to ensure that the young people in our education system today leave school with not only the relationships education but the broader life skills they need to lead successful lives.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the right hon. Lady take on board the fact that successive Select Committees have looked at this matter, and that it is vital not only that every school offers this kind of education but that, critically, we train people to have the right skills to deliver it?
Justine Greening
I have said that we need to make progress on this, and I have reflected on the fact that there have now been 16 years in which we really have not done so. When Ofsted produced its recent report on this in 2013, it identified issues around the quality of teaching. As the hon. Gentleman says, this is not just about what our young people should be taught in schools and their access to that teaching; it is also about the quality of the teaching. This is a broader question than simply one of updating the legal perspective of where SRE is taught.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
There is a worrying trend among people on the left of both sides of the House that things that they do not like should be banned and that things that they like must be made compulsory. What is wrong with the principle of freedom? What is wrong with parents having a role in deciding what is appropriate for their children to be taught?
Justine Greening
I strongly agree that parents’ involvement in ensuring that what children are taught at school is acceptable to them and appropriate is vital. However, the most important voices that now need to be listened to are those of young people and children, who say that they do not feel that they are getting the necessary level of education in this area and want a more up-to-date approach to enable them to deal with the world in which they are growing up.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
More than half of lesbian, gay and bi pupils have experienced direct bullying, and LGBT people are twice as likely as heterosexuals to have suicidal thoughts or to have attempted suicide. The Minister will be aware that people are committing terrible homophobic and hate crimes online—crimes for which they would be held accountable offline. The “#no2LGBTHate” campaign is calling on Twitter to take action against users who spread homophobia on the site. Does the Minister support the campaign? What is she doing to tackle homophobic hate?
Justine Greening
It is important that we support campaigns that are trying to play a role in reducing LGBT bullying. In September last year, we set out a £2.8 million programme to invest in charities that are working to prevent and address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools in England. The Government have launched their own “Disrespect NoBody” campaign to help young people recognise and challenge abuse within teen relationships. It is important to work in schools to change attitudes due to, as the hon. Lady sets out, the level of discrimination and abuse that many young people say they have received.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
I am pleased that the Government are considering the views of charities, campaigners and Members of this House in introducing statutory relationship education. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on plans to update the statutory guidance, which was last updated when I was the ripe age of 13?
Justine Greening
I did not realise that my hon. Friend was quite that young. He sets out the serious point that the world has changed immeasurably since 2000. Children now learn about relationships in different ways, but the challenge is that they are learning about them in ways that give them a skewed, inaccurate view of what relationships are about. It is important to look at how we can ensure that the guidance genuinely works and reflects the world as it is today, therefore giving ourselves and our children a better chance to get the education that they need.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend have a word with our excellent Secretary of State for Education and identify the best schools in the country that tackle homophobic bullying and sexual harassment together with the parents of their pupils, and roll out that best practice across the country?
Justine Greening
I will not comment on that, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that many schools are doing that—I visited a school in Birmingham that is doing great work in this area. Excellent work is under way, but it is now time to look at how we can learn from what works and see that percolate through our school system so that all schools can do a better job for all children on teaching SRE.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
The gender pay gap is now the lowest on record, at 18.1%, but that is still too high and eliminating it altogether is one of the key targets of this Government. That is why we have extended the right to request flexible working and introduced shared parental leave, and it is why, from September, we are rolling out 30 hours of childcare to the working parents of all three and four-year-olds.
Joan Ryan
I thank the Minister for her reply. Does she agree with the overwhelming evidence suggesting that the £1,200 employment tribunal fees introduced by her Government are creating a significant barrier to women being able to hold their employer to account for gender pay disparities in the workplace? That is all women, not just low-paid women.
Caroline Dinenage
The Government take that very seriously, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Courts and Justice will be coming forward with more information shortly. The Government are committed to ensuring that people from all backgrounds can access justice. Although we are very keen to see much more in the way of mediation, and ACAS has dealt successfully with more than 80,000 cases without having to go to tribunal, on Tuesday we launched a consultation on proposals to widen the support available to people under the help with fees scheme, following the completion of the fees review.
Julie Elliott
The gender pay gap in the north-east is 28%, some 10 percentage points higher than the national average. What is the Minister and the Government doing to address those very stark regional variations?
Caroline Dinenage
It is vital, now more than ever, that our economy is able to benefit from everybody’s skills. We simply cannot afford to waste the talents of a single person. That is why, from April this year, we are requiring all employers with more than 250 staff to publish those gender pay gap figures. We are great believers in what gets measured gets managed, but what gets published gets managed even better.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Can my hon. Friend tell the House what the gender pay gap is for 30 and 40-year-olds in each Government Department? Does she agree that the Government should be getting their own house in order before trying to lecture others in the private sector?
Caroline Dinenage
I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that the gender pay gap in the Department for Education is only 5.9%. Although that is 5.9 percentage points too high, it shows enormous progress in the Department for Education. Across Government, the figure is just below 13%, and we will keep working until it has been eliminated altogether.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Given that it is now 42 years since Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act, why is there any gender pay gap, not only for 30 and 40-year-olds but for people in their teens, twenties, fifties and sixties?
Mr Speaker
I thought it was 47 years this year, but maybe my maths is wrong. It was certainly a long time ago.
Mr Speaker
I thought it was 1970. [Interruption.] Anyway, we are agreed that it is a long-standing statute.
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, I think we can all agree that it has been a long old time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) is right to point this out. We have legislation that stops people being paid differently for doing the same job, but what drives the gender pay gap is the fact that girls tend to go into lower paid sectors compared with men and, of course, the pay gap really kicks in at around 30 and 40 when women leave work to have children and may not be supported back into the workplace as well as we would want. That is why gender pay gap reporting is so vital.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
I hope I can say on behalf of the entire House that all Members are clear that hate crime of any description should not and must not be tolerated. We have been working with the police, EU embassies and community groups to monitor the situation, to provide reassurance and to encourage reporting of racist incidents. Recorded hate crime has now fallen to pre-referendum levels. Police force areas continue to monitor racist incidents on an ongoing basis to ensure that any increases are addressed at the earliest opportunity.
Gerald Jones
I thank the Minister for that answer. Across the UK we saw a rise in hate crime and religiously aggravated offences following the referendum—it was 41% higher in July 2016 than in July 2015. Will he inform the House of what provisions have been put in place to avoid any repetition specifically in relation to the triggering of article 50?
Brandon Lewis
There are a couple of points to make to the hon. Gentleman. We have put in place the Government’s new hate crime action plan, which is taking a number of steps, for example, to boost reporting. There is also new guidance for prosecutors and a new fund to ensure that we have protective security measures and additional funding in place for community organisations so that they can tackle hate crime. I also gently say to him that the Labour party should look carefully at this morning’s CST report, which clearly indicates a 36% rise in totally unacceptable recorded anti-Semitic crime, related directly to the problems in the Labour party.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for mentioning the CST report. Clearly, the concern of the Jewish community in this country is that hate crime against Jews is on the rise. He has seen the report and the whole community wants to know what he is going to do about it, so that we stamp out anti-Semitism, once and for all.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I have outlined, it is important that we stamp out all forms of hate crime, which is why that action plan was put in place in July by the Home Secretary. We also all need to look at ourselves. It is clear when we look at the CST report that although we should be pleased about people having the confidence to come forward to report crime—the increase in recording is good—a rise in hate crime of any description, particularly a 36% rise such as this one, is disgraceful. I hope Members from across this House will be doing all they can to stamp that out.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The Minister will be aware that the European Union has been a beacon of hope and a key proponent of equality for citizens’ rights across the globe. Will he categorically confirm to the House not only that the discrimination laws and rights bestowed upon people across the UK will be upheld following a UK exit from the EU, but that citizens living in the UK will not be left behind and have their rights taken hostage by Brexit?
Brandon Lewis
We have been very clear all along that we want not only to stamp out hate crime, but to play an important part in this with our partners right across Europe. Indeed, in the autumn, I spoke at the EU Council on this very issue, and aside from the Commission, we were the only ones from any country to talk about it. We should be proud of the fact that this country has some of the toughest laws in the world on hate crime. Just a few weeks ago, on 19 January, we hosted some 19 countries’ embassies to talk to them about what we are doing and what can be done further to drive out hate crime.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
Sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated, and I pay tribute to the fantastic work of Girlguiding UK, which is tackling this important issue. We are working with it as we take forward the commitment we made in response to the Women and Equalities Committee inquiry on sexual violence and sexual harassment in schools to review existing guidance and then to look at what further support we can put in place for schools.
Oliver Colvile
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. How much training and emotional support is given to girl guides and other young girls who are bullied online?
Justine Greening
Tackling all forms of bullying, including cyber-bullying, is a priority for us. We are investing £1.6 million over two years directly in anti-bullying initiatives, including via the Diana award project, which has a focus on digital resilience for young people. The Government have also funded the UK Safer Internet Centre to develop new cyber-bullying guidance for schools and an associated online safety toolkit. My hon. Friend’s question highlights the fact that the world is a very different place for our young people these days, and our guidance, laws and teaching need to stay up to date.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Government support Girlguiding’s “Girls Matter” campaign to update the school curriculum to include sexual consent, online safety, tackling violence against women and girls, and LGBT and healthy relationships?
Justine Greening
I have set out my feeling that it is time we look at the guidance that is in place and how we can improve the teaching. That is the right thing to do. We will set out our next steps at the next stage of the Children and Social Work Bill, but we are already doing other things, too. We have already held our first advisory group on looking at updating our guidance on tackling bullying. Through that and the frameworks we have in place, we hope that we can help schools to develop improved codes of practice to combat bullying, too.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Will the Minister confirm that there is co-operation at a comprehensive level, particularly with uniformed organisations such as the Girls Brigade, as well as Girlguiding, to combat this pernicious aspect of the 21st century?
Justine Greening
Those sorts of organisations can be vital and incredibly powerful in changing attitudes and helping young girls in particular to understand that they do have a voice and should not accept this sort of behaviour. When I was at the Department for International Development, we worked very closely with Girlguiding on gender equality more generally, and I am pleased that that relationship can continue now that I am at the Department for Education.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
A vital part of fulfilling the aims of Girlguiding’s campaign to end violence against women and girls is challenging the attitudes and behaviour of the perpetrators of these crimes. What are the Government doing to ensure there is national coverage for high-quality, accredited, community-based perpetrator programmes, such as the ones I was involved in—I declare an interest—before I became an MP and came to this place?
Justine Greening
The work that the DFE does is part of a cross-Government programme on tackling harassment, bullying and intimidation. It is about not only supporting people—particularly young people, in the case of the DFE—who are bearing the brunt of that behaviour, but understanding what is driving it and tackling the root causes.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Girlguiding survey found that 20% of 13 to 21-year-olds have had unwanted pornographic imagery sent to them, and 5% have had indecent images shared without their consent. If the Government really do want to support the Girlguiding campaign, why is the Department cutting the funding to the revenge porn helpline, which has taken more than 2,500 calls in the past year? How will the Minister ensure that victims of revenge porn have access to bespoke support, as promised in the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy, when she is shutting the only helpline in March?
Justine Greening
I do not think the hon. Lady has the right information; in fact, we have not made any announcements in relation to that effect yet. Alongside all the comments made by hon. Members today, it is worth reflecting on the fact that another thing we can do is improve the evidence base in this area, which is why we have included specific questions on sexist and racist bullying in the next wave of the National Foundation for Educational Research Teacher Voice survey. We hope that some of the findings from those questions will be available later this year.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
The Home Office has engaged closely with other Government Departments, through the violence against women and girls inter-ministerial group, to oversee delivery of the violence against women and girls strategy, including the commitment of increased funding of £80 million for the services. We have also engaged closely with commissioners and voluntary sector partners on the support provided for independent domestic violence advisers and our move to support better local collaboration and early intervention through the VAWG service transformation fund.
Mr Cunningham
Some 84% of victims reported feeling safer with an independent domestic violence adviser, and just over 1,000 advisers are needed to support the current number of known victims, yet there are currently only half that number. What steps will the Minister be taking to increase the number of independent domestic violence advisers throughout the country?
Brandon Lewis
As I just said, we have increased the funding to VAWG services to £80 million, and we are working with commissioners in local areas to make sure they can deliver the services that they understand are correct for their area and the women who live there.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
I am proud that my local authority, Powys County Council, has become a white ribbon authority. Will my hon. Friend the Minister do all he can to encourage all local authorities to follow that example?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend gives a really good example of where local work is delivering really good local results in a way that others can look at. We have to get better, throughout this country, at sharing best practice, and that is a really good example that others can look at.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
The Government are continuing our work on our commitment to review the Gender Recognition Act 2004. We have begun stakeholder engagement programmes to look at how the gender recognition process can be improved, as well as looking carefully at international comparisons. We will provide an update later this year.
Kevin Foster
I thank the Minister for her answer. My constituent Rebecca Cook applied for a gender recognition certificate, but her application was rejected on the basis that the statutory declaration was more than six months old and she
“may have changed her mind.”
Given that the statutory declaration is a lifetime declaration, will the Minister confirm that the six-month time limit will be reviewed as part of the overall legislative review?
Caroline Dinenage
I am really sorry to hear that my hon. Friend’s constituent has encountered those difficulties, and he is absolutely right to bring that kind of case to the House today. We have committed to review, streamline and demedicalise the gender recognition process, and we will certainly consider evidence of any administrative barriers to people gaining the legal gender recognition that they want.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
We want schools to put high-quality PSHE at the heart of their curriculum, ensuring that all young people are prepared for life in modern Britain. Effective PSHE not only helps provide pupils with key life skills, but gives them the knowledge to understand their rights and responsibilities to respect individual differences and to challenge prejudice and discrimination.
Neil Carmichael
Does the Secretary of State agree that embedding PSHE—life skills as she correctly terms it—will help us to deal with social mobility and productivity, and that we should see proper, age-appropriate teaching across the piece in our schools?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to link this matter with social mobility. We know that strong PSHE can make the biggest difference to young people growing up in more disadvantaged communities. It is important not only that we have healthy, resilient and confident pupils coming out of our education system who are better placed to do well academically, but that we improve our non-academic outcomes, as that is also hugely valued by employers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister will recognise that the churches play a key role in personal, social and health education. What discussions has she had, or will she have, in relation to that role that churches can play in education?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, because we have a large number of faith-based schools. Indeed, the values that we want to give our young people as they come through the education system are not only British but often underpinned by faith values. Coming back to the point on the economy, PSHE can really help students develop their teamwork, communications skills and resilience—precisely the sorts of things that British business wants.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government are committed to complying with our public sector equality duty, and we will take account of feedback from our public consultations. We will undertake an equality analysis as part of the detailed planning for service reconfiguration, which will include feedback from public consultations in those locations where this applies.
Gavin Newlands
Last week, the UK Government announced the closure of 15 jobcentre sites in Scotland, including the Lonend site in Paisley. This follows a proposal to close eight jobcentres in Glasgow, which was announced in December. Does the Minister agree that it is a dereliction of duty and an insult to those affected not to conduct an equality impact assessment in advance of these plans, given the hardship that they will cause to thousands of the most disadvantaged people?
Caroline Nokes
The views and opinions from the consultations we are carrying out with claimants who use the services across the country, not simply in Scotland, will be fed into our equality analysis.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
The single biggest boost to equality delivered through our Department for Work and Pensions estate is the introduction of named universal credit work coaches and their personalised support. What is the current roll-out timetable?
Caroline Nokes
The roll-out of universal credit is increasing apace, and from September we expect it to roll out to 43 jobcentres every single month. My right hon. Friend is right to point out that work coaches are a crucial part of getting people back into work. As part of the service reconfiguration, we are working to ensure that individual claimants can maintain the relationship with their work coaches.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
Women reaching state pension age in 2016-17 are estimated to receive more state pension on average over their lifetime than women ever have before. By 2030, more than 3 million women stand to gain an average of £550 a year through the introduction of the new state pension.
Chi Onwurah
Working-class women are more likely to be in manual trades, which take a greater toll on the body as it ages, and to die younger due to the health inequalities from which we still suffer. The Minister did not mention the word “class” in her reply. Will she say right now that she will ensure justice for working-class women and all WASPI women by giving them a fair deal in the spring Budget?
Caroline Nokes
The equalisation of the state pension age has been well rehearsed in this Chamber; and, no, I will not use the word “class” because, to be quite frank, we are all working now.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
The whole House will welcome the fact that the Turing law has now come into effect. Alongside that, Parliament this week approved the regulations introducing mandatory gender pay gap and bonus gap reporting for private and voluntary sector employers with 250 employees or more. Transparency over time can make a big difference. It is one of our key manifesto commitments, and the Government are holding themselves to the same high standards that we expect of others. That is why we have now laid regulations for gender pay gap reporting in the public sector, which we look forward to debating in this House at the earliest opportunity.
Mrs Murray
What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the recent trends in the number of women in work?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend may be aware that the number of women in employment has increased by 229,000 over the past year alone. The female employment rate is now at a record high of 69.8%.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
As of the 2016 autumn statement, 86% of net savings to the Treasury through tax and benefit measures come from women. The Treasury continues to fail to provide any impact assessment of its fiscal policies or to send a Minister to the Women and Equalities Committee to answer questions. Will the Minister therefore commit to ensuring that women do not suffer the same abysmal impact from the spring Budget?
Justine Greening
I have just set out that the female employment rate is at a record high, which is good news and we want it to progress. Indeed, it is the third highest female employment rate in the whole G7.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
We know that when fathers take an active role in childcare, it is not only great for their relationships with their children; it is also important in eliminating the gender pay gap. That is why we have introduced shared parental leave and extended the right to request flexible working, helping both mums and dads to balance their work life with their family commitments.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Justine Greening
The EHRC is an independent body that was established under the Equality Act 2006. It has been subject to a substantial reform programme to ensure that it can carry out its core functions effectively, but it must be able to do that under its own steam because it is an independent body.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
Justine Greening
I totally agree that such behaviour is unacceptable, and we should not tolerate it in any form. I regularly go running, and I have been stopped for selfies, but never subjected to any catcalling. We can do more. Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign and other initiatives have really helped to narrow the gender gap in sports participation. The new Active Lives survey demonstrates that 59% of women are now doing at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week, which is the amount recommended by the Chief Medical Officer, but we can do much more to ensure that there are no barriers to women participating in sport.
Mr Speaker
I do not know whether the Minister has been stopped for selfies because of the quality of her running, her celebrity status or, more likely, both.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government have been very clear: bringing about state pension age equality was an important principle, and one that we have to maintain. We have made £1 billion of concessions to women in this age group but, as the pensions Minister has made clear, there will be no more transitional arrangements.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Government have been very clear about the fact that they want equality law to be protected when we leave the EU. That is particularly important. Can the Minister update the House on whether that will form part of the White Paper to be published today?
Justine Greening
This is an important point, and it is one of the reasons the Prime Minister set out a number of objectives in her speech recently. I am not going to pre-empt the White Paper, which is being published today, but it is certainly important to ensure that we absolutely maintain—and, indeed, continue to advance—issues of equality and rights.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Justine Greening
This is an important issue. We have introduced the living wage to make sure that all people get the minimum wage they need to be able to live effectively. We do not have a Treasury Minister on the Bench today, but I will absolutely make sure that one of them responds to the question the hon. Lady raises.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the long-promised consultation on caste discrimination? It was promised by Christmas, and we are still waiting.
Justine Greening
It remains, as my hon. Friend suggests, a work in progress, but it will be published very shortly.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
According to a report by the Trades Union Congress, between January and March 2014, following the introduction of tribunal fees, just 1,222 sexual discrimination claims were made to an employment tribunal, compared with 6,017 in the same quarter a year earlier. Does that not make a nonsense of the Government’s supposed concern for gender equality?
Caroline Dinenage
On Tuesday, we launched a consultation on the proposals to widen the support available to people under the Help with Fees scheme, following the completion of the employment tribunal fees review last year. However, it is also important to point out that ACAS has seen the number of people who are able to sort out their differences via mediation go beyond 80,000, and I think a number of people would be much happier going back into the workplace they have come from having sorted out their problems through mediation rather than tribunals.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
This week marks the start of LGBT history month, and, of course, we all celebrate the great achievements the LGBT community has given this country. However, hate crime against the LGBT community remains far too high, with Stonewall saying that one in four LGBT people hide their sexual orientation. Will the Minister take urgent action to tackle that, first by increasing the sentences for those who commit hate crimes against LGBT people?
Caroline Dinenage
We do have a lot to be proud of, and the UK continues to be recognised as one of the most progressive countries in Europe for LGBT rights, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we must not rest on our laurels. We must make sure that anybody who attacks anyone on the basis of their sexual orientation is brought to justice. LGBT history month is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate and recognise the contribution that gay, lesbian, bi and trans people have made to British history, British society and British culture.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
The Standing Orders of the House of Commons will apply to the repeal Bill in the usual way.
Martyn Day
Given the importance of the great repeal Bill to the devolved Administrations, will the Leader of the House give a clear guarantee that all Members of this House will be able to scrutinise and vote on all parts of this Bill to ensure that the great repeal Bill does not turn into the great power grab?
Mr Lidington
Yes, of course. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman himself acknowledges, the so-called EVEL provisions under our Standing Orders do not bar any Member of the House of Commons, from any part of the United Kingdom, from taking part in votes on the different Readings of any Bill and on amendments to any Bill.
Richard Arkless
Given that we cannot categorically rule out EVEL and that the Secretary of State for Scotland has said that a legislative consent motion will be required for the great repeal Bill, what exactly is the Government’s position?
Mr Lidington
The Standing Orders of the House apply in the usual way. If any Bill, any clause of a Bill or any amendment to a Bill affects only England, but covers matters that, in Scotland, are devolved, it must, in addition to commanding a majority among Members of the House as a whole, command a majority among those Members representing English constituencies.
Patricia Gibson
The Procedure Committee, on which I sit, produced a report that noted:
“There is an apparent lack of appetite for debate in legislative grand committee at present.”
Given that the Government are tabling programme motions that allow absolutely no time for debate, surely the Leader of the House must share my opinion that current EVEL procedures are a piece of nonsense.
Mr Lidington
If the Legislative Grand Committee is proceeding smoothly, it suggests to me that most Members from across the House are satisfied with the way in which our Standing Orders are operating. On the hon. Lady’s point about programme motions, may I point out to her that apart from the Division last night on the article 50 Bill, we have had no Division so far in this Parliament on any programme motion moved after Second Reading?
Margaret Ferrier
The UK Government continue to tell us that Holyrood is the most powerful devolved Parliament, yet they are not consulting Scotland on the triggering of article 50. Does the Leader of the House agree that by also refusing Scottish MPs the opportunity to vote on all areas of the great repeal Bill, the Government are doing everything possible to stop the voice of Scottish people being heard on Brexit?
Mr Lidington
Quite the contrary: I think that both my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland have made, and will continue to make, every effort to ensure that the interests of the people of Scotland are fully represented at all stages of the forthcoming negotiation as part of the package we are seeking for the United Kingdom.
Kirsten Oswald
During the referendum campaign, we were told that all non-reserved powers would return to Scotland. Worryingly, the UK Government have not opened any discussions with the Scottish Government about that. When will the Government discuss with the Scottish Government what additional powers may be devolved to Scotland as a result of the UK withdrawing from the European Union?
Mr Lidington
We have said already, including at the Joint Ministerial Committee, that we are going to talk intensively to the Scottish Government about how to address the issue of powers that return to the United Kingdom from the European Union. If we look, for example, at fisheries—an issue that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, in respect of UK fisheries policy—we see that that also involves third-country agreements negotiated between the EU and other nation states. It involves United Nations conventions. The Scotland Act 1998 says, in terms, that international agreements are a reserved matter. Those are exactly the things that we need to thrash out in detail in the conversations with our colleagues in the Scottish Government.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How about 83A? I whipped Bills through Committee perfectly effectively before we introduced the dismal practice of routine guillotining, but perhaps we were all better behaved and more reasonable then.
Mr Lidington
I am sure that my right hon. Friend sets an example to all Members of the House with his common sense and good reason. I say again that I think it was perfectly fair and right for this House to change its Standing Orders in response to the different balance of powers that now exists in the United Kingdom as a consequence of devolution.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Michael Ellis)
I am eager to schedule a debate on the Joint Committee’s report and recommendation to refurbish the Palace of Westminster as soon as possible. That will be announced in the business statement in the usual way. The Joint Committee’s report recommended the establishment of a delivery authority that would develop a business case and budget prior to a final vote in Parliament, following a decision in principle. By its own admission, the Joint Committee was not in a position to provide detailed budgets before the establishment of a delivery authority.
Mr Hollobone
If the Palace of Westminster needs to be renewed and restored, I am pretty sure that my constituents in Kettering would want me to vote for the cheapest option. If that happens to be the quickest, so much the better. Will the Leader of the House make a recommendation to the House ahead of the vote?
Michael Ellis
That is a matter for the House. It is vital that the Palace is safeguarded in the right way for the reasons that my hon. Friend has indicated. The Government want to ensure that the solution is deliverable and value for money, and are taking their time to consider the detail of the proposed recommendations and the implications very carefully.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
“Taking their time” is the understatement of the year! The Joint Committee was chaired by two Ministers, one of whom, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), is sitting on the Front Bench. He was staring at the back of the head of the Deputy Leader of the House, going, “Just get on with it, man.” Get on with it!
Michael Ellis
There are pressures on parliamentary time—I think the hon. Gentleman is responsible for some of those pressures—but the reality is that the matter is of significant importance, and we will proceed as soon as possible.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the fact that the Government are taking their time to consider the best option for dealing with this historic Palace. Given the amount of taxpayers’ money involved, will the Deputy Leader of the House reassure me that such a cost will deliver an effective Parliament and a solution that taxpayers believe is genuine value for money.
Michael Ellis
It is crucial that value for money is safeguarded. Advice is being taken on a range of the technical and governance recommendations made by the Joint Committee report—we have studied it very carefully—and the independent Major Projects Authority is also being consulted.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Deputy Leader of the House says that there is pressure on parliamentary time. We spent 45 minutes trooping through the Lobbies last night and we will spend hours doing the same next week, so if the Chamber is to be decanted, will that not be an opportunity to introduce modern practices, such as electronic voting?
Michael Ellis
I am surprised to hear that Scottish National party Members feel Divisions are a waste of time. I am sure they could avoid Divisions if they saw fit.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is it not the case that the large majority of people in the House of Commons are not in fact Members? There is a constant risk not only on health grounds, with asbestos and the rest, but of a fire, and we certainly do not want a repeat of 1834. Should not those who complain about the cost involved—they are quite likely to come from outside—be told that they have such an absolute right to complain because this place exists?
Michael Ellis
I recommend any Member of the House who has not read the report to read it, because it particularises in fine detail some of the concerns that the hon. Gentleman mentions about health and safety and about risk.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
First, people started talking about the great reform Bill—where do all these greats come from?—and now there will presumably be the great reconstruction bill for the House of Commons. All the time I have been a Member we have made do and mended, and we have got on perfectly well. Why do we need to have this reconstruction? Let us just patch things up a bit and carry on as normal.
Michael Ellis
Again, I recommend that the hon. Gentleman read the report. It is decades—in fact, many decades—of patching and mending that has led to patching and mending no longer being practicable in the opinion of the authors of the report, so clearly a number of major issues need to be addressed.
Mr Speaker
We are out of time, but I really want to hear the last question, not least because the hon. Gentleman is a newly elected and extremely keen member of the Committee about whose name he is concerned. I call Mr Philip Davies.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Michael Ellis)
The Government currently have no plans to bring forward proposals to change the name of the Women and Equalities Committee. I have received no representations from the Committee to make such a change. Should the Women and Equalities Committee recommend such a change, the Government would consider it in consultation with the Procedure Committee.
Philip Davies
Every single departmental Select Committee is named after the Department it scrutinises. I am also on the Justice Committee, which scrutinises the Ministry of Justice. The only exception is the Women and Equalities Committee, which shadows the Government Equalities Office. Surely this Committee should be called the Equalities Committee. If the Deputy Leader of the House does not agree, will he tell us why women’s issues cannot be included in a Committee called the Equalities Committee?
Michael Ellis
I suggest that my hon. Friend approach the Chair of the Select Committee of which he is a valued member and invite her to write to the Leader of the House. The matter will be considered in the normal way.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend at all worried that members of, for example, the black and minority ethnic or the gay and lesbian communities, might feel that the title of the Committee suggests it will be giving priority to the concerns of women over their own concerns?
Michael Ellis
I gently say that achieving gender equality is good for everyone. For example, the introduction of shared parental leave allows men to take time away from the workplace to bond with their new children. There are issues to be addressed for women, as discussed in this place earlier today. Names of Committees are a matter for the House and are considered with the Procedure Committee in the normal way.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister confirm whether he has received any representations from anyone from a BME community about their happiness or otherwise of the title of the Women and Equalities Committee? As a member of the BME community, may I say that I am very happy with the name of the Women and Equalities Committee?
Michael Ellis
The hon. Lady’s contentment has been noted. No such representations have been made. If any are made, they will be considered very carefully.
Airport Capacity and Airspace Policy
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about airport capacity and airspace policy.
In October last year, I announced that the Government had selected a new north-west runway scheme at Heathrow as its preferred scheme for new airport capacity in the south-east. Aviation expansion is important for the UK, both in boosting our economy and jobs, and in promoting us on the world stage. Leaving the EU is a new chapter for Britain and it provides us with a great opportunity to forge a new role in the world. We are determined to seize that opportunity, and having the right infrastructure in place will allow us to build a more global Britain. By backing the north-west runway at Heathrow airport and publishing our proposals today, we are sending a clear signal that when we leave the EU Britain will be open for business.
Today, I lay before Parliament a draft airports national policy statement and begin a period of extensive public consultation on the proposals it contains. The draft airports national policy statement is accompanied by an appraisal of sustainability, which assesses the potential economic, social and environmental impacts of the proposed policy. I have published all this information online to ensure that the process is as transparent as possible.
Over the past 70 years, the UK has failed to build the capacity needed to match people’s growing desire for travel. Unless we take action, every London airport is forecast to be full by 2040 and almost entirely full by 2030. Doing nothing is no longer a choice we can afford to make. Without expansion, constraints in the aviation sector would impose increasing costs on the rest of the economy over time, lowering economic output by making aviation more expensive and less convenient to use, with knock-on effects in lost trade, tourism and foreign direct investment.
The Government believe that a new north-west runway at Heathrow best delivers the need for additional airport capacity. The draft airports national policy statement sets out this rationale in full. It is expected that Heathrow will provide the greatest economic and employment benefits, delivering tens of thousands of additional local jobs by 2030 and up to £61 billion of economic benefits, not including wider trade benefits. The scheme will benefit the whole of the UK. I expect Heathrow airport to work with airlines to improve domestic connectivity, including the addition of six more domestic routes across the UK by 2030, bringing the total to 14. This will strengthen existing links to nations and regions, and develop new connections.
Heathrow’s location means it is already accessible to business and the rest of the UK. In future, it will be connected to Crossrail, and linked to HS2 at Old Oak Common. We are also bringing forward plans to deliver western and southern rail access to the airport as quickly as possible to provide greater flexibility, accessibility and resilience for passengers. The Heathrow north-west runway would be expected to deliver the greatest support for freight. As we leave the European Union, we will need to get out into the world and do new business with old allies and new partners alike. A new north-west runway at Heathrow will be at the heart of this. In summary, a new north-west runway at Heathrow would be expected to create new global connections, create tens of thousands of jobs, reduce fares for passengers, provide new capacity for freight imports and exports, and spread the benefits of growth to the whole of the UK. Today we are sending a clear message that the Government are not only making the big decisions but getting on with delivering them.
I am clear that expansion must not come at any cost and that we will meet our legal requirements on air quality and obligations on carbon. The airports national policy statement, if designated, will provide the primary basis for making decisions on any development consent application for a new north-west runway at Heathrow. Heathrow airport would be expected to provide up to £2.6 billion to communities affected by the expansion, including noise insulation for homes and schools, improvements to public facilities and other measures. This includes a community compensation fund and establishing a community engagement board.
For those people whose homes need to be compulsorily purchased to make way for the new runway, or for those who take up the voluntary scheme, Heathrow must honour its commitment of payments of 25% above the full market value of people’s homes and its commitment to cover all costs, such as stamp duty, and moving and legal fees. I am also clear that the environmental impact of expansion must be minimised. Industry-leading measures will be required to mitigate air quality impacts, and Heathrow airport will be required to demonstrate that the scheme can be delivered within legal air quality obligations.
The airport should continue to strive to meet its public pledge to ensure that landside airport-related traffic is no greater than today. Measures will also be required to mitigate the impacts of noise, including legally binding noise targets and periods of predictable respite. The Government expect a ban of six and a half hours on scheduled night flights.
Lastly, construction must take place in a manner that minimises impacts on the environment and the local community. Outside of the planning system, I am clear that there must be conditions on cost and that expansion costs will be paid for by the private sector, not the taxpayer. The Government expect industry to work together to drive down costs. I have appointed Sir Jeremy Sullivan, the former Senior President of Tribunals, to provide independent oversight of the draft airports national policy statement consultation process.
The second consultation that I wish to bring to the attention of the House is on UK airspace policy. I am publishing proposals to modernise the way UK airspace is managed, which will be consulted on in parallel. By taking steps now to future-proof this vital infrastructure, we can harness the latest technology to make airspace more efficient as well as making journeys faster and more environmentally friendly. The policy principles set out in this airspace consultation will influence decisions taken later in the planning process for a north-west runway at Heathrow. It is therefore sensible to allow members of the public to express views on both these issues at the same time.
The consultation will set out our plans to establish an independent commission on civil aviation noise and bring forward proposals to improve how communities can engage and make sure their voices are heard. To complement this, we are proposing guidance on how noise impacts should be assessed and used to inform decisions on airspace options. These proposals aim to strike a balance between the economic benefits of a thriving aviation sector and its impacts on local communities and the environment.
The aviation sector is a great British success story: it contributes around £20 billion per year, directly supports approximately 230,000 jobs across the United Kingdom and supports an estimated 260,000 jobs across the wider economy. I want to build on this success, and this year my Department will begin developing a new strategy for UK aviation generally that will champion the success story of the UK’s aviation sector and put the consumer back at the heart of our thinking. I want to make sure that the sector is delivering more choice for consumers and the country as a whole, and I will come back to the House to update you, Mr Speaker, and hon. Members on our plans as they develop.
Finally, I turn briefly to what happens next. These two consultations will start today and last for 16 weeks, closing on 25 May. At the same time, and as required by the Planning Act 2008, a period of parliamentary scrutiny—the “relevant period”—now begins for the draft airports national policy statement. It will end by summer recess 2017. Although planning is a devolved matter, the consultation will be open to the whole of the UK, as additional airport capacity will benefit us all.
Following consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, consideration will be given to the comments and points raised. In the light of those processes, should the decision be taken to proceed, a final airports national policy statement will be laid before Parliament for debate and there will be the opportunity for a vote in the House of Commons in winter 2017-18.
I will place copies of all the relevant documents in the House; they will also be available online for Members and members of the public. I commend the statement and process to the House.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for Transport for advance sight of his statement.
Aviation is key to ensuring that the UK remains an outward-looking trading nation post-Brexit, and Labour has consistently been pushing for a decision on runway expansion in south-east England, so after years of dither and delay, it is welcome that progress is finally being made. We have been calling for action on airspace modernisation for some time, and although we cannot see it, our airspace network is in dire need of modernisation. It is over half a century old but is still among our country’s most vital pieces of infrastructure. Modernising airspace will involve tough decisions, but the benefits are huge. It is in the national interest for the Government to ensure that they deliver a balanced and sustainable airspace solution.
However, there are outstanding issues, including how Heathrow expansion can be squared with meeting the UK’s climate change objectives and demonstrating that local noise and environmental impacts can be minimised. This can be achieved, but only in the context of a coherent aviation strategy that works for the country, not just for London. It starts with confirming our membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency, as well as taking action on cleaner fuels and improving road and rail access to our international gateway airports.
As the Secretary of State knows, business loathes uncertainty, and aviation is no exception. What assurances can he give that the UK’s continued membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency is and will remain an absolute priority? What does his commitment to leaving the single market mean for leaving the single aviation market? The Committee on Climate Change cautioned against relying on carbon trading for Heathrow to achieve its emission targets, as that option might not always be cheap and available. Will he provide an update on whether he plans to reject that advice?
There is increasing concern about air quality, which is linked to 40,000 early deaths a year. David Cameron’s former aide—now Baroness Camilla Cavendish—claimed that the existing policy on air quality “overclaims and underwhelms”. Given that inadequacy, what further and stringent measures will be proposed to mitigate the expected expansion at Heathrow?
Key to improving air quality, alongside a move to reducing vehicle emissions, is encouraging more people to use public transport to arrive at our airports. Enhancements are needed to Heathrow’s rail services if the objective of having public transport usage of 55% is to be achieved. I invite the Secretary of State to outline what progress he is making and how he can ensure that the business beneficiaries of such enhancements will make a fair contribution. If we are to secure the modal shift to accessing airports by public transport and in the context of the aviation strategy, I invite him to confirm that the National Infrastructure Commission will be asked to inquire into the issue of surface access at all our international gateway airports and seaports.
I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to fulfilling our legal requirements on air quality and obligations on carbon, and I note the reference to Heathrow striving to meet its public pledge that airport-related public traffic will be no greater than it is today. But it is not simply about the volume of traffic; it is about vastly reducing the emissions that come from such traffic. Much of that relates to ultra-low emission vehicles, which will be key to securing our shared objectives. The modern transport Bill will hopefully progress the agenda considerably, so, finally, will the Secretary of State tell the House when we are likely to see that Bill?
Chris Grayling
May I start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his support for my statement this morning? He asked a number of questions, which I shall answer, but I very much welcome the principle of support. This is a long-term project for the country, and a shared vision across this House of the need for expanded capacity is important. I know that there are individual Members who have disagreements, issues and local challenges, but his supportive comments are welcome for the project and I am grateful to him.
Let me seek to answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions. First, we have not reached a definitive position on the European issue. Obviously the negotiations have not started and we have not yet triggered article 50. I am acutely aware that aviation is one of the sectors that we need to handle with great care, working out the best way of protecting our sector and delivering the right connectivity for the future. I will come back to the House at an appropriate moment and provide more information, but, as he is aware, we are not really in a position to provide detail of the negotiations in advance. However, I appreciate that he will want to understand in due course where we have got to, and we will endeavour to make sure that we keep the House as fully informed as we properly can, given the negotiation process.
As the hon. Gentleman said, aviation is not included in the current climate change target. It is clearly an issue, however, and has been since the recent agreement in Montreal, subject to an international strategy going forward. We are consulting today on things such as the smarter use of airspace. Through airspace reform and the technology that is now available to us, we will be able to avoid, to anything like the degree experienced at the moment, planes stacking over the south-east of England, emitting additional emissions into the atmosphere and using up more fuel. That is one of the benefits that comes from the smarter use of airspace, which will help to make a contribution, as will cleaner, newer generation, more fuel-efficient aircraft, which I think we will see extensively in this country over the coming years.
On the issue of NOx, diesel and emissions on the surrounding roads, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that this is much more a car issue than a plane issue. It is about the propensity of congested areas to cause a genuine public health problem, so it is a broader issue for the Government to address than simply the airport. We have already made a start, with the incentives that are in place for low-emission vehicles and the expansion of charging points that we set out in the autumn statement. We will also shortly be seeing the Bill that he mentioned—it would have been here by now, had we not had a bit of other business to deal with in the House. The issues in that Bill will be important, but I am well aware, and the Government are well aware, that we will have to do much more on the emissions front. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will come forward in due course with further proposals to tackle what is a broader issue than just airport expansion. It is one that we cannot possibly wait until airport expansion happens to address, and we will not.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of rail services, and we already have significant plans for their development. The arrival of Crossrail and of HS2 at Old Oak Common will make a significant difference to public transport access to Heathrow, as will the proposed modernisation of the Piccadilly line, which will significantly expand capacity on that route. We are now also starting the development work on rail access to the south and the west of Heathrow airport, and he is absolutely right to raise this issue. It is something that we are now working on and the private sector will make a substantial contribution to the costs.
Lastly, the hon. Gentleman raised the importance of land and surface access to ports and airports around the country. I can confirm to him that we are looking at this in a variety of forums. As we move into this post-Brexit world and in a world where we need to facilitate trade, I am particularly concerned to ensure that where there are blockages, congestion points or limitations around ports and airports, we take the necessary steps to address those, and we will.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his supportive comments, and will obviously try to keep him and the House as informed as possible.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Given that for 70 years we have talked the talk on airport capacity over London, it is welcome that my right hon. Friend is now laying down the plans to walk the walk and get on with building Heathrow’s third runway. Given our antiquated planning rules, is he confident that it will be completed by 2040, when the airports reach their capacity? Can he also give a commitment to local communities around all the London airports that the smarter use of airspace will be used in the interim to reduce noise and other disturbance for local communities?
Chris Grayling
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments, and I am absolutely clear that we aim to deliver airport expansion long before 2040. What we have now is a much more streamlined process, set out in statute—it was introduced by Labour and I am grateful for that—for securing the initial consents. If, when we reach the end of this year, the consultation confirms the recommendation that the Government are making and this House does the same, I hope that we will have effectively reached a point of outline planning consent that allows the airport to press on with the detailed preparation work for the construction and the detailed planning consents.
I think that airspace modernisation makes a real difference to communities in the south-east, because it enables us to put planes on much more exact paths. Today, sat-nav technology allows a plane to follow a much more exact route than the traditional beacons did. It enables us to manage approaches to airports, airport descent and ascent rates, and the overall use of airports so that we do not experience stacking around the south-east as we do today. I hope that the second part of the process that I have announced, which I believe is as important to communities throughout the country as the airport expansion, will allow us to ensure that the sector becomes much friendlier to the communities that it affects.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for giving me advance sight of his statement.
We welcome the decision to go ahead with the expansion of Heathrow and the new runway. After many years of waiting, it is time to get on with delivering that, as well as the specific benefits that it can bring. However, building a new runway is meaningless if we do not have access to the air and the EU-US open skies agreement. Does the Secretary of State intend to seek membership of that arrangement?
The Secretary of State mentioned regional airports, which are vital, and I agree that these connections need to be made. What guarantees will he give to regional airports in Scotland, especially the likes of Dundee and Inverness, about routes and slots following the Heathrow expansion? He also mentioned the need to deal with environmental issues and tackle carbon emissions. What targets will he specify to demonstrate ambition above the legal requirements to which he referred?
Chris Grayling
We and the Scottish Government do not always agree on everything, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his party, and to the Administration in Edinburgh, for their support for Heathrow expansion. Indeed, following these exchanges, I shall be heading off to the other side of Scotland—to Glasgow—to talk about the importance of my announcement to the United Kingdom as a whole.
The hon. Gentleman asks about regional airports. Heathrow will be under an obligation to fulfil its promises in respect of regional connectivity. I expect this capacity to open links not only between the United Kingdom and the rest of the world, but from within the United Kingdom to Heathrow and the rest of the world. That is important to airports in Scotland, the north of England, and other parts of the United Kingdom—Northern Ireland, the south-west, and so forth.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the open skies agreement. As I said earlier, that will be a subject for negotiation. We will obviously seek to provide the best possible arrangements for the future but, whatever the arrangements, the fact remains that there were flights to and from European Union capitals long before the European Union even existed, and that will continue after Britain has left the European Union. We will have strong aviation ties around the world. Of course, this expansion is not particularly about European Union links; it will open up ties between the UK and markets around the world, including emerging markets. It will provide Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England with links to markets where there is great potential and opportunity for the future.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
I believe that the Secretary of State is doing his work backwards. How can you consult on airspace strategy when you do not have a credible policy on how to address current noise pollution levels? How can you offer a consultation on a national policy statement when you have no credible or legal plan for reducing air pollution? How can you have consultations ending on 25 May with no credible or legal plans to address critical noise and air pollution levels?
Mr Speaker
Order. I have no credible, legal, or any other plans or pronouncements to make on this matter at all.
Chris Grayling
I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels about this. I know the concerns that have been expressed in her constituency, and I respect her very much for what she is doing. One of the difficulties involved in a big strategy decision such as this is that it is impossible to make it without some impacts. I simply give my hon. Friend my assurance that we will take all steps we can to minimise those impacts, inevitable though it is that there will be some.
Let me say two things about pollution. First, we made our decision on the basis of recommendations made to us by the Airports Commission, and subsequent work was carried out by the Government in the wake of more recent developments relating to emissions from motor vehicles. We are clear in our view that the expansion is deliverable within the rules, but the Government intend to go much further to tackle emissions from motor vehicles. The issue of NOx––oxides of nitrogen—emissions is much more about urban congestion than airports. It is something that we have to deal with, and we will have to deal with it much sooner than when we start to expand Heathrow airport in the next decade.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
This is a long-awaited and welcome statement. Heathrow is the right place for expansion to link with emerging markets—that is essential for our future economic success. How can the Secretary of State convince us that this really will be an integrated transport policy and that, at the same time as developing links with emerging markets, it will address critical issues of environmental concern, including air pollution? What can he do to convince us that that indeed will happen?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Lady makes two points. On connectivity, the plans for improved rail access around Heathrow will completely transform it as an integrated hub. The connectivity that HS2 will bring to Old Oak Common, Crossrail, the expanded Piccadilly line and the connectivity that south-west rail access will bring into Heathrow itself will mean it is much more of an accessible integrated transport centre than it has been, and there will be regional connectivity as well.
On pollution, as I have said, we had detailed analysis from the Airports Commission and, since then, from independent consultants. The Government’s judgment is that this expansion is deliverable within air quality rules but, as I have just said, we have a big task in this country to address the much broader issue of air quality. We cannot simply sit with the status quo until the middle of the next decade when this runway opens; we need to have made a big impact before then.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
I welcome the Transport Secretary’s statement. For my constituents in Esher and Walton, it will be absolutely critical to have tangible reassurances, including on legally binding limits for noise and air quality, the independent verification of both of those things, and a change of policy on flight paths from the arbitrary policy of concentration, which blights communities such as Molesey in my constituency, to a fairer policy of dispersal. Will the Transport Secretary guarantee to work with me to nail down those local reassurances for my constituents?
Chris Grayling
I am happy to give my hon. Friend those assurances. The thing that we share in particular across our two constituencies is the stack south-west of London. The changes that the airspace consultation heralds will change that fundamentally, leading to much less stacking and fuel wastage over south-east England. As a result, there will be less emissions from the aviation flying over south-east England, and I think that there will be a much better experience for my hon. Friend’s constituents.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The Department’s re-analysis of air quality involved a qualitative analysis of air quality showing that it was possible that limits would be breached in the areas around Heathrow when the third runway opened. Will the Secretary of State undertake to do a quantitative analysis before the consultation ends that includes real driving emissions and the contribution to air quality problems that the Volkswagen cheat devices have made? Will he give a cast-iron guarantee today that he will not use Brexit as a means of watering down our EU air quality targets?
Chris Grayling
On the latter point, the Government fully recognise that we have a duty to tackle this problem. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be bringing forward proposals on how we take that further in the future, and the hon. Lady will be aware that my Department has been taking more steps to support the move to low-emission vehicles.
We have carried out further work since the Airports Commission reported, as well as since the Volkswagen emissions issue emerged. It is still the judgment of my team and our advisers that the expansion can be delivered within the current rules but, of course, we intend to go much further than that. We cannot afford not to be much more transformational between now and the middle of the next decade. The problem is to do with not this airport, but our urban areas generally, and we have to deal with it.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
I know that it is going to take a lot more than a builder with a bucket of tarmac to do this as the project will involve an investment of not far off £20 billion. It will give a great boost to post-Brexit Britain, on top of the expansion at London City airport. Can the Secretary of State give me his best estimate of when the first plane will take off from the north-west runway?
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend and I share an aspiration to achieve that as soon as possible, but the working assumption is that the first plane will take off in the middle of the next decade. Perhaps we should have come to this decision a long time ago, but at least we are doing it now and we will get on with it as soon as possible. However, we have to do it in the right way and sustainably, taking great care of the surrounding communities.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome today’s statement, but for this to be a truly national policy, it has to include the interests of regional airports such as Newcastle, which is so important to the economy of the north-east. This is not just about infrastructure; it is also about taxation. Today, the Scottish Government are halving air passenger duty and they will abolish it by 2021. Will the Secretary of State urge his Treasury colleagues to address the question of air passenger duty for regional airports, because it could damage their ability to compete?
Chris Grayling
I know the importance of this announcement for Newcastle. When I made my statement to the House in October about the Government’s proposals, I went to Newcastle the following day and met its chief executive. There is clearly enormous support in that area for the expansion of the airport. On APD, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s comments will be noted by Treasury colleagues in the run-up to the Budget.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I thought that one Member who was seeking to catch my eye had exited the Chamber at one point during the statement, but it might be that I was experiencing an optical illusion.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Following the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), I should like to point out that the lethal combination of the new technology, the much more precise flight paths and the Government’s current policy of concentration rather than dispersal will lead to a disaster for the people who are right underneath those routes. It should be possible to use the new technology to create an artificial degree of dispersal, as happened before under the analogue systems. Will my right hon. Friend advance on this consultation with the knowledge that this is a very important issue to address for many of our constituents?
Chris Grayling
To be slightly parochial, I can say that those of us who represent Surrey constituencies are well aware of the issues around Gatwick airport and the flight paths that planes have been using there recently. My hope is that the consultation will lead to a system that will enable us to be much more careful about managing flight paths so that we can provide respite to communities and decide exactly how to handle approaches to airports, instead of having a rather haphazard set of flight paths. I can assure my hon. Friend that I think we will end up with a better system for his constituents and those in neighbouring constituencies.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I should like to ask the Secretary of State about certain references in the Airports Commission surface access strategic road network proposals, which were published by Highways England in October. The document includes proposals to widen the M4. The Government made a statement to the media two weeks ago to the effect that that would not go ahead, but the answers to written questions that I have received have not been so clear. Will the Secretary of State confirm that those proposals will not go ahead, and that there will be no land or property acquisition in Heston?
Chris Grayling
I can be absolutely clear about this. I saw those BBC reports. There is no plan to widen the M4, although there is a plan to create a smart motorway on the M4, as the hon. Lady will be aware. There is no plan that I am aware of—or that I have discussed in any way, shape or form—to start buying houses in her constituency for a wider M4, and I have not seen a budget for that either, so she can take it from me that there is no plan to widen the M4.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I commend and support my right hon. Friend’s statement. Will he give me an assurance that the rail link to Gatwick airport will continue to be invested in and upgraded?
Chris Grayling
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. He will be aware that the Government are bringing forward plans to fulfil Chris Gibb’s recommendation of spending £300 million on the route in the short term. We clearly have a modernisation challenge beyond that, and we are looking at how best we can fulfil it. The other issue for Gatwick is the station, and we are in discussions with the airport and Network Rail about what we can do with it. Ensuring that Gatwick has proper modern surface access for the future is also our priority.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I welcome the national airport policy, although I note the warning that aviation could become less convenient to use, lowering economic output. Unfortunately, many airports are turning themselves into long, tedious, meandering shopping malls, which inconveniences travellers. Glasgow airport, for example, has a quarter of a kilometre meander that not only hinders those needing to travel, but inconveniences people with mobility issues, particularly those going to gates for flights to the islands. I exclude London City airport from that criticism, but will the airport policy consider travellers as well as shoppers by at least providing a shorter route for them?
Chris Grayling
I know what the hon. Gentleman means—we do spend a lot of time walking through the shops—but the counter-argument is that shops are one of the factors that keeps the cost of aviation down, making it more accessible. I am unsure whether I can promise him fewer shops.
Chris Grayling
We will be holding a consultation on the national strategy, so the hon. Gentleman is welcome to make that point, which we will consider carefully. More important is providing better links through Scotland’s airports to Heathrow, and better links to his constituency from airports such as Edinburgh and Glasgow. That is important for better connectivity, which is why the proposal will make difference for him, too.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr Speaker, for reasons on which I do not need to expatiate. This is a matter of grave concern to my constituents and I want to pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who is no longer in his place—[Interruption.] Okay, he has moved to a different place. His point was about consultation and engagement with local communities, particularly in Surrey and the areas around Heathrow. That is vital for what is an excellent proposal. I just want to hear the Secretary of State reiterate his commitment to engage with local communities.
Chris Grayling
A few people have asked why we are holding a consultation at all. Quite apart from the statutory process, we want to hear from people how the proposal would have an impact on them. Regardless of whether Parliament decides that we should go ahead with the proposal, it is essential that, if we do go ahead with it, we listen carefully and, if necessary, refine it to make improvements for those communities. The airspace reforms also provide an opportunity to make a real difference to areas around the airport that are exposed to take-offs and landings.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I continue to support the third runway at Heathrow as the best option for my constituency in Sheffield, but given the delays we are still roughly 10 years away from the runway being up and running. In the meantime, Heathrow is running at around 98% capacity at certain times of day, and demand will continue to increase during that 10-year period. What are the Government’s plans to manage that increased demand over the 10 years before the runway opens?
Chris Grayling
The truth is that that is a constraint. There is still capacity around London’s airports, and there are some first-rate regional airports near the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The east midlands and south Yorkshire have access to good airports in Leeds Bradford and East Midlands, both of which have done phenomenally well in recent times and are providing more and more international links. However, we are constrained by the fact that the decision was not taken a long time ago, which is why we need to get on with it now.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I have written to the Secretary of State on numerous occasions, so he will know well that airspace management over parts of west Kent, particularly of night flights, is becoming a serious problem for many constituents. While you, Mr Speaker, can enjoy your nights undisturbed, my constituents sadly do not have that luxury.
Chris Grayling
That is an important point. I have been examining the issue and it is being dealt with in some innovative ways around the country. We will be able to glean from the consultation the public’s views on how we can best manage night flights to minimise the impact on communities. Being able to follow more exact flight paths will make a significant difference and will address some of the issues that I have seen in the many communications that my hon. Friend has received from his constituents that have been passed to me.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Since Cardiff airport was rescued from loss-making private ownership by a public-private partnership, it has earned a top environmental award and is now the fastest-growing airport in the United Kingdom, with passenger numbers increasing 16% last year. Will the Secretary of State welcome the Welsh Government’s purchase of the airport? The Airports Commission report says that connectivity will be improved between the regions and nations of Britain, so will he also guarantee that one of those links will be with Wales?
Chris Grayling
Cardiff airport has been a great success story, and I pay tribute to all those involved. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked about what will happen in the coming years, and we are fortunate in having some very good regional airports that can not only take up the slack in the coming years but will be a crucial part of our overall airport strategy in the future.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
As the Heathrow decision goes ahead, demand and inward investment in the west of England, bringing jobs and growth, will ever expand. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that our excellent west of England mayoral candidate, Tim Bowles, will be able to join me and colleagues from the west of England in expressing our views on joining the western main line to Heathrow?
Chris Grayling
As my hon. Friend knows, I have received extensive lobbying from his constituency and elsewhere, and from Tim, saying that that is an important part of what we are doing. Rail access to Heathrow will be a crucial part of ensuring that we can deliver the growth that we anticipate without having the impacts on the local environment that massively increased road traffic might generate. I assure my hon. Friend that we are working very hard on that.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I nearly missed the Secretary of State’s statement this morning because my train was cancelled, which is not an unusual occurrence—it happened yesterday, too. There are already strains on the rail network around Heathrow airport, the draft NPS commits to no net increases in journeys by road and TfL estimates that the cost of upgrading rail infrastructure to meet that commitment will be in the region of £19 billion. Heathrow has committed only £1 billion of those costs. The Secretary of State has told me that he does not accept TfL’s estimates, so what are his own estimates? Will they be funded by the taxpayer?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Lady and I had the same experience yesterday. My train was not cancelled but, as she is aware, a power failure caused problems on the route—that does happen, unfortunately.
Chris Grayling
It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman says that, because of course Network Rail is in the public sector and it was a Network Rail problem. On the subject of airport expansion and the importance of ensuring that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and in other affected areas we do the right thing for local people, I assure her constituents that we will work immensely hard to listen to their views in the coming weeks and to look at ways of minimising the impact of airport expansion. It is something that we need to do very carefully and with sensitivity to those communities, but I simply do not accept TfL’s figures. Heathrow airport will have an obligation to meet the targets that it has set, but I am afraid that TfL’s estimate of £19 billion or £20 billion is just plucked from thin air. I see no evidence whatever to support that estimate.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the broad thrust of the statement, given the vital role that Heathrow plays as the hub airport not just for London but for the whole south-west of England. Will the Secretary of State reassure me that there will be proper co-ordination between this airport strategy and delivering the type of infrastructure, such as a resilient railway and the dualling of the A303, that will be vital to making sure that this is a success?
Chris Grayling
I can absolutely give that assurance. My hon. Friend knows that we are now moving ahead with the development process on the A303. I have made funding available for the next stage of work to develop the right solution to the problems at Dawlish. Of course, the other thing that will benefit the south-west is improved aviation links. Newquay airport, which is a bit further west than his constituency, is one of the regional airports that will benefit from that increased connectivity.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Secretary of State wants 250,000 extra flights over one of the most densely populated parts of Britain—2 million people live in the area—but he has no concrete proposals for dealing with congestion, noise or air quality. How is he going to deal with diesel and other emissions? What about increased freight, which will go by road, not rail? Does he not know that the increases in public transport are already needed to meet local demand? Is he not just passing the buck to somebody else to solve these problems, and not for the first time?
Chris Grayling
No, I am not passing the buck to anyone else. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the plans for improved public transport connectivity around Heathrow, as I described, he will see that Crossrail, HS2, an improved Piccadilly line, the south-west rail access and the western rail access will entail the kind of transformation to access that Heathrow has never seen before. My belief is that, with tight commitments on the airport developers to ensure that they meet their promises, we can deliver this with lower-noise aircraft, a smart compensation package and benefits for the United Kingdom.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The economic case for HS2 is partly built on the fact that we would reduce the number of internal flights within the UK, yet reports suggest a dramatic increase in their number when Heathrow expands. Can my right hon. Friend clarify the position? What commitment is he making to expand regional airports so that they have international flights and people do not have to come to Heathrow?
Chris Grayling
On that latter point, if my hon. Friend takes a look at what some regional airports have achieved, he will see extraordinary amounts of international connectivity. I went to Bristol airport recently to open its expanded terminal building, which is going to serve more than 100 international destinations. Our regional airports are already a great success story, and this is meeting an additional need, not replacing what they do. The great benefit from HS2 is not only the connectivity it generates, but the capacity it releases. We have such congestion on the rest of our rail network. In his part of the world, HS2 alone will deliver thousands of extra commuter seats into Euston in the morning rush hour, in an area that is already heavily congested, by taking those express trains off the existing route. So the business case for HS2 is much broader.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
I welcome today’s statement and the comments that have been made about long, tedious, meandering shopping malls. I know the Minister accepts Northern Ireland’s uniqueness, but 60% of those who fly from Northern Ireland go to Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. I heard what he has said about Gatwick, but can we make sure that we expand and look after all those airports, so that this suits everyone in Northern Ireland and the other regional airports?
Chris Grayling
Absolutely, that is important. Those airports are all a central part of our future strategy for aviation and for transport generally. The expansion of Heathrow will have direct benefits for Northern Ireland—for example, Heathrow is recommending a route to Belfast City. It is important that we maintain the best possible links from Northern Ireland to our principal hub airport and through it to those international destinations which are important to businesses in Northern Ireland.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
One may wonder why a Member who represents the hills and valleys of mid-Wales should be speaking in this debate. It is simply because my constituents will benefit from the expansion of Heathrow. Therefore, may I ask my right hon. Friend to proceed as quickly as possible to development?
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend makes an important point, as the impacts of this proposal will be felt up and down the country. It will be felt in small businesses producing equipment for the new airport. It will be felt in colleges that are training apprentices to work on the new airport. It will affect the regional economies of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. He is absolutely right in what he says and I am grateful to him for his support.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
On jobs at Heathrow, would support for the right hon. Gentleman’s proposals not be strengthened if employers such as British Airways treated their workforce decently? He knows that the mixed fleet cabin crew dispute is still going on because this underpaid, mainly female, workforce are being treated appallingly by BA. Will he intervene and ask BA, “Why don’t you make an improved offer and settle this matter?”
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman makes his case well, but he would not expect me to become involved in a dispute of this kind. I simply say that I very much hope that BA and the union will be able to reach a resolution that is mutually acceptable.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
I welcome today’s decision, as I think it is the right one for the UK. However, the Secretary of State will be aware that on 23 January we had a black alert on air pollution in London, with 12 local authority areas signalling red alerts. That means there was toxic air, and this is at crisis point in London. If we are going to reassure the people of London so that they continue to support this decision, we need a much more comprehensive air pollution strategy, not the Government’s current plans, which the courts said are “woefully inadequate”.
Chris Grayling
We have, of course, taken careful note of the High Court decision and such a plan is in development at the moment, but we are doing things in the meantime. In the autumn statement, we released hundreds of millions of pounds of additional funding for low-emission vehicles, including low-emission buses, and more money for charging points. This is clearly something we have to deal with now. We have to find the right way to migrate the nature of the cars and other vehicles on our roads to a point where they are causing much less of a pollution problem than they do at the moment.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Very shortly, there will be a UK mainland airport from which passengers and their luggage will be able to fly directly into a UK international airport without any security checks on passengers or their luggage. The decision by Highlands and Islands Airports to remove security checks, particularly for Campbeltown into Glasgow, is an unnecessary relaxation of a system that has worked well. Were the Government aware of that, and are they happy to see passengers and their luggage flying into a major UK airport without undergoing the security checks that every other passenger and their luggage has to undergo?
Chris Grayling
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that to my attention. I was not aware of it but will look into it.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State may be aware that today the Scottish Government will pass their budget—an austerity budget that cuts £327 million from public services at the same time as slashing air passenger duty. Incidentally, the budget is supposed to go through with the support of the Green party. Will the Secretary of State tell me what assessment his Department has made of the legal requirement for air quality around Heathrow and other UK airports as a result of the slashing of air passenger duty in Scotland?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman identifies clearly the inconsistencies we all too often see in policies coming from both the Scottish National party and the Green party, and he makes his point articulately. On the emissions around Heathrow, as I said earlier, it is much more an issue of land transport—cars, buses, trucks and vans—than of aircraft. That is why we have to focus our efforts on dealing with the challenge on our roads rather than focusing on aviation. The issue will be dealt with and the pressure taken off Heathrow by our sorting out the issue on the roads.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
As I explained in the debate on triggering article 50 yesterday, many in the aviation sector think that Brexit may lead to the sector shrinking, thus negating the need for an additional runway. Given the fact that air service agreements lie outside conventional trade agreements and the ambit of the World Trade Organisation, will the Minister confirm whether any talks have taken place with the Trump Administration on a US-UK open skies agreement?
Chris Grayling
I can confirm that no talks have yet taken place, but I am expecting to meet my US counterpart in around a month’s time. Discussions took place with the previous Administration and there is good will on both sides to make sure that there is no hiatus in transatlantic air traffic.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I welcome today’s statement, particularly the talk about connectivity with HS2, which will of course be greater if we get an HS2 hub at Crewe. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, once there are three runways at Heathrow, the proportion of slots available to domestic traffic will remain at least the same as it is now?
Chris Grayling
I am looking carefully at how best to do this, because I do not want a situation in which we retain a proportion of slots, but they are always at 11 o’clock at night. It might not be simply about slots; it might be about getting the right mechanism to make sure that there is the necessary capacity to ensure that connectivity. I probably will not say simply that it will be x slots; we will want to make sure that the package is right to ensure the fair treatment of regional airports.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Secretary of State will know that 9,000 people have died unnecessarily in London because of poor air quality. Will he guarantee that, post-Brexit, the Government will not dump EU air-quality regulations? He did not give that guarantee in response to an earlier question from the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh). What will he do if the airport cannot be delivered within the legal air obligation limits—proceed anyway, change the air-quality objectives, or pull the plug on the runway?
Chris Grayling
It is very clear that the airport will not be able to secure its development consent order if it cannot demonstrate its ability to meet those targets. It is binding: it will have to achieve them. On the broader strategy, after we have left the European Union, the air quality standards in place in this country will be UK air quality standards, but it is not the Government’s intention to reduce air quality standards; it is our intention to deliver a strategy that cleans up our air, which we will do shortly.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State’s airspace policy consultation include new measures to protect the public from the danger of drones? Given the recent reports of airspace near misses, will he act now, before a tragedy occurs?
Chris Grayling
I can confirm to the hon. Lady that we are indeed consulting on the best regulatory framework for drones. I suspect that that will inevitably lead to some form of licensing for drones of a scale that could be a threat to the public and some limitations on where they can be used. We are listening to the views of the public, the drone development industry and others with a relevant interest to work out the best framework.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I, too, welcome the launch of the consultation. Will the Secretary of State commit to a vote on the national policy statement by the end of this year? I also welcome the inclusion in the statement of the fact that Northern Ireland will enjoy the benefits of Heathrow expansion. In the statement, he refers to six more domestic routes across the UK. Will he ensure that Northern Ireland is one of those?
Chris Grayling
It is certainly my hope and aim that we can have that vote by the end of the year, because I want to get on with this as quickly as possible. Belfast City is one of the airports identified by Heathrow as being a likely extra route, and certainly it is right that Northern Ireland should have a proper slice of this cake when it is there.
Business of the House
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week.
Monday 6 February—Consideration in Committee of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill (day 1).
Tuesday 7 February—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill (day 2).
Wednesday 8 February—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill (day 3) followed by remaining stages of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill.
Thursday 9 February—Debate on a motion on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories followed by debate on a motion on governance of the Football Association. The subjects for debate were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 10 February—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 20 February will include:
Monday 20 February—Remaining stages of the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords] followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 9 and 20 February will be:
Thursday 9 February—Debate on the sixth report from the Science and Technology Committee on smart monitoring of electricity and gas followed by debate on the effect of the state pension changes on working-class women.
Monday 20 February—Debate on e-petitions relating to a state visit by President Donald Trump.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
May I thank the Leader of the House for the statement? I note that we still do not know when the House is rising for the summer recess, so I ask him again to announce that date.
May I add the Opposition’s voice to your letter, Mr Speaker, and the letter from the Lord Speaker about a date for a debate on restoration and renewal? Members need to know what is going on and engineers and everybody else need to keep the House safe, so the sooner that we can have that debate the better.
Mr Speaker, you will not believe this, but on this day in 2004, Roger Federer began his 237th consecutive week run as world No. 1, and that record remains unbeaten. He has now won the Australian Open—possibly because you, Mr Speaker, interviewed him. Roger Federer has had longer to get to the final of the Australian Open than Parliament has had to debate triggering article 50.
This is not a democratic Government. The Government thought that they could trigger article 50 on their own, but the Supreme Court dragged them back to Parliament. The Prime Minister said that the Supreme Court did not tell them what form the Bill should take, but drafting the legislation is the job of the Executive. It is the Court’s job to interpret that legislation.
The Government produced a two-clause Bill, but they were clearly having a laugh, because in the first line, it says, “The Prime Minister may—”. They used the word “may” instead of, possibly, “must”. There is no discretion in this. In order to leave the EU, as the people of Britain have voted for, all the Prime Minister has to do is to give notice to trigger article 50; that is all article 50 is about.
This is a secretive Government who failed to tell Parliament about the misfiring of a missile. That is why Her Majesty’s Opposition has been asking for a plan from the end of last year and for a White Paper since the Prime Minister made a speech to Lancaster House—not this House—which will be published only today.
We cannot trust this Government, because the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union was among those who said that £350 million would go to the NHS if the UK leaves. That has now been proved to be incorrect, so how can we trust them now? That is why the Prime Minister has to report back to Parliament on the deals. Will the Leader of the House, in the interests of the British people and democracy, ensure that there is a vote on the final deal made by the Government so that we can protect workers’ rights and EU citizens, retain tariff-free access to the single market and all EU tax avoidance and tax evasion measures, consult with the devolved Governments and ask the Government to publish any impact assessments?
As the Prime Minister’s words yesterday showed, this is not the Government of the NHS. Could we have a statement on the Prime Minister’s response to the letter from 2,000 senior clinicians who said that they have reached unacceptable levels of safety concerns for their patients, and could that statement also say whether hospitals are operating at safe staffing levels? Will the Government publish a response from the Prime Minister to the letter from the Chairs of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Health?
Now we see the recklessness of the Government’s policies. They changed NHS bursaries, which has resulted in fewer people wanting to become nurses. It is the same recklessness that was shown by the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who now says that he regrets cancelling Building Schools for the Future. Tell that to the Joseph Leckie Academy in my constituency, which had its allocation cancelled; children now have to be sent home when it rains heavily. With 46% of schools losing funding under the new funding formula, could we have a statement on why the £384 million that was in the education budget has been clawed back by the Treasury? Schools deserve the money now, not in a budget giveaway.
The Leader of the House has failed to respond to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) about her Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, having said two weeks ago that he was not in a position to make a statement. Will he now state the position on that Bill?
The Speaker of the House of Representatives of Burma, Win Myint, was here last week at your invitation, Mr Speaker. Sadly, a key constitutional expert and lawyer for the National League for Democracy, Ko Ni, was assassinated in Burma this week. He just happened to be a Muslim. Will the Leader of the House ask the Foreign Secretary to do all he can to support the Burmese Government in their quest for peace?
Finally, it is World Cancer day on 4 February. Every hon. Member will have been touched in some way or know of someone who has been affected by the disease, so will the Leader of the House join me in thanking all the researchers looking for a cure? On Saturday, let us remember all those who have lost their lives to the disease, wish all those well who are currently going through treatment, and celebrate with those who have beaten the disease.
Mr Lidington
May I first associate myself with the hon. Lady’s words about World Cancer day? It is probably the case that there is no Member in any party of this House who has not been touched in some way by the case of a relative or a dear friend who has had to fight —sometimes successfully and sometimes sadly not—against this scourge. Like her, I would celebrate the advances of medical science, the skills of oncologists and others who diagnose and treat cancer, and the courage of cancer survivors and their relatives who give them such critical support. Let us keep in our thoughts and prayers those who have been bereaved as a consequence of cancer, and give thanks to those staff in the NHS, and in the voluntary and charitable sector, who work to provide specialist nursing care, including hospice treatment, to people who are having to face the end of their lives.
I turn to the other points raised by the hon. Lady. I want to be able to give the House some news, as soon as possible, on the summer recess and on the restoration and renewal programme, but I am not able to do so today. My understanding is that the Committee to consider the Bill of the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) has now been appointed, but has not yet met.
The hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) mentioned the European Union. I really do think that the line of questioning she pursued this morning was something of a distraction therapy to try to divert attention from the blatant divisions within her party, with different members of the shadow Cabinet and the Front Bench dropping off the perch with every news bulletin. For a two-clause Bill, the second clause of which is simply the short title of the Bill, two full days on Second Reading, including going to midnight on Tuesday, and up to three days in a Committee of the whole House, seems to me a perfectly reasonable allocation of time.
Let me turn to the hon. Lady’s points about school funding. The money to which she referred was allocated by the Treasury to the Department for Education explicitly for the purpose of supporting the full shift of all schools to academy status. The Government, having reconsidered that policy in light of public representations and representations in this place, altered their policy. Therefore, that money was not needed, since those schools were not going to transfer to academy status.
The hon. Lady’s point about Burma is well made. I shall make sure that it is passed back to the Foreign Secretary, but I can give her an unqualified assurance that this Government will continue, through the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, to work to support the cause of building democracy, human rights and community reconciliation inside that country.
Finally, the hon. Lady rightly paid tribute to the stupendous achievement of Roger Federer. It is not only tennis aficionados such as you, Mr Speaker, who will have cheered at his success. Somebody in professional tennis who is in their mid-30s is at quite an advanced age, and there is perhaps a message of hope to all of us that age is just a number and that we can strive for greater achievement whatever age we reach.
Mr Speaker
What a splendid note on which to finish. The man is an inspiration.
Mr Speaker
I do not wish to be discourteous to the Leader of the House, but I actually had Federer in mind.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
May we have a debate on the power of clinical commissioning groups in the NHS and the fact that they are unaccountable to the public? Is the Leader of the House aware that a clinical commissioning group covering part of my constituency plans to withdraw services from Bridlington hospital and Driffield hospital? That is not on account of cost, but the clinical commissioning group seems hell-bent on doing it, despite overwhelming public opposition. Does he accept that these plans are totally unacceptable? If we cannot have a debate, will he draw my concerns to the attention of the Secretary of State for Health?
Mr Lidington
I will not only undertake to draw my right hon. Friend’s concerns to the attention of the Secretary of State, but I can point him towards Health questions on Tuesday 7 February, when he may have the opportunity to question Ministers directly about this issue. Clearly, the details of the health service in his area are not something on which I would be able to comment, but the principle here is that clinical commissioning groups should engage in proper public consultation in their local area as they draw up sustainability and transformation plans for that locality. Ultimately, the local authority, through its health overview committee, has the right, if it believes that services are being wrongly and adversely restructured, to refer the matter to the Secretary of State.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week.
We like our anniversaries in this place, and I support everything the Leader of the House said about World Cancer day in a couple of days’ time. However, today is groundhog day. I know that most days seem like groundhog day in this place, and I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but I always seem to wake up to the news that another Labour Front Bencher has resigned—perhaps Punxsutawney Phil can get a place in the Labour shadow Cabinet.
Three cheers for the Leader of the House for finally getting the White Paper for the Brexit Bill; it has only taken half the time the Bill will take to go through this Chamber, but we have got it at last. Let us hope that it is quite close to the 650 pages we had in the independence White Paper, although I doubt that very much.
This is a Bill the Government did not want and that they are forcing through at breakneck speed, but they must be prepared to listen to the hundreds of amendments that will be tabled to it. I have noticed that in the programme motion there is no programming for a Report stage. That must mean that the Government will arrogantly reject every single amendment without proper consideration. Why are we not getting a Report stage on the Bill as it goes through the House?
May we have a statement on the Government’s intention regarding a second Scottish independence referendum? There is a piece in The Herald today from the Defence Secretary, who seems to rule out entirely a second Scottish independence referendum. We have just heard him on Radio Scotland, where he seemed to backtrack furiously on what he had just said. The Scottish Tories’ leader has said that it would be wrong to rule out a second referendum. Believe me, a Government with only one MP in Scotland telling the Scottish people that they will not have a say in their future could not be a bigger gift to the SNP.
I listened carefully to the response by the Leader of the House to several of my hon. Friends who asked about how EVEL would be applied to the great repeal Bill. He must totally rule it out now. We cannot have a Bill as important as this being considered by two classes of Member of Parliament in this House—one class of Member who has a say in everything, and then the Scottish Members, who can take part only in some of it. Believe me, that could not be a bigger gift to us either.
Mr Lidington
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s points about the EU withdrawal Bill, I have to remind him that, first of all, this House voted overwhelmingly for the referendum to take place and for the decision to be referred to the British people; and, secondly, only a matter of weeks ago the House again voted overwhelmingly to endorse the Prime Minister’s timetable for triggering article 50 before the end of March this year. The timetable on this two-clause Bill is designed to ensure that those objectives are upheld.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about Report and Committee stages, the purpose of Report is normally to enable the House as a whole to consider the Bill as it comes out of Committee, where it has been considered by a small number of Members upstairs. On this occasion, we have a full two days and time, if needed, on the third day for consideration of amendments by a Committee of the whole House. The hon. Gentleman is really asking for a further extension of the Committee of the whole House.
Finally, on the hon. Gentleman’s points about Scotland, the Prime Minister could not have been more emphatic, on numerous occasions at the Dispatch Box, in making it plain that we are determined to consult the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive about how their interests, and those of the people whom they represent, are affected by the process of withdrawal from the European Union and the negotiations on which we shall shortly embark.
The EVEL arrangements in our Standing Orders can apply only if three conditions are met: first, that the matter in question is devolved to Scotland; secondly, that the same matter relates to England only, or to England and Wales only; and, thirdly, that you, Mr Speaker, have certified the amendment or the Bill as falling within the definitions prescribed under our Standing Orders. Although I cannot possibly comment on a Bill that has not yet been published, it seems to me—given that international agreements are, under the Scotland Act 1998, defined as reserved, not devolved, matters—that the principles embodied in our Standing Orders ought to give the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues considerable reassurance.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
This week, three of the six district councils in Dorset voted to keep their own sovereignty and independence. Despite that, last night the chief executive of Dorset County Council announced that other councils in Dorset would apply for a hostile takeover. May we have an early debate on how to prevent ineffective and wasteful councils from seeking to seize by compulsion the assets and powers of their financially sound neighbours?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is moving on from the sovereignty of Parliament to the sovereignty of Christchurch. A number of us in the House are very aware that there are often different and competing views—shall I put it that way?—among different local authorities in the localities we represent about the possible shape of future local government reform. As I can see from your reaction, Mr Speaker, you and I are both extremely familiar with this dilemma. As my hon. Friend knows, his view and the views of other colleagues representing Dorset constituencies will be attended to very closely by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and I urge him to continue to ensure that the views of his constituents are forthrightly represented in that quarter.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May we have a debate about our so-called national airline, British Airways? The manner in which it is treating its workforce, particularly the mixed fleet cabin crew, is a disgrace. They are mainly women and they are low-paid, yet the airline is refusing to settle on the basis of a reasonable offer to them. Would not a debate enable us to expose how our so-called national airline treats its workforce?
Mr Lidington
Although that is obviously a matter for the company, trade unions and employees concerned, the Government hope that all employers take seriously their responsibilities to ensure that their workforce is fairly rewarded. I cannot offer the hon. Gentleman a debate in Government time, but this might be a subject on which to seek an Adjournment debate.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Last week, I attended in the House of Lords a meeting, organised by the Cross Bencher and human rights campaigner Baroness Cox, at which three very brave women told us their harrowing tales of how they have been treated and the impact that sharia councils have had on their lives. It is a disgrace that we have this alternative form of justice in our country. May we have a debate on that to make sure everybody in this country is treated equally under the same law and we do not have sharia councils treating women in such an appalling manner?
Mr Lidington
It is very important that all of us in this place uphold wholeheartedly the rights that both men and women have under the law of the United Kingdom, and emphasise that whatever private or community dispute resolution arrangements may or may not exist, the legal rights of women and men under law trump any such informal agreements.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
May we have a debate about the vexatious use of family courts by controlling and abusive ex-partners who seek to use custody as a way of harassing, intimidating and impoverishing people—often their wives—in order to continue the controlling, coercive and bullying behaviour that they exemplified throughout their relationship?
Mr Lidington
Like the hon. Lady, I have had cases in which constituents have come to me about that kind of harassment. There may be an opportunity for the hon. Lady to highlight the issue via an Adjournment debate. Ultimately, we have to accept that in individual cases we must rely on the good sense and professionalism of the judge who is presiding in the particular case to hear and make a judgment about the evidence put forward by the two parties and come to a fair resolution.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
Mr Speaker, if you visited my constituency, I would certainly take you to one of our three fabulous livestock auction markets. Alongside our livery yards and riding schools, they are key to the fabric of our rural community, yet their future is threatened by eye-watering rises in business rates. Will my right hon. Friend provide time in this House for us to debate why rural businesses are being so unfairly penalised?
Mr Lidington
In my hon. Friend’s relatively short time in the House, he has already emerged as a formidable champion not only of the Richmond constituency, but of North Yorkshire and rural businesses more generally. The position nationally is that the business rate revaluation will, overall, benefit businesses in rural areas across England, and no small property will have an increase of more than 5% from 1 April because of the transitional relief scheme. If my hon. Friend would care to write to me about the particular cases of the auction marts in his constituency, I undertake to draw them to the attention of the Communities Secretary.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
This week we spent 17 hours discussing the European Union, but we did not spend a single minute on the crisis in Yemen, where half the population are still starving. Last Sunday, President Trump authorised the first attack on al-Qaeda in Yemen, causing the death of one American soldier and 14 casualties. When can we have an update on the urgent situation in Yemen? We hold the pen at the UN on this subject. We desperately need a ceasefire. When can we know what is happening?
Mr Lidington
There will be questions to the Foreign Secretary on 21 February, which will provide an opportunity to raise Yemen. The right hon. Gentleman may wish to take other parliamentary opportunities available to him to focus on Yemen at greater length. The Government have never concealed the fact that trying to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict will be a difficult business. If there were an easy answer it would have been found by now. We continue to support the work of the UN special envoy on Yemen, who is striving ceaselessly to bring about the ceasefire that both the right hon. Gentleman and I wish to see. The Department for International Development continues to do what it can to bring humanitarian assistance to those who are in such need.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
This week, a petition raised by the parents of April Jones, who lived in Machynlleth in my constituency, reached 100,000. April was just five years old when she was abducted and murdered. The person responsible, Mark Bridger, is now in prison. The petition calls for tougher sentences for those looking at child pornography on the internet and greater control of internet search engines. Will the Leader of the House urge the Petitions Committee to bring forward an early debate on April’s law as soon as possible?
Mr Lidington
I understand completely the way in which this appalling and tragic case has shocked the community of Montgomeryshire and the wish of so many people to see this debated in Parliament. As my hon. Friend will understand, it is not for the Government but the Petitions Committee to allocate time to debate e-petitions, but I am sure the Chair of the Petitions Committee will want to consider carefully the case he has made.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
As the Government hurtle headlong into Brexit Britain, may we please have a debate in Government time on our future plans for international trade policy? The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are jet-setting around the world promising all sorts of deals to President Trump and President Erdogan, but the House has still not had the opportunity to discuss the principles that will underwrite future trade deals or the process we will follow to ratify them. Is this, as I suspect, just another example of Brexit-on-the-hoof without policy and without scrutiny by Parliament?
Mr Lidington
I would have hoped that, even while expressing her concerns, the hon. Lady might have paid some tribute to the energy and determination of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for International Trade ministerial team, who are actively seeking to ensure we have the best trading opportunities around the world after our departure from the European Union. There are questions to the Department for International Trade on Thursday 9 February—next week—but of course the Government have already had a number of debates in Government time on different aspects of our departure from the European Union. I shall make sure we look seriously at her case for a further debate focusing on international trade.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How will we use the time next week if you, Mr Speaker, do not select any of these ridiculous and impertinent amendments?
Mr Lidington
I think the procedure with regard to Committee of the whole House to a certain extent spares you that duty, Mr Speaker, because it falls to the Chairman of Ways and Means. He will, as always, be guided by the rules on order, and ensure that they are properly upheld.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating my phenomenally talented 16-year-old constituent, Ali, from Dewsbury, who has just rejected a multimillion pound deal for his latest business venture? Will the right hon. Gentleman facilitate a debate on how the Government can help other young aspiring entrepreneurs?
Mr Lidington
I am happy to join the hon. Lady in congratulating her constituent Ali. The more we can do to encourage young people not just to understand enterprise but to see setting up an enterprise and giving employment to others as their vocation, the better. I will pass on her case to my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, but I know that all parts of Government will want to ensure many more Alis in all our constituencies.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Excitement is mounting in Cleethorpes following the announcement yesterday of a visit next week from the northern powerhouse Minister. Earlier this week, the Humber local enterprise partnership held a showcase event here at Westminster, attended by four Ministers, at which the advantages of economic development in northern Lincolnshire and the wider Humber region were shown to the guests. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate on the success of the Government’s northern powerhouse policy?
Mr Lidington
I can see that even now crowds are sleeping out in the streets ahead of the ministerial visit and that Cleethorpes is scarcely able to contain its jubilation as the bunting is strung from lampposts. My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government’s approach to economic and industrial strategy is, in particular, to ensure that those parts of the UK that have not benefited from economic growth in recent decades in the same way as the more prosperous cities and regions are able to do so, and that certainly includes Cleethorpes and the other towns and cities in north Lincolnshire. I hope, for example, that there will be some beneficial spin-offs for the wider north Lincolnshire and Humberside region from Hull’s designation as this year’s city of culture. I know that Ministers are keen to champion my hon. Friend’s work.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The Government control the vast majority of business and time in Parliament. Considering the crisis in the NHS and the fact that every Member wants to raise the crisis in relation to their own constituency, can I propose to the Government that before Easter an entire week be exclusively dedicated to the NHS and the crisis in it? I would predict that even in a week we would struggle to find time for every Member to outline their concerns.
Mr Lidington
All Members, whichever political party they represent, follow closely the challenges and successes of the NHS, particularly in their own constituencies, and are keen to raise these matters with Ministers. There are Health questions next week. I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman a full week of debate, in the way he wishes, but I would point out that the Government are following through on their commitment to put into the NHS the money that NHS England itself said it needed for its transformation and reform plans. At the 2015 general election, his party refused to match that pledge.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the replacement of the pound coin in March? I am not convinced that the general public have been sufficiently informed that the coin as now constituted will not be legal tender in October or that the slots in vending machines will be able to cope with the new 12-sided coins.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a good point. On 1 January we launched a campaign to raise awareness and to encourage the public to return the current, round £1 coins. The message is clear: if someone has a £1 coin sitting at home or in their wallet, they need either to spend it or return it to their bank by 15 October, when it ceases to become legal tender. For some months we have been running a separate campaign to support retailers and other businesses in preparing for the new coin, so that slot machines, machines in car parks and so on will all have been altered.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
Why does the Leader of the House not come clean and admit that his failure to plan for a Report stage in the Brexit Bill means that he intends to turn down every single amendment from the 128 pages of serious amendments? That railroading—for that is what it is—means that the amendments that lie undebated and not voted on will be longer than the White Paper, which, by the look of it, is not substantial enough to stop a door, never mind start an international negotiation.
Mr Lidington
I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The reality is that he is opposed in principle to the Bill, and he seeks to argue that parliamentary procedure should be prolonged so that, in effect, we go beyond the March deadline for triggering article 50. The Prime Minister has set out the plans to be followed which this House has overwhelmingly endorsed. The question of how many amendments are selected for debate is a matter not for the Government, but for the Chairman of Ways and Means, who will decide which of the amendments are in order and which are not. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has studied the programme motion that we voted through last night, so he will have seen that it allocates time for the different categories into which the amendments that he described fall. We will have perfectly sound opportunities next week, during the three days that are available for debate, to go through all the amendments in sufficient detail.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
As chair of the all-party group for communities engagement, I refer to my letter to the Prime Minister and to the point I made to the Foreign Secretary earlier this week about the treatment of UK citizens at border controls around the world. Can we please have an urgent statement or a debate on that matter?
Mr Lidington
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are both reflecting on that issue carefully following the recommendations of my hon. Friend and the all-party group. I assure him that the Foreign Office and our network of posts around the world take up individual cases when they come to their attention. However, in the light of what he said, we will look at the case for a systemic procedure for recording such cases.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Yesterday, with the greatest reluctance, many Members genuflected to the authority of public opinion as expressed in a referendum. Will the House show the same respect to the unprecedented number of people who have signed two petitions since Saturday? Some 1,800,000 people have expressed their outrage at the prospect of President Trump enjoying a state visit here, whereas 200,000 have supported the invitation. Can we ensure that we show respect to people’s sense of horror by having not only a debate in the House, but a vote among hon. Members?
Mr Lidington
The unique feature of the EU referendum was that Parliament passed an Act that expressly referred the decision to the British people. I certainly felt that we were honour-bound to accept the verdict. As for the state visit by the President of the United States, of course people are free to express their opinions, and it is right that the Petitions Committee has allocated time for the petition to be debated. The Government take the view that a state visit is perfectly appropriate. The relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States of America—including with its elected head of state—matters to the security of our citizens and the geopolitical role of the west, as well as to our commercial and industrial interests. For those reasons, it is right that we should welcome the elected head of the United States of America in the way we have his predecessors.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to Susan Pollack, the noted holocaust survivor, when she addressed Belmont synagogue and a large group of year 8 students from across Harrow. She asked, “What do you think of when I say, ‘What does a Jew look like?’” There came no answer, yet we have heard about the publication today of the report from CST about the terrible, dramatic increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents. May we have a debate in Government time on that report, and more importantly, on what action they will take to stamp down on anti-Semitism?
Mr Lidington
The best thing I can say is that all of us, within the Government and outside, were appalled by the reported increase in hate crime. There has been progress in tackling that, but even one case is too many. We have published a new cross-Government hate crime action plan to try to tackle all forms of hate crime, but all of us across the House need to make it clear that Jewish people in Britain, like people from all communities, must be able to live their lives free from fear of either verbal or physical attack. In order to tackle anti-Semitism we need to implement effectively our strong legislation against religious discrimination and racially and religiously motivated crime, but there is also a responsibility on us all as individuals and as members of political parties—and people who have leadership positions in our constituencies —to make it clear in public again and again, if necessary, that anti-Semitism has no place whatsoever in this country.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
May we have a debate on property acquired by companies such as G4S in relation to the dispersal of asylum seekers? In my constituency an independent councillor, Mary Lanigan, has used that as an opportunity to spread hatred and to divide the community along the lines of race and religion by repeatedly using inaccurate phrases such as “illegal asylum seeker”. Her contact details have even appeared on an abusive letter that has been circulated to residents to whip up certain emotions, for obvious reasons. Can we have a debate on G4S properties and on the councillors’ code of conduct in relation to the properties being dispersed among communities?
Mr Lidington
This country has a proud history of granting asylum to people who need our protection. We are committed to providing safe and secure accommodation while applications from individuals are being considered. We are clear that asylum seekers should be accommodated only in properties that are both decent and safe. Home Office Ministers work closely with their contractors to ensure that those standards are met. Where a contractor falls short, we work with them to try to sort those issues out as rapidly as possible. If the hon. Gentleman would like to let me have details, I will pass them to the Home Secretary.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
Kevin Horkin, a Ribble Valley resident, has asked me to be a trustee of his charity, the British Pet Role Trust. High on its agenda is looking at legislation relating to the theft of pets. We know that is on the increase—BBC figures show an increase of 22% in the theft of dogs over the past two years—and some police forces do not properly collate that information. Part of the problem is that pets are seen as chattels and not as living creatures. May we have a debate on legislation relating to pets, so that we can get legislation on the statute book to protect them properly?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In this place we should never underestimate the affection that millions of our constituents have for their pets, and the important therapeutic role that pets often play by giving people companionship who might otherwise be at risk of great loneliness. I will refer his request to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but in the meantime my hon. Friend might want to pursue opportunities to highlight his concerns through the Backbench Business Committee or an Adjournment debate.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I am sure that the Leader of the House will wish to join me in congratulating Professor Peter Mathieson, who has just been appointed the new principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, and also pay tribute to Tim O’Shea, who has kept it in the top 20 of the world’s universities. Will the Leader of the House use the time for debate on the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill next week to look seriously at the Labour party’s new clause 6, which could give Professor Mathieson a real boost in his new principalship at Edinburgh University, by saying that EU nationals can not only stay and work here, but are very welcome?
Mr Lidington
I am very happy to congratulate Professor Mathieson on his appointment and Tim O’Shea on what he achieved during his tenure at Edinburgh University. I have visited the university myself and have seen what a formidable institute of learning it is. As for the hon. Gentleman’s point about the Bill, it is for the Chairman of Ways and Means, not the Government, to determine which amendments are selected for debate. However, the Government’s clear position is that we want to reach an agreement at the earliest possible opportunity in the negotiations that safeguards the rights of EU citizens here and, equally, the rights of United Kingdom citizens living in other EU countries. As is spelled out in the White Paper, on which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union will be giving a statement shortly, we want to ensure that our future relationship embraces opportunities for us to continue to benefit from the brightest and the best people coming to study at universities throughout the United Kingdom.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Following the announcement that the excellent Mid Wales Holiday Lets company in my constituency is a well-deserved finalist in the Wales business of the year competition, may we have a debate about the importance of holiday lets to our tourism industry and the regulatory environment that surrounds them?
Mr Lidington
Having enjoyed many family holidays in holiday lets in Wales, may I endorse every word that my hon. Friend says and congratulate Mid Wales Holiday Lets on being a finalist in the Welsh business of the year competition? The holiday letting sector makes a hugely important contribution to the tourism business in Wales and the United Kingdom in general. It is a key provider of employment and income, particularly in the rural parts of our country.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I understand that a debate on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between the EU and Canada has been scheduled for Monday next week. The Leader of the House is aware of the intense interest in the House about this controversial treaty, so can he explain why the House has been given so little notice of the debate and why it is not taking place on the Floor of the House, as the European Scrutiny Committee, under the excellent chairmanship of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), strongly recommended?
Mr Lidington
I do not think that the notification given is unusual in terms of the period of notice given for European Committee debates. Having had to respond to many of those debates over the years, I can say to the hon. Lady that having to reply to up to 60 minutes of questions in a European Committee is a much tougher outing for a Minister than giving a 10-minute response to a 90-minute debate here in the Chamber. Two-and-a-half hours are allocated for the Committee and 90 minutes are allocated for a debate on the Floor of the House. Nevertheless, as I said earlier in response to the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh), who spoke from the SNP Benches, I will additionally undertake to explore whether in future there will be the possibility of a general debate about EU exit and international trade, in which case the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) would have a further opportunity to express her views on the Canada deal.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
I was listening to “Good Morning Scotland” on Radio Scotland earlier this week. Lord Lawson was being interviewed, and I was struck by the fact that the interview was from his house in France. Can we have a statement on which Members of the House of Lords actually live in this country at a time when we are engaging in Brexit, the destination of which could mean that our citizens have fewer rights to work abroad, while citizens from the European Union living here face an uncertain future and will perhaps be unable to work?
Mr Lidington
The other House has its rules about the domiciliary status of its Members and it is for the House of Lords to police those rules. It was interesting during the referendum campaign to note that some of those who campaigned strongly to leave also took great advantage of freedom of movement. I hope that in the new arrangements between the United Kingdom and the European Union we will end up with a state of affairs where tourists travelling for long or short stays in each other’s countries can still proceed with as little hassle as possible.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
HSBC Bank has announced that it is closing its last branch in my Ogmore constituency, in the town of Maesteg. This will cause considerable upset and distress to lots of constituents, not only in the town but in the surrounding villages and communities. Can we have a statement or debate on the impact of bank closures on towns and villages across the country, and the need for banking to remain as local as possible? Does the Leader of the House also agree that “the world’s local bank” is perhaps becoming a little bit less local?
Mr Lidington
As I have said before at this Dispatch Box, I think there is a responsibility on banks, particularly when a bank knows that it has the last branch in a community, to weigh very carefully whether it should move towards closure. There are clearly commercial pressures as more customers, both businesses and individuals, move towards online banking. There is also a read-across to what the Government are seeking to do by bringing high-speed broadband to rural communities more quickly, because the more people in rural areas are able to have good-quality broadband in their homes or business premises, the more likely they are to take advantage of the opportunities of online banking, which people in the cities already have.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Most of the rights that workers enjoy, such as paid holiday leave and maternity and paternity pay, are protections derived from our EU membership. Given that the Conservative party has now styled itself as the party of the workers, can we have a statement to the House that sets out the Government’s guarantees, which have still not been given, on the continuation of those rights post-Brexit?
Mr Lidington
I have to say to the hon. Lady that I have sat in this Chamber several times now and heard the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union say in terms that we will protect workers’ rights. After all, some of those workers’ rights—parental leave, for example—go further in this country than those that are mandated under European law. I really think she should be careful before giving credence to these scare stories.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I was very disappointed to learn last week that an important funding bid for my constituency was rejected when the latest round of growth deals was announced. What was also disappointing was the lack of transparency about why the bid, which could have transformed Ellesmere Port town centre, was unsuccessful. May we have a debate to enable the Government to explain why investment in my community is not a priority for them?
Mr Lidington
With all those growth deal rounds, there have been more bids from local enterprise partnerships and local authorities than could possibly be met, given that funds are finite, however generous they may be. I suggest that if the hon. Gentleman seeks an Adjournment debate, he would have the opportunity to extract a detailed ministerial reply.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Will the Leader of the House make Government time available for a debate on the impact that Brexit has already had on some of my local businesses and others? They include a business that is having to scale back on expansion because it has been hard hit by the drop in the pound, one that is losing EU employees and another that is worried about the increasing skills shortages among teachers, doctors and engineers. Such a debate would also enable the Government to set out what their analysis of the impact of coming out of the single market will be on British jobs.
Mr Lidington
There will be opportunities next week, and certainly when the repeal Bill is introduced after the Queen’s Speech later this year, for all those issues to be explored. The Government’s objective, following the decision that the people took in the referendum, is to make sure that British businesses have the greatest possible freedom of access to, and freedom to operate within, the single European market, and that European businesses have the same opportunities here.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
May I return the Leader of the House to the question asked by my hon Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) following the earlier statement from the Secretary of State for Transport? We are still in the dark on the issue raised by my hon. Friend. May we have a debate on, or scrutiny of, the proposal to allow passenger aircraft to fly to Glasgow international airport with zero security checks? If security is to be taken seriously, it should be borne in mind that the knowledge that Barra, Tiree and Campbeltown airports will have zero security surely presents risks, and, more widely, makes a mockery of security provision at all airports.
Mr Lidington
I will ensure that those points are referred to the Transport Secretary, and will ask for a reply to be sent to the hon. Gentleman.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Schools in Cheshire West and Chester were already receiving £400 less per pupil than the national average before the Government recently slashed a further £4.2 million from our education budget, and that will rise to £6.4 million in the next couple of years. May we have a debate on schools funding, so that we can establish why the Government’s new fair funding formula apparently provides neither fairness nor, indeed, funding?
Mr Lidington
Obviously the hon. Gentleman is championing his constituency, but I think he overlooks the point that for many years schools in different parts of the country have received hugely differing levels of expenditure per pupil. The purpose of the new national funding formula is to ensure equality between children, and children’s opportunities, in those different local authorities. Furthermore, we will maintain the pupil premium, which is worth £2.5 billion this year alone and will provide extra support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. We shall only be able to continue to fund education at current or increased levels if we continue to have a strong economy, creating the wealth and economic growth that make such spending possible.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
May we have a debate about how we can keep Tory Front Benchers awake when important matters relating to Scotland’s future are being discussed in the House? I have received a number of emails and other communications from concerned constituents who were watching television last night and observed that the Deputy Leader of the House appeared to be taking a nap while my SNP colleagues and I were speaking. Does the Leader of the House agree that when the Secretary of State for Scotland cannot be bothered to attend such a debate, it is important for his colleagues to remain awake, no matter how dismissive they may be of Scotland’s interests?
Mr Lidington
I think my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House was concentrating hard on the words of the hon. and learned Lady and her colleagues, as he always does. I assure her, in all seriousness, that the Prime Minister has made it clear to every member of the Cabinet that she considers it vital for us all to have in mind, all the time, the interests of all parts of the United Kingdom as we approach the different aspects of the forthcoming policy negotiations.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Given what the Leader of the House has just said, is it not disgraceful that, according to this morning’s edition of The Herald, the Secretary of State for Defence has said that the UK Government will veto any legitimate demand from the Scottish Government for an independence referendum? May we have a debate in Government time on the question of where sovereignty lies in Scotland? Is it not the case that when the Government talk about taking back control, what they mean is taking back control from the people of Scotland?
Mr Lidington
If I recall rightly, what my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary said to The Herald was that respect works both ways. It is right for the Government of the United Kingdom to respect fully both the devolution settlements and the competences of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, and the interests of Scotland within the United Kingdom in reserved matters, including our European negotiations; but the Scottish Government, and members of the SNP, should also respect the verdict of the Scottish people in the 2014 referendum on the future of Scotland.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time about delays in universal credit payments? Claimants are waiting for at least six weeks, and those who are not paid monthly do not have a month’s salary as a cushion. People in low-paid, part-time or temporary jobs do not have savings to see them through, and are having to use food banks.
Mr Lidington
The virtues of universal credit are that it is a simpler system, with more generous childcare provisions, than the system that it is replacing, and that, for the first time, people will be given extra help when they are in work to make progress and increase their earnings. It will ensure that working more always pays more, and that people are always better off in work than on benefits.
Our purpose in introducing universal credit on a gradual basis is to identify and eliminate teething problems such as those described by the hon. Lady at a very early stage, and to put them right. If there are cases in her constituency that she thinks are not being addressed with sufficient speed, I ask her to let me know the details, and I will draw them to the attention of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions immediately.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Last July the Security Industry Authority launched a new IT system whose implementation led to difficulties caused by system defects. As a consequence, some applications are taking longer to process than they ought to. Constituency cases with which I have been dealing recently indicate that the problem is ongoing, and that a resolution has yet to be found. May we have a statement from the Home Office to update the House on the progress of this matter?
Mr Lidington
I do not know the details of the problems that are affecting the Security Industry Authority, but it is clearly important for it to be able to process applications swiftly and efficiently. I advise the hon. Lady to seek an Adjournment debate, but also to write directly to the Home Secretary with the details of what she has discovered. I am sure that there will be a full response.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Leader of the House will be aware of the issue of compensation for UK victims of the Libyan-sponsored IRA terrorism. He will also be aware of the indication that a private Member’s Bill would come to the House of Commons from the other place. May we have a debate in Government time on the progress of Her Majesty’s Government’s efforts to secure compensation for those victims, as was suggested by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), during a debate in Westminster Hall on 13 December?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman has been diligent in pursuing the issue that he has raised, and I fully understand why it is so important to people in Northern Ireland, but he will recognise that, given the present situation in Libya, this is not a straightforward conversation to have with the Libyan authorities. However, the Under-Secretary of State—who is the Minister for the middle east and north Africa—continues to pursue the issue. Foreign Office questions will take place in the next few days, and the hon. Gentleman may wish to raise the matter with my hon. Friend then.
Exiting the EU: New Partnership
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on the Government’s plans for exiting the European Union.
Today we are publishing a Government White Paper on the UK’s exit from, and new partnership with, the European Union. The Government have made clear that they will honour the choice made by the people of the United Kingdom. On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union—no, that is wrong. On 23 June 2016, the people voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. It is just as well that I corrected that; I should have read this first, shouldn’t I? [Laughter.] Don’t worry, we have two more years to go—two years of this!
The House is currently considering a straightforward Bill that will give the Prime Minister the authority to trigger article 50 of the treaty on European Union and begin the negotiation over our exit. The Bill is not about whether or not we leave the EU, or even about how we do so; it is about implementing a decision already taken by the people of the UK in last year’s referendum. However, we have always said that we will detail our strategic aims for the negotiation and seek to build a national consensus wherever possible. The White Paper sets out those aims and the thinking behind them. It confirms the Prime Minister’s vision of an independent, truly global UK, and an ambitious future relationship with the EU.
That vision is based on the 12 principles that will guide the Government as they fulfil the democratic will of the people of the UK: providing certainty and clarity where we can as we approach the negotiations; taking control of our own laws and statute book; strengthening the Union by securing a deal that works for the whole of the UK; maintaining the common travel area and protecting our strong historic ties with Ireland; controlling immigration from the European Union; securing the rights for EU citizens already living in the UK and the rights of UK nationals living in the EU; protecting and enhancing existing workers’ rights; ensuring free trade with European markets, while forging a new strategic partnership with the European Union, including a bold and ambitious free trade agreement and a mutually beneficial new customs agreement; forging free trade agreements with other countries across the world; ensuring that the United Kingdom remains the best place for science and innovation; co-operating in the fight against crime and terrorism; and, finally, delivering a smooth and orderly exit from the EU. Those 12 objectives amount to one goal: a new, positive and constructive partnership between Britain and the European Union that works in our mutual interest. All of them are key, but let me highlight some of the specific issues in the White Paper.
The White Paper reiterates our firm view that it is in the UK’s interest for the EU to succeed politically and economically. That cannot be said too firmly: we want the EU to succeed politically and economically. We therefore approach the negotiation to come in the spirit of good will and working towards an outcome in our mutual benefit.
We recognise the EU’s principle of the four freedoms, so the UK will leave the single market. Instead, we seek a new strategic partnership, including a bold and ambitious free trade agreement and a mutually beneficial new customs agreement that should ensure the most free and frictionless trade in goods and services that is possible. That will be to our mutual benefit. As the White Paper notes, we export £230 billion of goods and services to the EU, while importing £290 billion of goods and services from the EU every year.
The White Paper also sets out how, after we leave the EU, the UK will look to significantly increase its trade with the fastest growing export markets in the world. Although we cannot sign new trade deals while we are still members, we can prepare—we are preparing—the ground for them. This means updating the terms of our membership of the World Trade Organisation, of which the UK was a founding member—it was GATT, the general agreement on tariffs and trade, in the first instance. Modern free trade agreements require mechanisms to resolve disputes and to provide certainty for businesses on both sides, so the White Paper examines the precedents in this area and makes it clear that we will negotiate an arrangement that respects UK sovereignty.
We recognise the need to provide clarity and certainty wherever we can during a period in which some uncertainty is inevitable. We will therefore bring forward another White Paper on the great repeal Bill, which will lay out our approach in detail. This legislation will mean the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972, while converting existing EU law into domestic law at the point of exit. That means that the position we start from—a common regulatory framework with the EU single market—is unprecedented. This negotiation will not be about bringing together two divergent systems, but about finding the best way for the benefits of the common systems and frameworks that currently enable UK and EU businesses to trade with and operate in each other’s markets to continue when we leave the EU.
The White Paper also sets out that we will take control of our own laws, so that they are made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, and ensure that we can control the number of people coming to the UK from the EU. The jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the UK will come to an end. It will be for Parliament and the devolved legislatures to determine significant changes to reflect our new position.
I have said at this Dispatch Box that there will be any number of votes on substantive policy choices. To that end, the White Paper makes it clear that we expect to bring forward separate legislation in areas such as customs and immigration.
Delivering a smooth, mutually beneficial exit, while avoiding a disruptive cliff-edge, will be the key. A never-ending transitional status is emphatically not what we seek, but a phased process of implementation for new arrangements—whether immigration controls, customs systems, the way we operate and co-operate on criminal and civil justice matters, or future regulatory and legal frameworks for business—will be necessary for both sides.
As the White Paper says, the time needed to phase in new arrangements in different areas may vary. As one of the most important actors in global affairs, we will continue to work with the EU to preserve UK and European security, fight crime and terrorism, and uphold justice. We must work more closely, not less, in those areas.
We will continue to seek to build a national consensus around our negotiating position, so we are talking all the time to business, civil society, the public sector and representatives of the regions. We have engaged the devolved Administrations in this process. While no part of the UK can have a veto, we are determined to deliver an outcome that works for the whole of our country. We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the UK economy, covering more than 50 sectors —I think it was 58 at the last count—to shape our negotiating position.
To conclude, the referendum result was not a vote to turn our back on Europe. It was a vote of confidence in the UK’s ability to succeed in the world and an expression of optimism that our best days are still to come. Whatever the outcome of our negotiations, we seek a more open, outward-looking, confident and fairer UK that works for everyone. The White Paper is available on the Government website. I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Normally I would thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement, but this statement says nothing. A week ago at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that there would be a White Paper. Yesterday she said that there would be a White Paper tomorrow, and the Secretary of State now makes a statement saying that there is a White Paper, but as the White Paper was not delivered until a few minutes ago, how can meaningful questions be asked about it?
For months we have been calling for a plan; that was refused on the basis that there would not be a running commentary. Then the Government agreed to a plan but delivered a speech. They were forced to concede under pressure that there would be a White Paper, but now a White Paper has been produced too late in the day for us to ask meaningful questions of the Secretary of State in this session. That is completely unacceptable.
The first fight on Brexit is very clear: it is a fight about giving this House a meaningful role in holding the Government to account. The Government had to be forced by the Supreme Court to involve Parliament at all in the article 50 process. They have been forced to produce a White Paper, and they have been forced to concede a final vote. Before Christmas, the Secretary of State was standing at the Dispatch Box refusing to confirm that there would be a vote in this House at the end of the exercise.
The decision to leave was taken on 23 June last year. What matters now are the terms agreed under article 50, and the nature and extent of our new relationship with the EU. In her Lancaster House speech, the Prime Minister adopted a risky approach—a wish list with gaps, inconsistencies and an unacceptable fall-back position. Now we need time to debate this White Paper properly in this House and a vote on its contents.
On the question of votes, from flicking through the White Paper, I see that all that is said about the final vote, at paragraph 1.12, is that the final deal that is agreed will be put to
“a vote in both Houses of Parliament.”
We have tabled amendments for consideration next week that seek a meaningful vote—a vote in this House before a vote is taken in the European Parliament. Without such a vote, all hon. Members will have to watch on their screens the European Parliament debating our deal before we get to express any views about it. That is completely unacceptable and it demeans this House.
Finally, I note from a perusal of the White Paper that there is nothing that progresses the situation of EU nationals in this country. We have been calling time and again for unilateral action to be taken before article 50 is triggered, yet the White Paper disappoints on that front.
Mr Davis
Let me start with the purpose of the White Paper: to inform all the debates—not just today’s—in the coming two years. The shadow Brexit spokesman is exactly right: what matters above all else is not the amour propre of the Labour party or whatever, but the terms that we get for this negotiation. That is about the future of Britain, and it is what this House should care about first and foremost.
The hon. and learned Gentleman talks about a meaningful vote, but I have not yet quite understood what he means by that. I have been here long enough to have voted thousands of times in this House and I have never yet voted on something that I considered not meaningful. Every vote in this House is meaningful.
There will be a meaningful vote at the end. The hon. and learned Gentleman makes much of the time that this has taken, but I have been saying for a long time to the Select Committee—its Chairman is not here—that it was inconceivable that we would not have a meaningful vote at the end of this process.
The hon. and learned Gentleman’s last point was on EU nationals. I have a track record of defending the interests of people who are under pressure. Indeed, the last thing—pretty much—the leader of his party did was to go with me to Washington to get the last Brit out of Guantanamo Bay. I am not going to be throwing people out of Britain, and for the hon. and learned Gentleman even to suggest that is outrageous. Let me say this to him: I want the European Union nationals here to have all the rights they currently have, but I also want British citizens in Europe to have their rights. We owe a moral debt to EU nationals here, but we owe a moral and legal debt to the citizens of Britain abroad. We will protect both.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I deeply welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the White Paper, which is most emphatically in our national interest. Tomorrow, the Heads of Government of the 27 other member states will convene in Malta, where they propose to make a declaration about their vision for the future of Europe. President Tusk’s letter of 31 January does not bode well. Will my right hon. Friend encourage the 27 to recognise that by promoting ever closer, more centralised and unreformed political union, they are creating the very circumstances that they claim to want to avoid and depriving themselves of the trust of the citizens they claim to represent? They are effectively going in the wrong direction.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend has led on this issue for about 30 years and has always had an honourable, straightforward and insightful view of the European Union. We have said that we are going to be a full member until the moment we leave, and that means being a responsible member. We will exercise our influence over what we think is the best interest of the European Union until the moment we leave, because we want the European Union to be strong, stable and effective. In these times of difficult international relations, we need the EU as an anchor, and that is the policy that we will pursue.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. He is not a man of few words, but he is perhaps a man of few meaningful words. This is just another panicked U-turn. When it comes to European matters, it is not much of an achievement to be the second most chaotic party in the Chamber. The Government have had seven months in which to pull this together, yet we got the White Paper only a minute before the Secretary of State got to his feet to make his statement. I concede that he is more experienced than I am, but it is striking that we are getting the White Paper after Second Reading of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill and two sitting days before its Committee stage. How are we to question him about the White Paper when we are given it just before he gets to his feet? I believe that that shows an astonishing disrespect for Parliament. He would not have put up with this were he not on the Government Front Bench.
What are the Government afraid of? They do not want to give us any opportunity for scrutiny, so there must be something they are afraid of. They do not have the courage of their convictions. Scotland voted to remain as the blue in the red, white and blue Brexit, so are the civil servants having to pull together all these last-minute policy changes? The Secretary of State said in his statement that the devolved legislatures would face “significant changes”. Does that mean that a legislative consent motion will now be required? This is a mess; it is a bourach. It is going to have an impact on each and every one of us, and people deserve better.
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman says that this has taken seven months, but we have been in the European Union for 40 years. This is about reversing—well, not reversing but amending—and dealing with 40 years’ accumulated policy and law. He mentioned Second Reading, but that Bill will trigger the process. It does no more than to put into effect the people’s decision of 23 June last year, so I cannot see how he thinks the publication of the White Paper after Second Reading is problematic. There will be any number of occurrences in this House when the 50-odd Scottish National party Members will have a chance to hold the Government to account, to make their views known on policy, and to put forward the interests of Scotland, whether during the passage of the great repeal Bill or that of the other primary and secondary legislation that will follow on from it. I do not think he can complain about an absence of democracy in this respect.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. There is extensive interest in this statement, which I am keen to accommodate, but to do so will require brevity from Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike, especially in the light of the subsequent business, which is very well subscribed and to which I have to have regard. So it would help if we could have short questions and short answers.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for the White Paper. The complaints about it not being detailed enough and arriving only at the last moment are of course nonsense. The Prime Minister set out most of its elements in her 12-point speech, and those who missed that should go back and read it again. They will see that its points are all reflected in this document. I want to ask my right hon. Friend about migration. The key concern in academia and in the high added value, low volume areas is that they should get a much earlier statement about how flexible any future permit system will be. Will he take that a little further and say that those areas will see next to no change, and that it is the low value, high volume areas that we need to control?
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Needless to say, people who were not here at the start of the statement should not be standing. That goes without saying; it is an established feature of our proceedings.
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) is another Member of this House who has given a great deal of time and dedication to this issue. On migration, it is my job to bring the decision back to the House, but it is not my job to make the decisions thereafter. However, it is clear to me that the policies for controlling migration after our exit will be designed to further our national interest. Britain is a science superpower. We are the leading scientific centre in Europe, and as a result we will want to encourage the competition for talent to come here. The same will apply in finance, engineering, medicine and all the other areas in which skills are at a premium. We will want to attract those people, so we do not expect our policies to have any deleterious effects on industry at all.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said that we will have meaningful votes on a range of things. How can it be, then, that paragraph 8.43 of the White Paper commits us to leaving the customs union, which will have a devastating effect on manufacturing, without any analysis of the effects and with no impact assessment?
Mr Davis
Let me just finish my answer. The point is made in the policy paper that we want to have a customs agreement. That will follow directly as a result of the free trade agreement. If we are successful in getting low or zero tariffs in the free trade agreement, and no non-tariff barriers, we should succeed in getting a customs agreement that reflects that, and that makes it very straightforward to continue trading with Europe.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I think it would be wise to get to the end of the negotiations before we draw any conclusions on what conclusions we have come to. That would be the meaningful way to do it, although I think that those who use the word “meaningful” four times in a speech are being rather meaningless. The key point is that what we are after is the same thing that European Union members are after—arrangements that are good for them, good for us and good for the world.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is the aim of our policy. He is also right to suggest that, at the end, the House will be able to hold the Government to account and make a meaningful decision about the policy, but that will not be the only opportunity. There will be many points along the way when we will debate every policy issue that arises from the process—from customs agreements to immigration. The House will be very much in control of that.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
In the 60 seconds that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) had to look through the White Paper, he was spot on to zone in on the obfuscation on page 11 about the lack of a meaningful vote for Parliament at the end of the process. There is no point in having a vote after the Secretary of State has already signed things off with the European Union, treating Parliament as some sort of afterthought. Will he rule out now the Government showing such contempt for Parliament?
Mr Davis
This is my sixth statement to the House in less than six months—[Interruption.] Let me finish. The House will have the opportunity to vote on any number of pieces of legislation before we get to the end and then will have a vote to decide whether what it gets is acceptable. I cannot see how it can be made more meaningful than that.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
On page 49 of the White Paper, the Government state:
“We have an open mind on how we implement new customs arrangements with the EU”.
It is important to be admirably clear so that everyone knows where we stand, so will the Secretary of State confirm for the avoidance of doubt that we are not only leaving the EU and the single market, but definitely leaving the customs union?
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I welcome the principles in the White Paper, particularly around protecting and enhancing existing workers’ rights. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is nothing to negotiate with the other EU countries on workers’ rights because they already exist in our law and will be protected? The people who have been going around saying that such rights are threatened should be told that they are not.
Mr Davis
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The Government’s approach is to maintain every single piece of employment protection that exists now, which incidentally is much better than that of most European countries, and to enhance it. There should be no concern about that at all.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I urge the Secretary of State to give priority to the matters in chapter 6 of the White Paper on securing the rights of EU nationals. I have in mind a constituent who is an EU national and who has sadly been receiving cancer treatment for many years. I am anxious to be able to give her certainty as soon as possible that she will continue to have access to the NHS.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
“The end is not yet and the best is yet to be,” is a benediction that any Presbyterian on the Ulster Bench will welcome—even the Wee Frees who have clambered on at the end. I welcome the White Paper that the Secretary of State has produced today, in particular the three chapters that refer to the Union, to strengthening the relationship with the Republic of Ireland and to fighting and combating terrorism. Is he familiar with the commentary of Dr Ray Bassett, the former Irish ambassador and diplomat? He made it clear that Ireland’s position should now be about forging a new relationship with the United Kingdom, because the other 26 parts of the EU do not really listen to Ireland.
Mr Davis
I am not familiar with that commentary, but I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s view about the chapter on the relationship with Ireland. One of the most important parts of the last seven month’s preparation has been striking a relationship with Ireland that ensures that we underpin the peace process, maintain the stability of Northern Ireland, keep an open border, and so on. It is incumbent on the British Government to be as helpful as we can to the Irish Government because they are in the most difficult position, so that is what we are doing.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Paragraph 8.43 of the White Paper makes it clear that we want to leave the customs union so that we can negotiate free trade agreements “around the world.” If we leave the customs union, we will be bound by an external tariff unless we negotiate otherwise. Is that the correct position?
Mr Davis
Generally speaking, a most favoured nation arrangement applies under WTO rules, but countries are generally allowed to make free trade agreements at whatever level they seek. We want to ensure that as many of the existing EU free trade agreements carry straight over, which will also be lower than MFN rates.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Given the old-age dependency ratio and its importance for the public finances and given the absence of the concrete information in paragraph 5.9 of the White Paper, what level of net migration to our country does the Secretary of State anticipate across future years?
Mr Davis
The Government’s policy is that migration will be at a sustainable level. The point to understand here is that such decisions are made on a year-by-year basis. It is not Government policy to make the British economy suffer as a result of labour or talent shortages or anything else. It is perfectly proper for a Government to want to control their own migration policy and not leave it open-ended. The solution to the problem the hon. Lady cites is not just not managing the problem.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
When the Government serve notice on the European Union under article 50, will they take that opportunity to frame the negotiation by making it clear that we expect to agree the framework of our future relationship, as specified in article 50? Otherwise, we will effectively be negotiating the divorce arrangements in the dark, and the European Union would not be observing the principle of sincere co-operation.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend refers to the need to negotiate ongoing arrangements in parallel with the departure arrangements. As he says, article 50 refers to having regard to ongoing arrangements, and a negotiation on departure arrangements cannot be concluded before the ongoing arrangements have been concluded. I have already made that point to Michel Barnier, my opposite number, and I think the Prime Minister has made that point to a number of her opposite numbers around the European Union. This will be the first issue that we need to resolve at the beginning of the negotiations, so my hon. Friend is quite right.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Will Parliament get a vote on the Government’s intended final deal before the deal is struck with the European Union?
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
I want to put it on the record that I am extremely pleased that the White Paper has been published, and I thank the Secretary of State and his team for listening to hon. Friends and our calls for a White Paper. Will he join me in sending a message to my constituents to feed in their views? In the spirit of listening to his hon. Friends, will he also clarify whether the Government will consider formal reporting back to the House?
Mr Davis
I am not quite sure what my hon. Friend means by formal reporting. I have visited the Exiting the European Union Committee once and will be appearing in front of it again, and this, as I said, is my sixth statement to the House. We come to the House at every possible opportunity to tell Members what is going on. There will be subsequent debates, including substantive debates on policy. There will undoubtedly be other Brexit debates—more are planned already—so there is no question that the House will not be fully informed. That we are somehow not paying attention to the Opposition is an illusion—a chimera—that they like to run out. We have given them a White Paper and answers about the customs union and the single market. I do not know how much more open I can be without being dissected.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Government seem to be in a constant state of delayed reaction, but we finally have the White Paper. It contains a statement on strengthening trade with the world that reads like a tweet, and a conspicuous amount of space that is totally blank. Does that reflect the Government’s thinking on Brexit?
Mr Davis
The Government’s thinking on Brexit is very clear. If someone disagrees with it, that does not mean that it does not exist. That is the problem that SNP Members have had all the way through this process. They just do not like it—[Interruption.] Sure, half a page is blank. Wonderful. I think that is the case in every book I own.
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I welcome the White Paper and hope that it heralds unity both in our party and in the country on our approach to leaving the European Union. May I therefore commend to all Members yesterday’s speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)? He was the epitome of grace and magnanimity.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State accept that the best way to continue the benefits of the common systems and frameworks that enable UK and EU businesses to trade would be to stay in the single market and rejoin the European Free Trade Association? Does he also accept that, for UK businesses to have continued access to the single market, there will need to be mechanisms to ensure that UK regulations do not diverge from EU regulations? Can he explain what happens to sovereignty then?
Mr Davis
The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s first question is no, because, again, membership of EFTA would put us within the reach of European regulations and the European Courts. Frankly, that would take away what influence we do have. We have laid out in the White Paper what is the best relationship, which is a customs agreement and a free trade agreement. Bear in mind that we are starting from a position of identity. He makes a good point about maintaining that identity, and we will publish proposals on that in due course, but this is what we are going to do. It is perfectly possible to go the route I am talking about without rejecting the decision of the British people on 23 June last year.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend inform the House of how the legislation, and the White Paper in particular, will hopefully help to protect and enhance Gibraltar’s unique position and of the progress he is making towards a free trade deal between us and Gibraltar? I understand that such a deal can happen before we leave the EU.
Mr Davis
The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), gave evidence to the House of Lords on precisely that—indeed, on all the dependent territories—and it can be taken as read that we will rigorously protect their interests.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State observes that the UK was a founding member of the WTO, but he forgets that we were the driving force behind the completion of the single market. Does he understand how angry British business is that he has abandoned the single market before negotiations even start?
Mr Davis
In these debates, membership of the single market and access to the single market are often conflated. What British business wants is unfettered access, and what German, French and Italian business wants is unfettered access to our market. That is what we seek to produce.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Can the Secretary of State confirm that we will be coming out of the Prüm framework and building a new relationship on data sharing to fight crime and terrorism that ensures that my constituents’ most personal data are no longer subject to the ECJ?
Mr Davis
As we are coming out of the European Union, that will happen almost by definition, but that is not to say that we will not be making new arrangements. The Prüm framework covers data exchange, DNA and so on, and it is very clear in our minds that we will be making new arrangements to keep terrorism, crime and so on under control. We will no doubt protect my hon. Friend’s constituents from the ECJ.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Local Government Association has been asking for meetings with Ministers about the impact of these processes on councils and on how more powers can be devolved, yet in the Secretary of State’s statement I did not hear a single reference to local councils. I cannot see a single reference in the White Paper, having read through it very quickly. Will he now commit the Government to having meaningful discussions with the LGA, and will he commit to the principle of subsidiarity, too?
Mr Davis
There is only so much I can do in a limited statement. The Minister of State has already met the LGA, and he has sent out invitations to local councils so that he can talk to them. In the last statement, or maybe in the one before, I said that I am willing to meet the mayors of the various regions of the country after they are elected in the next round. It must be taken as read that we are not putting the regions to one side. The very first public meeting I had after becoming Secretary of State was with people in Blackburn, Lancashire.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
There are three British ambassadors in Brussels. Does my right hon. Friend think that the staff of our ambassador to the European Union will be enhanced, or indeed might his post be scrapped, after we leave the European Union?
Mr Davis
I assume that my hon. Friend is talking about our permanent representative to the European Union, who has 120 brilliant staff, and they all work for me. I do not know what our representational arrangements will be, but he is referring to an ambassador to Belgium, an ambassador to NATO—I assume—and an ambassador to UKRep. We will undoubtedly have close relationships with the European Union thereafter, so it will be a pretty sizeable embassy I should think, but it will not be what it is now.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Our current membership of the single market is governed by the European economic area agreement. The Government contend that we are a member of the EEA by virtue of our membership of the EU—that may or may not prove to be the case—but can the Secretary of State be clear about the implications of our domestic legislation in that regard, specifically the European Economic Area Act 1993? Will the Government repeal that Act? If so, when? Will we get a vote?
Mr Davis
As it stands—as far as I can see, having gone through this quite carefully—once we are outside the EU, the question of whether we automatically cease to be a member of the EEA becomes a legal empty vessel. We will look at that. If we do propose to withdraw from the EEA, we will come back and tell the House.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
When European subjects have come to my surgery to talk about their rights, they have left in agreement that those rights must go hand in hand with the rights of UK subjects living in their own country. I hope the Secretary of State has got the message.
Mr Davis
I have got the message and, incidentally, so have the leaders of most of the countries with the most people here. They also understand that we have to protect the rights of British people at the very same time as we protect the rights of their citizens. There is no question that it is not going to happen. The question is when it will happen, and we are trying to do it as quickly as possible.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
We welcome the White Paper, particularly chapter 4 on our links with Ireland, including on trade, security and the wish for unfettered access, but at the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs this week a customs specialist said that, for trading in goods, there will have to be border points either between Northern Ireland and Ireland or, much worse, between Scotland and England and the island of Ireland. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that we are not going to have hard borders of that type?
Mr Davis
We are not going to have hard borders. I will take the question on two different levels. First, the common travel area has existed since 1923 and, in that respect nothing will change. On goods, there will be the softest, most invisible and most frictionless border we can find. There is a lot of technology these days, ranging from automatic number plate recognition through to the tagging of containers, with trusted trader arrangements across the border, and such things operate between Norway and Sweden, the US and Canada, and so on—countries with very amicable relations and very open borders—and we will do the same with Ireland.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The White Paper is an impressive document, for which I thank the Secretary of State—the Venn diagram on page 48 is particularly insightful. He will know that the European Union has concluded a pathetically small number of free trade agreements with other countries, but there are some. Will he confirm that there will either be a continuity arrangement with those countries on Brexit or that the agreements will be the basis for an accelerated relationship with those very few countries?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade has already been in touch with the most important countries to us—South Korea and others like it—and they all seem very keen both to maintain grandfather rights and to improve on the deals and make them much more tailored and specific to both our interests.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
The White Paper says that the great repeal Bill
“will preserve EU law where it stands at the moment before we leave the EU.”
The White Paper goes on to say that it foresees two pieces of primary legislation, but that:
“There will also be a programme of secondary legislation under the Great Repeal Bill to address deficiencies in the preserved law”.
What deficiencies does the Secretary of State have in mind?
Mr Davis
As the great repeal Bill will pass through European law—the acquis communautaire—in its original wording, it might refer to European institutions when it should refer to British institutions. For example, it might say that local government has to publish its procurement contracts in the Official Journal of the European Union, which would no longer be appropriate—it would be more appropriate to publish them on the Government website. Secondary legislation will be principally aimed at such technical concerns. Major areas of policy change will primarily be addressed in primary legislation, which is why we cited those two examples.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s constructive approach. In that light, I draw his attention to a report by the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which highlighted European businesses’ financial reliance on the City, expressed concern if that access were to be disrupted and urged negotiators to approach the issue in a constructive and open fashion.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Remarkably, the White Paper does not contain a single reference to Eurojust or any real indication of our future co-operation with the EU on criminal justice matters. That raises the question: if something so significant has been omitted, what else is missing? Never mind a White Paper, this is a lightweight paper.
Mr Davis
The hon. Lady worked hard to get her soundbite out. The White Paper contains a whole section on justice and home affairs, and we have made it very plain, over and over again—I even said this in my statement at the beginning—that we intend to maintain closer co-operation with Europe, not have less co-operation, on security, crime and intelligence matters. We must understand that Europe has a great deal to gain from this, because we are the intelligence superpower in Europe—we have the most powerful intelligence agencies—and therefore on things such as tackling crime and terrorism we are very important to them, as we think they are to us, too.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Significant discussion has already taken place between the Prime Minister and the Welsh Government following last June’s referendum, and there has been discussion in the Welsh Parliament, and I very much welcome that. In the interests of UK unity, Wales’s interests must be taken into account, including through discussion of this White Paper. Will the Secretary of State guarantee Wales’s involvement and that it will continue to feature in all our discussions? We accept, of course, that there can be no veto.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says, and this has been our approach. We have had a number of meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee, two of them chaired by the Prime Minister and three of them chaired by me. We have been to Wales to see the Welsh Government to talk about some of these issues. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State is appearing before the Welsh Parliament—
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
The Committee.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
If we are leaving the single market and the customs union, will the Secretary of State give a guarantee to my workers at Ford and at Tata Steel, who make the steel for Nissan cars? Two thirds of both Ford and Nissan cars are exported to the EU, so will he guarantee that they will have tariff-free access to the EU markets? Or is this only a promise to negotiate and seek?
Mr Davis
This is a negotiation, but if the hon. Lady reads the White Paper, she will see that it sets out that European exports of goods and services to us total £290 billion, whereas ours to them are worth £230 billion. So they clearly have a strong interest—as strong an interest as we do—in tariff-free goods access, because for them goods are a much bigger part of it as well. The disparity is more than £60 billion, so there is every reason to expect that we will succeed in what we are intending to do, which is protect the jobs of her constituents.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will recall that at last week’s Brexit questions I asked about the seafood sector, and I can tell him that it will be particularly pleased with the comment in paragraph 8.16 giving it full support. However, he will also be aware of the long-standing grievance of the fishing communities up and down the country following their being sold out in the original negotiations. Will he reiterate yet again that that will not occur on this occasion?
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Secretary of State makes much of the process and joked that we might be at this for another two years, yet in that time the unelected and unaccountable House of Lords will have more influence on the implementation of the White Paper, and the negotiations and relationships that we must forge for trade agreements, than the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. How does that strengthen the Union?
Mr Davis
That is simply not the case. As I just said, we have regular monthly meetings with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive—when they are in play—and we are taking what they say very seriously. We will not agree with everything they say, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. The Scottish Government’s paper was presented at the last meeting and there were areas of agreement on employment protection and on environmental protection, but disagreement on the concept of a “carve out” on the single market and a discussion about how the devolution would work. That hardly constitutes not paying attention to the Scottish Government.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
I welcome this White Paper and I am glad the Government have listened to Members. EU nationals play a vital part in our universities, workplaces and families. Although I support the need for some control on freedom of movement, will he ensure in negotiations that workers, students and family members find that our borders remain open if they are from the EU? After all, control does not mean arbitrary restrictions.
Mr Davis
Absolutely, control does not mean slamming the door. As I said, it is in the UK’s interest to keep attracting talent, and if we attract talent, we attract the families—that goes without saying. Earlier, I was asked whether I could promise something that is to be negotiated, but this is something we will decide in this House, for the first time, in a couple of years’ time.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
One crucial and reasonable question for the Secretary of State to answer is: how does he see frictionless, unfettered trade with the EU continuing after we have signed free trade deals with other countries? Surely the greater the divergence between ourselves and the single market in external tariffs and standards, the greater their need at some point to impose customs checks on us.
Mr Davis
Obviously, we need to seek to maintain some sort of standard parity, be it by a measure of equivalence or by something else, depending on the product. The area where the deals outside and the deals with the European Union conflict is on rules of origin. We will have to have a good rules of origin scheme, just as any other free trade area has. For example, the Canadian treaty has specific rules of origin and we will need to do the same. But that is a very small burden by comparison with the sorts of things people are worrying about, if we get the customs agreement we seek.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
When, if ever, does my right hon. Friend think the EU will issue an equivalent White Paper, setting out with equal clarity the agreed negotiating objectives of the 27 other members?
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
I know that today is groundhog day, but why are we exiting the customs union in order to recreate the customs union?
Mr Davis
It is to create a customs agreement; it is in order to enable us to develop free trade agreements with that huge portion of the world where there is very fast growth and we have a strong market presence. Some 40% of our trade, or as much as we have with the EU, is with areas where we do not have free trade agreements. So this is a very large area and it is growing, sometimes twice as fast as the EU is. We are taking this approach for the future opportunities. People often talk about the implications of the referendum for young people, but the biggest implication is the prospect of jobs in the future, many of which will come from global markets, not just European ones.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
A lot of the politicians in EU states say that they are against torture, but do they not recognise that the fact that they are not willing to come to a deal with my right hon. Friend about EU citizens being allowed to stay, live and work here and British citizens being allowed to stay, live and work in the EU countries is a form of mental torture and trauma that they are perpetrating upon them? Will he redouble his efforts to get this deal done as quickly as possible and to make the announcement as quickly as possible? If only one or two countries are holding out, for whatever reason, will he be prepared to name and shame them, so that their citizens here can bring pressure upon them to get that deal done?
Mr Davis
I will certainly do the first half; I will certainly redouble my efforts, although they are pretty intense in any case, to ensure that this happens quickly. My hon. Friend is right that we are talking about just a few countries. I suspect their reasoning is the communautaire reasoning of not starting anything before the negotiations start, and I hope this will be rapidly resolved thereafter.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does not the fact that so many Members from both sides of the House who wanted us to remain in the European Union nevertheless last night voted to trigger article 50 set a fine example that Members of the unelected upper House would do very well to follow?
Mr Davis
I was sitting there calculating whether my right hon. Friend’s question today was longer than his speech yesterday, and I think it was.
Yes, I hope Members in the upper House do pay attention. The Bill is a manifestation of the will of the people—nearly 17.5 million people—and I would expect the upper House, which quite properly has its place and its rights, to respect that will.
NHS in England
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Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
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Mr Speaker
We now come to the Select Committee statement. In a moment, the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee of the House, Mr Bernard Jenkin, will speak on this subject for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, the Chair will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement, and call Mr Jenkin to respond to these 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.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to present to the House the seventh report of PACAC this Session, “Will the NHS Never Learn?”, a follow-up to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on the NHS in England, “Learning from Mistakes”.
Over the past decade, written complaints regarding NHS services have doubled, from just over 95,000 in 2005-06 to more than 198,000 in 2015-16. Investigations into such complaints have frequently failed to identify the root causes of any mistakes that occurred. Even more frustrating is that they have failed to prevent the same mistakes from being repeated over and over again, despite multiple reports highlighting that as a critical issue from both the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I chair.
In its report “Learning from Mistakes”, which was published last year, the PHSO highlighted the fear of blame that is pervasive throughout the NHS. That fear drives defensive responses and inhibits open investigations, which in turn prevents NHS organisations from understanding what went wrong and why. That also undermines public trust and confidence, because the public can see that NHS organisations are failing to learn from mistakes—if they did, that would drive improvement. A combination of a reluctance on the part of citizens to express their concerns or to make complaints, and a defensiveness on the part of services to hear and address concerns, has been described by the PHSO herself, Dame Julie Mellor, as a “toxic cocktail” that is poisoning efforts to deliver excellent public services.
To further understand the issues and what more needs to be done to tackle them, PACAC recently undertook its inquiry, which followed up on the PHSO’s “Learning from Mistakes” report. In PACAC’s report, which was published earlier this week, we conclude that if the Department of Health is to achieve its policy of turning the NHS into a learning organisation, it must integrate its various initiatives to tackle the issue and come up with a long-term and co-ordinated strategy. That strategy must include a clear plan for building up local investigative capability, as the vast majority of investigations take place locally. We will hold the Secretary of State for Health accountable for delivering the plan.
PACAC’s report also considered the potential impact of the new healthcare safety investigation branch, which is in the process of being set up. The creation of HSIB, as it is known, originates from our recommendations as the Public Administration Committee in 2015. The Government accepted our recommendation, and HSIB is due to be launched in April. It will conduct investigations into the most serious clinical incidents, and is intended to offer a safe space to allow those involved in such incidents to speak openly and frankly about what happened. In so doing, it is hoped that HSIB will play a crucial role in transforming the expectation and culture in the NHS from one that is focused on blame to one that emphasises learning. It should be a key part, albeit only a part, of the wider strategy that we want the Government to adopt.
Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go if the Department of Health’s aim of turning the NHS into a learning organisation is to be achieved. Most importantly, HSIB is being asked to begin operations without the legislation necessary to secure its independence and ensure that the safe space for its investigations is indeed safe. That undermines the whole purpose of HSIB. It is essential that the Government introduce the necessary legislation as soon as possible.
To ensure that the learning produced from HSIB’s investigations leads to an improvement in standards, PACAC also reiterates its previous recommendations, made in our 2016 report, “PHSO review: Quality of NHS complaints investigations”, that the Government should stipulate in the HSIB legislation: first, that HSIB has the responsibility to set the national standards by which all clinical investigations are conducted; secondly, that local NHS providers are responsible for implementing those standards according to the serious incident framework; and, thirdly, that the Care Quality Commission should continue to be responsible, as the regulator, for assessing the quality of clinical investigations at local level according to those standards.
The purpose of complaints is not just the redress of grievances—which I must say is extremely unsatisfactory in the NHS anyway—although that is clearly important; complaints are a tool by which public services can learn and improve. When medical professionals are forced primarily to be concerned with avoiding liability and responsibility and are trapped in a culture of blame, there can be no learning. There is an acute need for the Government to follow through on their commitment to promote a culture in which staff feel able to speak out and in which the emphasis is placed on learning, not blame. I very much hope that they will implement PACAC’s recommendations as a step towards achieving that as soon as possible.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend for his work, and that of his Committee, on producing the report. He is absolutely right about HSIB and the need to underpin it properly. The Government have said that they would cap litigation costs at £100,000. I think my hon. Friend would accept that there will always be litigation, even if we get a more satisfactory means of redressing grievance, in the way he has suggested. Does he think that that cap would be appropriate, particularly since motor costs, for example, are capped at that level? Would that mean that people with grievances would be properly compensated while, sadly, their lawyers would not be?
Mr Jenkin
I confess I am not sighted on the proposal to cap litigation costs, but people resort to litigation only because they feel that their complaints are not being heard and that the problems they have identified in the service are not being addressed. People resort to litigation because they do not feel they are being told the truth. We know from our surgeries that most people who complain come in and say, “I only want to make sure this doesn’t happen to somebody else. I don’t want compensation.” Nevertheless, because that public-spirited attitude to complaining is so often rebuffed in the health service, people resort to litigation because they feel there is a cover-up.
In other fields, such as aviation and marine investigations, where this kind of investigative process is already established and is designed to find the causes of accidents without blame, there is far less resort to litigation at the outset. That does not preclude litigation in the final analysis, but discovering the truth without blame is the first step towards reconciliation.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I, too, greatly welcome this report, as do my constituents. That may seem surprising to some of my colleagues, as, of course, my constituency is in Wales, but all my constituents use hospitals in England for elective care and specialist care, so this is as important to the people of Wales as it is to the people of England. I have also been involved in many of the complaints. Does the Chair of the Committee acknowledge that, in the debates that he has had and in any follow-up debate that he might have, the position of Welsh constituents is key, because, although they are in another Administration as far as health is concerned, they depend on hospitals in England for treatment?
Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to my Welsh hon. Friend for his question. It gives me an opportunity to highlight not only my agreement with the point that he makes, but that this is just about healthcare safety investigations in England. By pursuing this policy to set up HSIB, the Government have embarked on a very, very major and significant reform, which the health services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are certainly watching. I can assure my hon. Friend that they are being watched all over the world. Different countries in different jurisdictions have tried using various bodies to deal with this question. I do not think that any country before England has embarked on a reform of this scale and nature that has the capacity to transform safety investigation in a health system. I very much hope that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will either set up their own equivalent of HSIB, or employ HSIB as the pinnacle of their investigation system as well. This matter is not something that necessarily needs to be devolved any more than the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Does the Chairman agree that each of us receives from our constituents many more golden letters about their treatment in the health service than letters of complaint? When there are complaints or questions, openness and responsiveness matter most, and most of our constituents are satisfied with that. HSIB will be for the pinnacle of the hardest cases, but most cases should be resolved locally by the GPs or the hospitals.
Mr Jenkin
I certainly agree that the vast majority of our constituents who experience the care of hospitals or GP practices are extremely grateful for the quality of care that they receive. However, we cannot underestimate how corrosive the blame culture has been throughout our health system. Crises such as those at Mid Staffordshire and at the Morecambe Bay maternity unit arise from the defensive culture that exists in the NHS. If we are to change that into a much more open and collaborative system of learning from mistakes, we need HSIB to set the tone throughout the entire organisation. It is not just about dealing with a few complaints, but about setting a whole new standard for a whole new profession in the NHS about how complaints and clinical incidents are investigated. I am most grateful to have the opportunity to present this report.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Labour welcomes this constructive report and thank all of those involved in producing it. It highlights some worrying statistics, including the fact that the most recent NHS staff survey found that 43% of staff thought that their organisations treat staff involved in near misses, errors and incidents fairly. Clearly, from the Chairman’s candid contribution today, there is a long way to go before we eradicate the culture of defensiveness that he has described. To give HSIB the strongest start, it was the clear view of the Committee, HSIB, the Expert Advisory Group, HSIB’s chief investigator and even the Minister himself that legislation is needed, but, as of today, no legislation has been forthcoming. Given that, does the Chair of the Committee agree that it might be better to delay implementation to allow time for legislation?
Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question and for his support. I am also extremely grateful to my Committee for its work on this report.
I hesitate to lose the progress that we have made. We have approved the appointment of the chief investigator of HSIB, who spent 25 years as chief investigator of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport. He brings with him that wealth of experience and perspective about how this organisation should work. The answer is, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, for the Government to bring forward the legislation as quickly as possible. I know that efforts are being made in that direction, but perhaps the Minister will have something to tell us.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
I wish to add my thanks to my hon. Friend and members of the Committee for their considered report. He has succinctly described to the House what more needs to be done systematically to transform the way in which the NHS learns from errors to improve patient safety. We support the main thrust of the Committee’s recommendations and will offer a detailed response to the report in due course. Like the Committee, we put this matter right at the top of our agenda to change the culture within the NHS, of which he has spoken so eloquently today.
We are committed to making our hospitals and GP surgeries the safest in the world, supported by the NHS as the world’s largest learning organisation. The only way in which we will achieve that is through a learning rather than a blame culture characterised by openness, honesty and candour; listening to patients, families and staff; finding and facing the truth; and learning from errors and failures in care.
As my hon. Friend has indicated, the Government have accepted the recommendation of PACAC’s predecessor Committee to establish an independent healthcare safety investigation service. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch will be up and running from April. I join him in welcoming the appointment of Keith Conradi, the former chief inspector of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, who has a strong track record of delivering high-quality investigations in aviation.
The hon. Gentleman’s Committee has again called for HSIB to be statutorily independent, and we agree that it should be as independent as possible if it is to discharge its functions fully and effectively, and we would not rule out the option of legislation. His Committee has also raised, in this week’s report, various suggestions for HSIB and its potential role in setting standards. We will be responding to that formally in due course.
We are committed to ensuring that the NHS becomes an organisation that learns from its mistakes. In response to the Care Quality Commission’s report, “Learning, Accountability and Candour”, from April this year all NHS trusts will be required to publish how many deaths they could have avoided had care been better, along with the lessons that they have learned.
Before I pose my question, I should like to thank the Committee for its response to the Government’s recent consultation, “Providing a Safe Space in Healthcare Safety Investigations”, and we will be responding to it shortly.
Improvements in safety, incident handling and learning in the NHS will not happen overnight, but does my hon. Friend agree that the shared programme of work demonstrates a commitment, across the care system, to improve the way in which all serious patient safety incidents are viewed and treated, and is that not a crucial foundation for lasting change?
Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to the Minister for his question and for the fact that he has personally appeared at the Dispatch Box today with his opposite number from Her Majesty’s Official Opposition. I know that his presence here underlines the commitment of the Secretary of State to this programme of change.
I very much welcome the shared programme of work to which my hon. Friend refers, but, in taking evidence for this particular report, we found that there was some dislocation between the various bodies involved in it. We conclude that it is only Ministers, and probably only the Secretary of State, who can draw this together to ensure that there is a coherent strategy and a plan, which is what we emphasise in this report.
Finally, my hon. Friend refers to legislation in passing, but I hope that valiant efforts are being made in that regard. Perhaps something can be included in Her Majesty’s Loyal Address later this year. I must point out that it is not just about statutorily underpinning the independence of HSIB, but the safe space to which he refers and on which he thanks the Committee for its contribution. The safe space has to be legislated for. Without legislation, there is no safe space. The AAIB, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport and equivalent bodies could not possibly function unless they can provide people with protection, so that those people can come and talk openly and off the record about what has happened. That has transformed the safety culture in other areas, and it is the transformation that we need in the health service. I leave with the Minister the word “legislation” echoing in his ears, and I very much look forward to making further progress with him on these matters.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The House is grateful to the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee for bringing his report before the House this afternoon and for taking questions.
Backbench Business
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Armed Forces Covenant
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Armed Forces Covenant Report 2016.
It is a great privilege to lead this debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting us the opportunity to discuss this most important of national issues in the Chamber.
As the world in which we find ourselves is unsettled and tumultuous, more than ever we must be mindful that some 150,000 men and women stand ready to defend our nation and to take on military challenges with our allies around the world to help to maintain peace, safe seas and safe skies. Standing firmly behind them are their families: silent spouses, children, parents and siblings who give them the strength to take on whatever challenges we ask of them. Our armed forces personnel, their families and our veterans are all citizens who deserve a voice. RAF Boulmer and the Otterburn ranges, the site of the largest Army training area, are in my constituency. I am deeply mindful of the role of MPs in sending troops to war when required. When I was a new MP, it struck me that we needed to do more in the House to talk about the armed forces covenant so that we could better understand what it means in practical terms and how we can help to increase the nation’s commitment to it. I am therefore pleased that we are now able to discuss the 2016 report and the covenant’s impact on those it affects.
In putting myself forward as an advocate for the covenant and finding ways to spread the word, I had not expected that military families who were feeling disfranchised and unable to raise issues of concern by virtue of their service would give me the honour of contacting me to talk about their problems. Those problems include schools admissions, housing maintenance, difficulties with car leasing contracts after deployment at short notice, spousal employment, lack of mental health support and the physical challenges left by past service. Such big and small problems cause great pressure to service personnel and veterans. They create disadvantages that would not arise if those people were civilians and make them question whether to stay or leave.
What shocked me—I had not identified this before—was the sense of disempowerment that many of our military families too often feel. Most importantly, they feel unable to talk to their MP about welfare issues in the way our civilian constituents do all the time. The first issue I would like to raise with the Minister—perhaps this could be the first item in next year’s report as a successful change to help our military families—is a change to the defence infrastructure notice, which sets out the rules and regulations on when serving personnel can or cannot talk to their MP.
In a Public Accounts Committee hearing last summer, Lieutenant General Nugee gave a clear verbal indication that it was fine for personnel and their families to talk to their MP about any non-military matters of concern. We have taken that great news to be an active commitment to the covenant vision of helping to reduce disadvantage for military families. However, the reality is not quite so clear because the notice still does not reflect this sentiment. I ask the Minister to look again at the DIN, which affects all Ministry of Defence employees—military and civilian.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
I do not intend to respond to all questions at the time they are raised throughout the debate, but this is a matter of significant importance. I want to make it absolutely clear that any member of the service family who wishes to approach their Member of Parliament can do so in the way any civilian would. I am not sure that the DIN does need to be changed—I am not sure that it is as ambiguous as my hon. Friend suggests, although I am happy to check—but if it does, I am happy to commit to doing that.
Mrs Trevelyan
I thank the Minister very much for that intervention. I hope that we can look at that in detail.
The hierarchical and command-based rules that are needed for military discipline in war should never create a barrier whereby military personnel and their families are not free to raise concerns about day-to-day issues that affect them. Those issues, to name but a few, might be: family housing matters, which are subject to the MOD’s oversight; school matters, which come under the purview of the Department for Education; or health matters, which are the responsibility of the Department of Health.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point, although it is one that rather puzzles me. I have spent 20 years in one of the most military constituencies in Britain. I see service people in my surgeries day in, day out, and I deal with all kinds of issues on their behalf. I have never once heard of any kind of restriction on them speaking to me.
Mrs Trevelyan
That is very encouraging, but my postbag over the past 18 months—I have received correspondence from not only local people, but service personnel throughout the country—suggests that people often have a real sense of anxiety about coming forward. Sometimes when wives have done so, there have been repercussions for their husbands, who have been challenged about stepping outside the chain of command into the civilian arena of their MP’s office. I hope that we can encourage other soldiers and their families to do what the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) have done.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. She is making a powerful contribution. This is about not only those who are currently serving but those who have served. A constituent called Linda McHugh came to me in difficult circumstances after she was denied a war widow’s pension because she had remarried. People who remarried after 2015 have now been protected, but does the hon. Lady agree that it is only right and proper that the Minister look into restoring the pension rights of those who were married to servicemen in the past? For example, Linda was married to a serviceman who lost his life in 1973.
Mrs Trevelyan
We will leave that very interesting point with the Minister. We must continually be mindful about war pensions, especially if people are experiencing real hardship and strain. The covenant exists to support not only young men and women coming back from recent wars, but those who have supported and served over many decades. The hon. Gentleman’s question can go on the Minister’s list.
Mark Lancaster
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for making his point, which has been raised on a number of occasions. I am very pleased that, in principle, the Government recognised the issue when the correction was made back in 2015. Although, as I think hon. Members will accept, there are questions over retrospection that we must consider carefully because of the precedent that may be set, I reassure the House, as I have reassured individual Members before, that we are looking carefully into the matter.
Mrs Trevelyan
I commend the Minister and his devoted team of civil servants in the MOD, who are working tirelessly to build on the original direction of the covenant that was set out in the Armed Forces Act 2011. That Act calls on the Secretary of State for Defence to publish an annual report setting out what has been done in the past year—not only by the MOD itself, but by other Government Departments, and wider business and community networks across our nation—to help to reduce disadvantage for our service families and veterans.
This year’s report highlights some of the great work done during 2016 in a number of areas, including: to build up the corporate covenant, and to encourage more private sector businesses to get involved in the practicalities of becoming corporate covenant signatories; to improve regional consistency in the levels of support received by the armed forces, especially through the community covenant; to improve on communicating what the covenant is, what it does and who it supports; and, most critically, to continue to prioritise issues that are known to be creating disadvantage for service families and veterans. I will take a few minutes to discuss each of those areas in the report, beginning with the corporate covenant.
The MOD team that is focused on building up the number of businesses and organisations that sign up to the corporate covenant has been working as hard as ever. More than 1,300 businesses have signed up to make their organisations more military-friendly and understanding, and able to benefit from the great skill sets that service leavers and reservists can bring to business. Last year, our all-party group on the armed forces covenant wrote to the then 850 organisations that had signed up to ask them what they were doing as part of their commitment. From the big boys such as BT, Google and Hewlett Packard, to small companies such as DJ Rees Services in Merthyr Tydfil, those that have signed up are changing the way they do business and seeking staff so that they support the covenant concept.
I mention DJ Rees because its reply was my favourite. This decorating, building and refurbishment business—an SME—decided that, having signed up to the corporate covenant, it would ask its whole supply chain to do so as well. It drafted a covenant on behalf of each supplier, encouraging them to sign up to the bronze employer recognition scheme—the first rung of the scheme’s ladder—and formally asking them to commit to provide one week’s work placement as part of the armed forces employability pathway scheme. In this way, DJ Rees was able to create, with its suppliers, many more work placements in its part of Wales. Just imagine the impact we could have if every large business that has signed up to the corporate covenant drove such a commitment through its supply chain.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Does the hon. Lady agree that small and medium-sized businesses in other parts of the United Kingdom, such as European Circuits in my constituency, which has signed up to the corporate covenant, can also play a major part?
Mrs Trevelyan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am keen that MPs from both sides of the House become more involved in spreading the message about the benefits of businesses in their constituencies signing the corporate covenant.
As MPs, we are perhaps more connected than anyone to our local business community, so we have a great opportunity to evangelise about the importance of businesses committing to the covenant and the life-changing impact that that can have for military families. We have more than 5 million SMEs— businesses employing fewer than 250 people—which make up 99% of all businesses across the UK. We have a long way to go to make every business covenant-friendly. We have 1,300 signed up so far, and they are committed in their small or larger way to supporting our military families. We therefore look forward to working with the MOD and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to increase participation in the corporate covenant scheme exponentially in the year ahead.
A key way in which businesses can benefit themselves and help service families is employing military spouses, who have faced a long-standing challenge to find employment that matches their skills and qualifications because, too often, employers see a military address and decide that even though the potential employee might be the best candidate for the role, they will not be around for more than two years. However, a committed military spouse, who will certainly have a posting for two years, and often longer nowadays, should be as valued as any civilian candidate.
From my conversations with military wives, it seems that the key block to getting the right job is often that an employer sees that the applicant’s address is a military base. Will the Minister therefore consider working with me and his BEIS colleagues to remove the address requirement from job application forms, perhaps in favour of something such as a distance-from-work criterion, to ensure that there is no unconscious bias against military spouses?
Ongoing work at Stanford University shows clearly that gender-neutral applications alter employer choices by removing a marked bias towards male applicants. In the same way, it would be fantastic if, as part of our continuing real commitment to the covenant, BEIS led a trial on removing addresses from job applications to see whether that helps to increase successful employment opportunities for military spouses.
It is great news that every council in England and Scotland has now signed up to the community covenant and that colleagues in Northern Ireland continue to make progress on finding ways to build a framework through Stormont and local councils to improve the commitment to the covenant. The community covenant could have one of the greatest positive impacts for military families—serving and after service—because our local councils deal with housing allocation policy, brief GPs and health professionals about the needs of the armed forces community, set up webpages to help to join up local services, support local charities in the military space, and deal with school admissions policy.
Colleagues will no doubt share with the House more details of the excellent work in their areas, so I will raise just one key area with the Minister: school admissions policy. My ten-minute rule Bill, which is going through the House at the moment, calls on the Department for Education to change admissions policy so that military families moving at short notice can get the right school place at any time. I very much hope that the MOD will support the Bill.
This year’s report refers to the work done to identify educational disadvantage. My postbag led me to bring in my Bill because too many families moving at short notice could not access a school place without ending up in the appeals system, which creates even more stress for parents and children alike. Excellent work from the University of Winchester, which the MOD is supporting, shows a marked impact when it comes to higher education outputs for military children. We must at least reduce the stress of moving schools to help these kids to reach their potential.
Lastly—this is a key part of this year’s report—we must look at the prioritisation of key issues that create stress for serving families if we are to reduce the very real retention risk we are now experiencing. Having brought the numbers in our armed forces down for many years to create a leaner, peacetime force, this is an urgent challenge. We must always remember that, without the human capital, all the ships, submarines, jets, planes, helicopters and tanks in the world are no use to us.
Our people are the most important component of the triumvirate of equipment, estates and personnel that makes up our world-class military resource. We train them to the highest standards in the world, and we must ensure that we do all we can for them because, notwithstanding the moral component—I say this as an accountant—we want to make sure we get the best value for money for our investment. If we lose a pilot for lack of a decent house, or a nuclear engineer for lack of a school place, we have failed to assess the value-for-money implications to the taxpayer and the capability needs of our services, and we are failing to enact the spirit of the covenant in practice.
This year’s report highlights the excellent work done by the Department of Health, and internally by the MOD with Defence Medical Services, to build a more robust infrastructure framework. Substantial work has taken place to tackle hearing loss issues, and that will be an interesting area to follow in the year ahead, because the NHS hearing loss treatment guidelines have recently changed. For those whose hearing has been damaged as a result of service, it is to be hoped that they will get full treatment to restore their hearing.
The launch of the e-learning for healthcare programme to help GPs to gain greater understanding and awareness will be useful but, of course, ensuring that the transfer of all medical records works across the country will be key to helping GPs to know their patient’s history and to work with them when crises arise in the years after service.
The new veterans’ gateway is a great step forward in helping families and local service providers, as well as MPs. We have high hopes for it, although there are concerns that gaps in mental healthcare provision, in particular, will remain a stubborn block to providing real and needed support for military families who are, for instance, supporting post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers who are unable to access the long-term medical interventions that they need to help them recover and lead full lives once again. Perhaps the Minister could give us a little more detail about how suppliers at the other end of the gateway will be supported by relevant Government Departments so that there is capacity to meet this well-identified need.
The report also talks about developing an alternative approach to the provision of accommodation for service personnel and their families. I would be failing in my duty to all our military families if I did not mention the crisis in military housing, which is a real and present danger to the retention of large numbers of our highly trained personnel. I have tackled the problems with CarillionAmey’s maintenance contracts in a number of forums already, and the Minister has been enormously helpful in getting a trial MPs’ hotline set up to help us to sort out practical problems for families in service accommodation. However, the problems are extensive and cause enormous frustration to too many.
I have challenged the Minister on the combined accommodation assessment system rental changes, and not a single family I have spoken to minds that their rent is going up, but if the system is to reflect normal social housing rates under the decent homes plus standard, their homes really do need to be DH plus. Too many are not, and the challenge system has been weighted against families getting a fair and honest appraisal of their home’s categorisation. There is more to do to rebuild the loss of trust we really are facing.
However, the most challenging part of the housing debate is the future accommodation model, which the MOD is working on. According to the report, it is aimed at supporting families
“to live in the private rental market or enabling them to purchase their own home.”
I am grateful to the Minister for publishing the data sets from the survey this week, and we are looking at them closely. I ask him also to publish the additional notes that personnel wrote. He said he would do that, but they do not seem to be in the initial statistical data sets that are online.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I hear what the hon. Lady says about military accommodation and I think that we all genuinely share her concern. Does she agree that it is particularly worrying that the report indicates that satisfaction has actually decreased? Those satisfaction levels are very low indeed.
Mrs Trevelyan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We should be extremely mindful of the continuing low morale in all services, although the Royal Marines are the noble exception, perhaps because they are very busy on a great number of operations. We should be mindful of the critical point that he raises.
The key concerns in the FAM debate are that, given that the drive towards the universal housing allowance has been clearly set out in documents since 2009, the FAM survey of personnel is just a smokescreen to bring the policy in anyway. No one disputes the aim of providing a way to access good-quality and affordable housing as part of the offer, but we must get that right. Whatever the changes involved in locating the Army and the Air Force in fewer locations, such as by moving submarine activity to Faslane and so on, the reality is that, when deployed, in small numbers or large—we can never predict the future—our military families need to be looked after in decent, well-maintained housing, and to have a framework of real support around them and their children. If we fail in that, we will lose more and more of our personnel at a much earlier stage in their careers to the civilian world. That is not value for money, and it is not good for our capability, or for the morale and corporate memory needed to maintain the unique quality of our armed forces.
Mark Lancaster
I do slightly take offence at my hon. Friend’s suggestion that the survey is just a smokescreen to bring in this policy. The purpose of the survey is to inform opinion. Some 27,000 of our service personnel responded to the survey, and it will form the evidence base for how we move this policy forward. If my hon. Friend is suggesting that we should not have surveyed our armed forces personnel, I entirely disagree with her. However, let me be clear that no firm decisions have yet been made about how this policy will proceed, and to suggest that we should not have surveyed service personnel is fundamentally wrong.
Mrs Trevelyan
I thank the Minister for his comments. My suggestion about a smokescreen is based on the feeling among military families and personnel that four questions were asked, but that the existing SFA opportunity was not among them. There was an opportunity in a separate, non-mandatory question for military families who thought that SFA was a good thing to indicate why they thought so. The survey contained four questions about the four different choices that military families might want to make, which included living in privately rented accommodation and owning their own home. I simply reflect the voices that have shouted very loudly at me that there is a deep sense of anxiety, as all the families’ federations surveys have indicated.
Sir Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Much as I respect my hon. Friend the Minister, when we read the questions in the screenshot we can see how they are designed to produce a particular answer. To take just one example, the most common reason why people are in favour of change—two thirds are nominally in favour—is that they want to live in a better house. Nowhere are they told that once they go into the private sector, they will be totally responsible for persuading landlords to do something about the maintenance of their homes—unlike in the very expensive Australian model, in which the Department of Defence has kept that responsibility.
Mrs Trevelyan
My hon. Friend reflects the deep concerns about the way in which the survey was put together and the framing of the questions, which left a lot of personnel unable to give the answers that they wanted to give. I think the Minister is mindful of that, and I am glad to hear that no formal decisions have yet been made.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I do not want to get involved in a dispute between two of my hon. Friends, but does my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) agree that, of all the surveys published in recent times, the one that matters most is the monthly service personnel statistics of 19 January this year? They show, sadly, both reservists and regulars voting with their feet.
Mrs Trevelyan
Sadly, that is the reality. I talk continually about retention risk. That risk is very real, and we are suffering from it.
I want to take the Minister and the House a little further into the FAM survey. The survey talked about choices, but no one felt that SFA was a choice that the MOD wanted to keep on the table. The Minister and I will continue to discuss the matter, but that is what the personnel who completed the survey felt. Giving service personnel the choice to live where they want is fine, if the option to live with their family when not deployed during the week is real. However, housing costs in too many parts of the country where forces are based are too high, so the likely reality is that families will be spread across the country and unsupported. We cannot plan for a peaceful world when all our troops are at home.
We are undermanned, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) says, our recruitment numbers are a challenge. The offer needs to hold up if recruits are to remain in service once they have families, and a key component is getting the housing offer right. Choice is a great thing, but it simply will not work to drive a policy change that breaks up patch life or creates effective salary drops because of housing market stresses.
The annual report shows the continuous work of the Department’s team to help to reduce disadvantage. That is commendable, but there is so much more to do. Not a single person here would ever want to hear the words that I have heard far too often: “This is just too hard; we are going to leave the service.” The most recent continuous attitude survey shows that there is a stark gap between the 76% of respondents who are proud of their service and the 45% who would suggest that one should join up. That is a gap that we cannot fix.
I hope that in the year ahead we can focus on actively encouraging service families to talk to their MPs when they have problems, so that a strong new constructive dialogue can begin. The covenant is one of the most powerful tools we have to drive through good decisions, to reduce the looming capability risk gap and to increase our servicemen and women’s belief in their value to us. I fervently hope that we can harness such a dialogue across the House in 2017.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I apologise to the House for my inaudibility. I shall attempt by hand signals to explain what I am trying to say.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) in this debate. I welcome the publication of the annual report on the military covenant, but Members will not be surprised if I raise, as I have done on previous occasions, concerns about the implementation of the covenant in Northern Ireland. May I commend the Minister at this stage? I know that he is totally committed to his work as Minister with responsibility for veterans, dealing with the military covenant. We appreciate the interest he has shown in Northern Ireland and look forward to further visits from him in the near future.
May I draw the attention of the House to a letter I received recently pursuant to a case that I had been dealing with on behalf of a constituent, who is a veteran of our armed forces? I had written to the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, who is now the leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, having replaced the former Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. In her response, she said:
“As you are aware the Armed Forces Covenant is not in place here and ex Military personnel therefore do not have the 13YJ code (the code which identifies someone with a history of military service) added to their clinical records for GP referrals.
The Armed Forces Covenant has been adopted by England, Scotland and Wales”—
note, not Northern Ireland—
“to provide equal access to healthcare where it can be linked to military service, serving personnel, their families and those who leave the Military Forces. The Covenant has not been adopted here as health care arrangements are delivered on an equitable basis to all members of the community.”
That highlights the extent of the problem we are dealing with in Northern Ireland. I do not include the Minister in this, but I have to say that some associated with the Ministry of Defence are in denial about that problem. The reality is that after more than 30 years of Operation Banner, we have literally tens of thousands of veterans living in Northern Ireland. Indeed, I would argue that in our region we probably have a higher proportion of veterans than most other regions of the United Kingdom.
It is worth bearing it in mind that many of those veterans served with the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Irish Regiment Home Service in the communities in which they lived. That brought with it added pressure for them and their families, to the extent that recent reports have indicated that there is a very high incidence of post-conflict trauma among veterans in Northern Ireland.
The University of Ulster is undertaking a study to try to evaluate the level of mental illness among veterans in Northern Ireland, but it is known to be quite high. We are faced with a problem whereby veterans seeking help for their mental illness are being told by the Department of Health, “We are sorry, but if you are a veteran in Northern Ireland, the armed forces covenant does not apply here, so we cannot deal with you on the terms on which you might be dealt with by the health service in England, Scotland or Wales.”
The armed forces covenant does not give preferential treatment to veterans. It merely seeks to ensure that those veterans are not disadvantaged by virtue of their military service. And yet the Minister hides behind the notion that applying the military covenant in Northern Ireland would somehow undermine the basis of equality that is at the heart of the Belfast agreement and section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. We in this House, and the Department, need to do more to challenge this muddled thinking and this wrong approach.
The Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs has investigated the matter. In evidence to the Committee, Ministers said that there is not a problem, and that section 75 applies but does not interfere with the implementation of the covenant. But here we have, in black and white, from the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland a clear demonstration of the prevailing attitude that the armed forces covenant does not apply in Northern Ireland, and that it has not been adopted there. Yet my understanding is very clear: the armed forces covenant applies across the United Kingdom and ought to be fully implemented across the UK. It is wrong that veterans in Northern Ireland are suffering from a lack of recognition of the covenant, and we need to do something to put that right.
In evidence to the Defence Committee, the Minister stated in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) that it was the view of the Department that the military covenant in Northern Ireland was being implemented to the extent that some 83% or 84% of its provisions applied there. I cannot evaluate that assessment, but, given that access to healthcare is such an enormously important element of the covenant, the only thing I would say to the Minister and the Department is that if the Department of Health in Northern Ireland says, “Sorry, the covenant does not apply”, I am not convinced that the 84% figure for the proportion of the covenant being implemented in Northern Ireland is an accurate reflection of where we really are.
Mark Lancaster
Let me be absolutely clear. I will not try to evaluate the 83% or 84% figures, but I have been clear both in my evidence to the Select Committee and in the House that, while progress is being made in Northern Ireland—yes, absolutely, the covenant does apply in Northern Ireland—I fully accept that more work needs to be done to ensure an equitable status for veterans who reside in Northern Ireland and those who reside in the rest of the United Kingdom. I have made trying to achieve that one of my priorities during this year.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
I very much appreciate the Minister’s intervention, and we will work with him towards that end. In the end, we are not interested in party politicking about this; we are interested, as he is, in ensuring the best outcome for veterans across the United Kingdom.
I am pleased that I am joined on these Benches by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan). He and I work very closely together on matters relating to the covenant and the welfare of veterans, which is an indication that this issue transcends party politics in Northern Ireland. I suppose he and I must redouble our efforts to ensure that other political parties recognise that this is about an humanitarian approach to the welfare of those who have served our country, and that we should not allow politics to get in the way of ensuring that men and women get the help they need.
On the positive side, I am pleased to report that we now have an appointment to the covenant reference group, which advises the Government on the covenant and looks at how to co-ordinate actions relating to the covenant across the United Kingdom. I am delighted that my colleague Mrs Brenda Hale—she was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, representing the same constituency as me, until it was dissolved—has been appointed to represent Northern Ireland on the covenant reference group. I want to thank the hon. Member for South Antrim and his colleagues for their support on that issue. Brenda’s husband, Captain Mark Hale, was tragically killed on active service in Afghanistan while serving with 2 Rifles, and Brenda knows personally the challenges that are faced by veterans in Northern Ireland. I believe that she will be a very able representative of those veterans on the covenant reference group.
I am also pleased to report that a number of the new councils in Northern Ireland have adopted the community covenant, to which the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred in her opening remarks. In my constituency, both the councils covering the Lagan Valley area—Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council—have now signed up to the community covenant. I am pleased that they are taking forward initiatives linked to the community covenant, which is positive progress.
One area on which further progress could be made is that of better co-ordinating the very valuable work of all the agencies and veterans’ charities that operate in Northern Ireland. I would like to see the establishment of some type of hub for veterans in Northern Ireland, a one-stop shop that a veteran could contact to receive information about where they can get help, whether with welfare issues, accessing healthcare, pensions or other issues that have an impact on them. We want such a hub to be established in Northern Ireland to draw together and co-ordinate the work of the various organisations and charities.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I thought that we were going to set up a national hub or one-stop shop, and I presumed that regions would have a sub-one-stop shop as well, which would make sense.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
The hon. Gentleman is a good friend of the veterans in Northern Ireland. I share his expectation and, indeed, his hope that that is exactly what will happen. I just want to ensure that Northern Ireland does not lose out, and that Ministers will co-operate with the Northern Ireland Executive and local organisations representing veterans to ensure that this does happen.
I want to raise a concern about a recent decision by Combat Stress to withdraw its regional welfare officers service from Northern Ireland. I have been contacted by a number of veterans from across Northern Ireland, many of them suffering from mental health problems, who have benefited from that very valuable service, which has offered them support at a time of great need. When I met the chief executive of Combat Stress, Sue Freeth, I was very impressed—and I am very impressed—by what it is doing in Northern Ireland. Sue indicated to me that it would cost in the region of £60,000 per annum to retain this welfare support service. I have written to the Secretary of State about this issue, and I really hope that that funding can be found. It is not a big amount, but it has a big impact.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important issue. It is an issue not just for Northern Ireland, but for the mainland of the UK. The Minister will perhaps address this when he responds, but I cannot for the life of me see why the extraordinarily important welfare contribution made by charities such as Combat Stress—I am a very strong supporter of it—should not be continued. It is very important to have such a link, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman agrees that this is not simply a matter of medical care.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
I cannot add to what the hon. Gentleman has said. He is absolutely right, and I urge the Minister to look at this.
In drawing my remarks to a close, I just want to make two points. First, the aftercare service provided by the Royal Irish Regiment is absolutely crucial. In Northern Ireland, we have many thousands of former soldiers who served with the Royal Irish Regiment Home Service and the Ulster Defence Regiment, and the aftercare service is undertaking very valuable work in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will ensure that the aftercare service, which is much needed, will be retained.
My final point is an important one. In Westminster on Saturday, together with the hon. Members for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) and for South Antrim, I attended a rally of veterans from across the United Kingdom of Operation Banner, the longest-running military operation in the history of the British Army. They are concerned about the recent arrests and prosecutions of former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland, some of whom are in their 60s and 70s, and we share their concerns.
We share the concern that after years of service to our country, men and women who ought to be enjoying their retirement are now waiting for the knock on the door. We also share the concern about the circumstances, because it seems that the focus is on what the armed forces and the police did in Northern Ireland, and much less on what the terrorists did. It is worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of the 3,000 unsolved killings in Northern Ireland were carried out by terrorist organisations, yet the vast majority of the resources currently going into investigations are for those relating to alleged killings by the armed forces and the police, which is unacceptable.
I encourage the Minister and his colleagues, both in his Department and in other relevant Departments, to give serious consideration to the introduction of a statute of limitations that would protect the men and women who served our country and who deserve that protection. I recognise that no one is above the law, but when cases have been investigated—in some cases not just once, but twice—and the men and women who served our country have been exonerated only to find, years later, that those cases are being reopened, then I think there is something wrong. It is having a big impact on recruitment to our armed forces. Young men and women are looking at what is happening and asking themselves, “Why would I join the armed forces if I face the prospect of being prosecuted?” I repeat that no one is above the law, but I really do think the Government need to act. They need to protect the men and women who protected us in our darkest hour.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I hope we can manage this afternoon without a formal time limit, because this is a pleasant debate in which there will be a lot of agreement. For everyone to have a chance to speak it would be courteous if Members were to speak for under nine minutes. That would give everybody else a chance to contribute.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) with whom, alongside the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan), I shared not exactly a platform but the plinth on the George V statue on the other side of the road from here last Saturday when 1,000 troops were there.
I endorse everything the right hon. Gentleman said. It is absolutely immoral that the men who fought in that filthy war, wearing the Queen’s uniform and doing their best for their country, facing an enemy who wore civilian clothes and lurked in the shadows among the civilian population, are now being dragged from their beds at 6 o’clock in the morning in dawn raids and dragged off to Northern Ireland. It is unacceptable. I am afraid I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister on the Government Front Bench that this is not a matter simply for the Police Service of Northern Ireland or for the prosecuting authorities. It is, as I told the Prime Minister, a matter for Ministers. This is a matter of public policy and it must be addressed. I strongly endorse the case made by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley for a statute of limitations. I know many of my hon. Friends would have been on that plinth with me had that been possible.
Mr Gray
On a similar and related point, does my hon. Friend agree that firmly within the Government’s remit is the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, which is, outrageously, criticising 4,500 of our soldiers? It looks like 60, or maybe a little fewer than that, will be prosecuted. Does my hon. Friend not agree that this is an absolute disgrace?
Sir Gerald Howarth
I entirely agree. I felt at the time that that man Phil Shiner was a disgrace. He was a dreadful man engaged in the cowardly and unacceptable activity of trying to find people to stand up and accuse their fellow countrymen who had gone to relieve the people of Iraq from their suffering. He tried to do down those people and I am very pleased to hear today that he has been struck off. Frankly, I do not think that that is enough; but then I always was a supporter of capital punishment.
Dr Murrison
I of course agree with my hon. Friend. Does he agree—I am trying to think of something nice to say about IHAT; I appreciate that that is very difficult— that IHAT has at least the benefit of being relatively contemporaneous, unlike Operation Banner? Under Operation Banner, people are being dragged out of their beds many decades after the event and trying to work out what they were doing three or four or five decades ago. That is very difficult indeed. At least IHAT is investigating within a relatively short space of time from the alleged incidents.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend who succeeded me as Minister with responsibility for international security strategy at the Ministry of Defence. I would like to say more on this subject, but you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have asked us to be brief.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on introducing the debate and on her incredible work in highlighting this issue. The military covenant is not specific to any particular party. All of us, across the Floor, can embrace this issue. It is a covenant not between the Government and the armed forces, but between the armed forces and the people. We, as Members and Ministers, are acting on behalf of the people. I represent the home of the British Army, Aldershot, which has about 5,000 troops and their families, and we feel that acutely.
Project Allenby Connaught is the largest private finance initiative in the country. Nobody knows anything about it because it is hugely successful—a £19 billion PFI which, I have to say, was started under the Labour Government. I would like to put on record the fantastic job Aspire is doing in running the garrison under the PFI. Admittedly, it has released land to build 3,850 units of accommodation to sell. Nevertheless, the result has been a complete transformation of the military facilities in Aldershot. We have some of the finest single living accommodation and new headquarters—the recently opened Montgomery House—for the home command. The whole garrison in Aldershot has been transformed thanks to this PFI, so a small note of thanks to Geoff Hoon. He opened the fantastic sports facility, which is the home of the army sports board. There are world-class tennis courts. It really is a great garrison and I pay tribute to all those who have contributed to it. I rarely receive complaints about accommodation. The Minister, whom I actually met in my constituency when he was a sapper with the Royal School of Military Engineering—
Sir Julian Brazier
The picture my hon. Friend paints is an excellent one, but I think he would confirm that the cost of housing, both to buy and rent, in his constituency is extremely high. Is it not so much better to have the arrangement he describes than to put people out on allowances in the private sector?
Sir Gerald Howarth
Absolutely right. I can tell my hon. Friend that the average cost of housing in Aldershot is £259,000. That illustrates the challenge for people in the military trying to find their own homes.
Rushmoor Borough Council, which signed up to the military covenant in 2012, is doing a really good job. There is a tremendous relationship between the garrison and the council. Recently, the council met Hampshire County Council and the garrison commander—another great man, Lieutenant Colonel Mac MacGregor, who is doing a great job. They will carry out a workshop together to discuss how better they can implement the covenant in Aldershot. That is good news.
CarillionAmey is doing excellent work on the married quarters. It has created a forum for quarterly meetings with the wives and I very much hope that that will prove to be very successful.
Mike Jackson House is doing a stunningly good job of providing supported housing to single veterans who are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. If any Members know people in my area who could benefit from it, I ask them please to get in touch with me.
As an illustration of how the garrison and the town are working together, a lot of companies have signed up to the community matters partnership project. I am very pleased to say that the new chairman is none other than the garrison commander. There is more that can be done, but a lot of good work has come out of the covenant. It is important to recognise what it has delivered.
I am also bound to say that the Aldershot military wives choir is of course the finest military wives choir in the country. Since my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) is nowhere to be seen, I can confidently say that without fear of challenge. When they come here to sing, I hope right hon. and hon. Members will accept my invitation to listen to them.
The covenant has done a tremendous job to engage with the public on the need to support our armed forces. Much more needs to be done, however, and most importantly on accommodation. I have people who have no connection with the Aldershot area, save that they have served there, come to see me having left the Army—sometimes their marriages have broken up because of PTSD or other such difficulties—and although the council does not put them at a disadvantage, it does not put them at the top of the list either. These men and women deserve to go to the top of the social housing list, as against some of the young ladies who come and see me and say they need social housing because they fell pregnant. It is not quite the same as having suffered PTSD. That is the big challenge. The other big challenge that the Minister should take away is that we will not rest until those who served in Operation Banner no longer face the risk of prosecution while the terrorists get away scot free. That is not acceptable.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), although I did not agree with his last comment about women—but we will leave that to one side, as we are here to discuss the military.
I am never sure about these things, but I think I should start by declaring a non-pecuniary interest: my son-in-law is serving with the Army in Cyprus as an active reservist and my daughter has received some leaflets and so on from those supporting families with partners serving abroad. I say that just in case it matters somewhere along the line.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on bringing this debate to the House and the other Members who supported her, the hon. Members for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) and for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). It is incumbent on us to debate these matters. We all agree that the armed forces—those who have served and those currently serving, as well as their families—deserve great credit and huge respect. When I taught in the 1980s—other Members might remember this—we did not, in some respects, celebrate or commemorate poppy day, and sometimes it was regarded as inappropriate for military personnel to come into schools. It represents a great step forward for our country that over the last few years the military have been welcome in our schools and we have celebrated poppy day properly. It teaches our children and young people the importance of service, how they live in a country that has been protected by people for generations and that the freedoms they deserve were hard won and need to be maintained.
It is important that we discuss these matters, and it is wonderful now to see so many young people at remembrance and other such events through the year. I am sure that everyone has noticed that. It is a huge step forward for us all, and it is happening across the country, including in Northern Ireland—I have been there and seen it for myself. Incidentally, I agreed with many of the remarks of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson). I know how hard he has worked, along with his colleague the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan), on these matters.
I wish to challenge the Government on a couple of points, but I want to put that in context, because today’s report is generally a very positive one about the progress being made. From a consensual point of view, I think we all believe that progress is being made, but we have heard about accommodation and other such matters, and we all want to try to accelerate that progress and say to the Minister, “These are the challenges that still remain”. I make my comments, therefore, having recognised that much progress has been made. To be fair to the Minister, he recognised that himself in his evidence on 17 January to the Defence Committee.
In every aspect of the covenant, we have made huge progress, but there remain problems. Although every local authority has signed up—as I understand it—their record on implementation and action is variable. We have to find a way of holding local authorities to account. Where they have signed up to things, how do we hold them to account more effectively and help them deliver the outcomes they have committed themselves to? For example, a Local Government Association report has found that, regardless of our efforts, 40% of those who have served in the armed forces still feel that their service has left them at a disadvantage. That is not good enough.
We also need to understand that the covenant for communities is non-binding. The point has been made that we need to raise awareness of the responsibilities of people who have signed up to the covenant. I was disappointed to hear the Minister say in his evidence that the inter-ministerial group with overall responsibility for co-ordination is to meet only twice a year, and it was unclear who was to chair it—perhaps he will clarify that in his remarks. I know his answer will be, “Well, there are lots of other bodies below that responsible for delivery of the covenant”, but the inter-ministerial group is really important. I ask him gently whether meeting twice a year sufficient. I question whether it is sufficient.
The issue of housing has been raised. There can be no doubt that, frankly, some of the accommodation is appalling—every Member here could give examples—and that it has been so for a number of years. This is a real challenge for all of us, and we need to sort it out. It simply is not good enough that some of our service personnel are having to live in such appalling accommodation. A massive defence estate reorganisation is now taking place affecting some 27,000 families. There is an opportunity there, as well as a challenge, for the Government.
I agree very much with the comments of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed about schools admission policy. It raises an issue that the Minister might want to address in his remarks. What is the Government’s view of not disadvantaging service personnel as opposed to giving them preferential treatment? My own view is that the public accept, in certain circumstances, that we should advantage service personnel because of their service to the country, and I think that schools admissions is one such area in which they should be advantaged.
Sir Gerald Howarth
In Aldershot, I find that Hampshire County Council has been incredibly enlightened: it makes allowances for all the schools in its budgets for what it calls “turbulence”. I am not hearing many complaints at all, so I suggest that the hon. Gentleman has a word with his local education authority.
Vernon Coaker
I am making the more general point that the situation varies across the country. I am sure that it is really good in some local education authorities, but it is not so good elsewhere. Perhaps the situation in Aldershot, which is in Hampshire, is particularly good because there are a lot of service personnel, so they have experience. The Government need to consider what happens when service personnel disperse to areas across the country that do not have so many service personnel and how to give them the same quality of provision.
Finally, the issue of mental health will not go away. Significant numbers of veterans are still struggling to access the services that they need. We can debate why that is, but the reality is that things need to be improved and more needs to be done.
This is a hugely significant debate—it has almost been a discussion—and we all want the best for our veterans. We talk about their service to the country, and we need to make sure that the country does its best for them.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who has maintained his interest in the armed forces and the military despite the fact that he is no longer formally responsible for them. I disagree with his last point about positive discrimination in favour of the armed services, but I will come back to that in a moment. Apart from that, I endorse all that he had to say.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), who drilled down into the report with tremendous care. She does an enormous amount of work on behalf of our armed services through her all-party group on the armed forces covenant. She has entered into the armed forces parliamentary scheme with an incredible level of enthusiasm and dedication. She also comes to every all-party group dinner and event—her commitment and enthusiasm for the armed services is not just because she fancies Royal Marines.
On the subject of the armed forces covenant, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). I am glad to see him in the Chamber and I hope we might hear from him later. Some years ago, he wrote the seminal work on the armed forces covenant, “Tommy This an’ Tommy That”. I have the Library’s copy, and I recommend it to colleagues across the House. At least partly as a result of his work, the armed forces covenant was written into law in the Armed Forces Act 2011, so we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. Incidentally, the same applies to his work on mental healthcare for veterans, on which he wrote a seminal report. Most of his recommendations have been carried out by subsequent Governments, and we should recognise his huge service to veterans.
All of us in the Chamber agree on the need for the armed forces covenant. There is no question about that. Some of us had doubts about whether it should be written into law, but none the less, it was. I welcome the fact that an annual report is now published; it is important to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. However, it would be useful if we had an annual debate on the matter alongside other defence debates. The Government could bring the report to the House and invite a debate, rather than relying on the good offices of the Backbench Business Committee. Surely the Government should say, “This is our report. Please ask us questions about it.” I hope that the Minister might consider doing so in future.
We all support the principles behind the armed forces covenant. There is no question about that. It is a contract between the people and the armed forces. In my constituency, the 200-odd occasions when the good people of Royal Wootton Bassett have turned out to welcome home and pay their respects to the 450 coffins returning from Afghanistan perhaps epitomises all the good things that the people of Britain think about the armed forces covenant. We realise that the armed forces do things we would not do, so we must look after, respect and honour them for that, and I am very glad that we do.
The things that we do for the armed forces are important. We must make sure that their physical and mental health are looked after, both when they are serving and afterwards—incidentally, the covenant is not just about veterans and families, but about serving soldiers, sailors and airmen. We must look after their health for the rest of their lives—if they are injured, for example—and we must look after their housing and their children’s education. That is absolutely right, and we must do that.
However, I disagree slightly with the hon. Member for Gedling. In a constituency such as mine, which is largely military—some of the schools, for example, are virtually entirely military—if we allowed the military disproportionately to have access to schools and put them to the top of the housing list, for example, that would, by definition, disadvantage civilians. I am not certain that I could go to my constituents and say, “I’m awfully sorry, your children can’t get into that school because we have given those spaces to military children” or, “You can’t have a council house, because we have given it to the military.” I am not sure that is right. The point behind the covenant should be that the military are not disadvantaged because of their service. However, they should not necessarily be given excessive advantage over the rest of the community either, otherwise support for the military covenant would quickly disappear.
Wiltshire has been outstanding in its support for the covenant over many years. We set up the civil military partnership in 2006. We have 15,000 serving personnel, 15,000 dependants and 54,000 veterans—and growing. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) claimed that he represented the home of the British Army, but I rather suspect that Wiltshire is, in fact, now the home of the British Army. We have enormous numbers of serving and veteran personnel in the area. As a result, the council has done a huge amount, encouraging local organisations and working with the housing association and the schools, to implement the military covenant in Wiltshire. I pay particular tribute to my noble Friend Baroness Scott of Bybrook, who has taken the lead in this matter over so many years as leader of Wiltshire Council.
None the less, in addition to the community covenant and the local government covenant, we must not forget all the other people who make such great contributions to the welfare of our soldiers and veterans. I am glad that the Minister and I are both wearing the SSAFA tie this afternoon. It is terribly important that we should not forget the charitable side of things, and there are a huge number of charities doing useful things. I was very proud recently to be made the patron of Operation Christmas Box, which sends 25,000 Christmas boxes to all our armed services on deployment around the world every Christmas and is hugely appreciated by the soldiers, sailors and airmen. These things are important. They are not a formal part of the military covenant, but they achieve many of the things that the covenant does, so let us not forget the charitable sector, the local government sector and the business sector, alongside all that the Government do for our armed services.
So far this has been a largely consensual and agreeable sort of debate. I do not mean to detract from that in any shape or form, but I have two or three questions to ask about the way in which the covenant is operating, which the Minister might like to reply to or perhaps take into consideration in the year ahead, as he applies the covenant.
First, I am concerned about a decline in interest. Ten or 15 years ago, when we had high kinetic warfare around the world, the people were very concerned about our armed forces. Today, that interest is rapidly declining, as evidenced by the level of donations to charities. Donations to Help for Heroes, for example, were up to £40 million at one time, but are now sharply down, and it is the same for the Royal British Legion and others. If, as we all hope, we do not see a return to kinetic warfare for many years to come, my concern would be that the military covenant could become a dusty document, that people would forget about it and that the whole thing would become ancient history, as the military disappeared from headlines and public awareness. I would be interested to know what the Minister thinks he could do to avoid that occurring. Annual debates might be one way of doing it.
Secondly, those of us who represent military constituencies are concerned—we are very aware of these things—that the footprint of the military across Britain is now increasingly small. The permanent basing structure that we now have, with the five super-bases for the Army, means that large parts of Britain have absolutely no military involvement at all. I cannot help feeling that the military covenant ought to be a way of spreading the word throughout the entire population of Great Britain that these are things that we must care about. Again, I wonder whether the Minister has any thoughts about ways in which that could be done.
Thirdly, we have written the military covenant into law, and that is good thing. It provides a good structure for all the things we are discussing today, but there are two problems with it. As the military covenant is written into law, we might be able to tell ourselves that we have done something about this, thereby assuaging our conscience and not doing the much greater things that we would do were it not in law. In other words, the law must not become the lowest common denominator or simply the level below which we must not fall. Rather, there are many more things we should be doing, even if they are not enshrined in the covenant.
I would also be interested to know from the Minister how many legal cases there have been in the last year or two in which the military covenant has been used as evidence against a military defence. In other words, are the armed forces and spouses using the military covenant as evidence to sue the Ministry of Defence for a variety of purposes? It would be interesting to know whether the covenant has become part of the law in that sense.
The final thing that makes me rather concerned is this fixation we have—it is an important fixation—with veterans, families, housing and all those things. Of course they are hugely important—my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is quite right that if we do not get them right, then recruitment and retention will go down—but we should not forget that the covenant is actually between the people and the serving soldiers, sailors and airmen. We have to get right the way in which we employ these people, very often in appalling circumstances that we ourselves would not even contemplate entering into. It is not just about the disabled, the sick and ill, the wives or the children, although they are all hugely important; it is about the soldier.
That is where the book by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire comes in. The great “Tommy” poem—which, if I may, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to quote a couple of lines from—absolutely goes to the heart of the military covenant:
“O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, go away’;
But it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band begins to play…
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?’
But it’s ‘Thin red line of ’eroes’ when the drums begin to roll…
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, fall be’ind,’
But it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s trouble in the wind…
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’
But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot”.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), not just on securing the debate, but on what I thought was an outstanding introduction that revealed the depth of her knowledge and her work on this matter. I was not aware of the all-party parliamentary group before, but I certainly am now, and I pay tribute to her for its work. I hope to deal with some of the issues that she raised.
I welcome the report. With all respect to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who talked about the importance of the serviceman, I want to say something about support for veterans and their families, and, in particular, about service accommodation.
The covenant is, and must surely continue to be, a lifetime guarantee for all those who have served our country, and now is as good a time as any for me to express my gratitude to them for their service. A couple of months ago, it was my great pleasure to open the annual conference of the new Westminster Centre for Research and Innovation in Veterans Wellbeing at the University of Chester. I have to say that, unfortunately, the centre is not named after this place; it is named after the late Duke of Westminster, who was a great supporter of the armed forces. It is led by Colonel Alan Finnegan, formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and it has links with the veterans community and the regional Army brigade headquarters.
When I was at the centre, I recounted the story of something that had happened in Chester early in my term as the city’s Member of Parliament. One of the apparently homeless people who were begging in the streets—one of the regulars in the city centre whom we recognise—had a sign saying that he was an ex-serviceman, ex-Army. That great 21st-century phenomenon, the social media storm, then blew up: people were extremely angry about what they considered to be a crime of impersonation, and even asked for the police to be involved. They were not suggesting that it was a crime of impersonation on the grounds that this gentleman was not really homeless; their anger was prompted by their belief that he was claiming to be an ex-serviceman when in fact he was not. I do not know whether he was or not, but the incident takes us back to what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said about his constituent in Wootton Bassett, and, indeed, to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker).
There is a real sense of pride in the members of our armed services, which is a welcome change from the atmosphere of past years that my hon. Friend described. I believe that, not only in Chester but more widely in the country, members of the armed forces should be able to wear their service as a badge of honour.
Bob Stewart
May I remind the House that in the 1970s and 1980s, armed forces personnel were specifically ordered not to wear uniform in public because of the Provisional IRA and other terrorist threats? That is one reason why we did not see people wandering around in uniform.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. There is, of course, a terrorist threat today, but I believe that the atmosphere has changed, and changed for the better.
For me, perhaps the most important aspect of that conference was the reminder that, for all our important work on mental and physical health, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, and about which I shall say more later, most of our service veterans are not needy and suffering, but have benefited greatly from the training, experience and comradeship that service gives them, and are continuing to contribute to our society. Discipline, teamwork, initiative, ingenuity and personal responsibility from a young age are all huge benefits to the community as well as the individual. The report refers to some of the successes of the covenant in business, but I fear that we do not always emphasise sufficiently the contribution of ex-service personnel to society. We must certainly not allow them ever again to be seen as burdens on society.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are also health needs to be met. We know that military veterans present with a number of emergent health issues, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obesity. We also know that the number of veterans who enter the judicial system as a result of violence-related crime associated with significant alcohol abuse is larger than the average. It is clear that a considerable amount of money is allocated to schemes involving the armed forces covenant, but the measurable outcomes of such initiatives are less clear. Covenant grants should, when possible, include measurable outcomes in the applications, and, when appropriate—it could perhaps be said that this is a shameless plug for the university in my constituency —the Government might consider using academic partners to shape the way in which valid and reliable information is collected and subsequently reported. I understand that the MOD covenant is looking at this and has invited expressions of interest, and I welcome that.
The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed devoted a long section of her speech to service families, which are referred to in chapter 8 of the report, which I welcome. The role of the family can sometimes be overlooked—although clearly not today, thanks to her—when seeking to support our forces and veterans. Any stress on a serviceman or woman also has an impact on their family. As she said, one way of addressing this is to ensure that there is as much stability in family life as possible, with welcoming surroundings—and that stability might also be reflected in retention rates.
The hon. Member for North Wiltshire talked about the consensual nature of the debate, but I will now, if I may, depart slightly from that. The Government have decided to sell off the Dale barracks in Chester, which is home to the Mercian Regiment, a successor of the Cheshire Regiment.
Christian Matheson
Yes, indeed. The decision is myopic and damaging. It will do nothing to maintain morale among the servicemen and families, and the popularity of the barracks is reflected in the number of service families who stay in the Chester area after leaving the Army.
The local schools are used to dealing with service children. This does not just mean, for example, making an extra effort to welcome and integrate new arrivals, to give as much stability as possible; primary schools in the Upton area of my constituency, where the barracks are based, are skilled at dealing with the pressures on children when their mums or dads are deployed away. I was not aware of the ten-minute rule Bill of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, but this issue is of great importance to three or four schools in that area, and I will now be looking at what support I can give her on that Bill.
Closing the Dale is unpopular and wrong, and I believe that it is being done solely because land values in Chester are high, which means that it can be sold off more easily.
Bob Stewart
Speaking as someone who has lived in the Dale barracks—my regiment was based there—I remind the House that the whole barracks was modernised only about 20 years ago, as the hon. Gentleman will know, and was considered then to be a future base for infantry.
Christian Matheson
I am most grateful to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, whom I consider a friend. His service in the Cheshire Regiment we should never fail to recognise, and the experience he brings to the House should never be underestimated. The House may wish to know that he is still held in extremely high regard in my constituency.
I do not think the closure of the barracks will assist the Army in its effectiveness and I ask the Government to think again.
I wish to touch briefly on two other issues. The first was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and concerns Northern Ireland. The criminal investigations into every death there involving the British Army during the troubles are wrong. If evidence of a crime can be presented, it should be investigated, but a blanket inquiry cannot be justified. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) talked about a statute of limitations; I do not know about that.
As I have mentioned, many former members of the Cheshire Regiment, which served with distinction in Northern Ireland, are either originally from, or have since settled in, my constituency. Their service should be their honour, and I will defend them. Some of them may be implicated now in the new inquiry. In the specific terms of today’s debate on the armed forces covenant, if the Government have not already done so— if they have, I apologise—will they consider guaranteeing full legal support to any ex-serviceman or woman who is dragged into this unfair mess?
My final point is also about veterans and ex-servicemen. I wish to mention my constituent Ray Tindall, along with John Armstrong, Nick Dunn, Nicholas Simpson, Paul Towers and Billy Irving. They remain incarcerated in a prison in Chennai in India wrongly convicted of a crime they did not commit.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this incredibly important point. Does he agree that, as service veterans, they are owed even more of a duty of care by this UK Government, who should be doing everything possible to get them home, where they belong?
Christian Matheson
I certainly agree with the hon. Lady and shall draw my comments to a close on that very theme.
Those people are all are ex-servicemen. Ray was in the Indian ocean with the other men to raise a little bit of money, in his case to grow his business in Chester. I will raise the case of the Chennai Six at every opportunity, because, with the greatest respect to MOD Ministers, I do not believe that our Foreign Office is being vigorous enough in its calls on the Indian Government to release the men. Ray has seen active service in recent conflicts, and if the covenant means anything—to them and to me—it means that we must continue all our efforts to bring him and those other lads home.
Sir Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing this debate. It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), whose praise for my hon. Friend and for the late Duke of Westminster I very much endorse.
It is an unavoidable fact that the body of men and women whom we ask to do the most difficult and dangerous tasks for us have, for obvious reasons, no public voice. We in this House therefore have a particular duty to take an interest in their concerns. I am glad to see the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster)—a man who has done three operational tours—in his place today. The growth and flowering of the covenant is in no small part thanks to him, and it grieves me greatly that I shall spend almost all my speech talking about a subject on which we profoundly disagree.
Last year, the Ministry of Defence won a settlement that committed us to defence expenditure of 2% of GDP, which was a welcome move, and to a modest but positive growth path. However, that is still the lowest proportion of GDP since before the second world war. At the same time, we committed ourselves to an equipment programme that has resulted in the amount of money left to pay for our personnel being badly squeezed. This debate on the armed forces covenant gives us an opportunity to discuss that position. The armed forces have felt the same pressures as the rest of the public sector—and rightly so. They had to undergo the same pay squeeze and the same large-scale reductions in pension rights, but on top of that they had already suffered in a number of ways. They have had large rises in rents, restrictions in the availability of various allowances, and even a noticeable decline in the quality of food for single personnel.
The effects of those changes can be seen in the numbers. In my view, the Army now has the best senior leadership for a generation or two, with a new breed of generals who came through middle-ranking command positions in combat now introducing all sorts of reforms, yet the Regular Army today is 3,600 short and still shrinking. The Royal Air Force is nearly 2,000 short, and we have the smallest number of pilots since the service was founded. Naval numbers have stabilised at a level quite close to their target. That is a remarkable achievement by the senior service, given that it has the greatest budgetary pressures of all and a colossal level of operational tasking, but for reasons that will become evident, the Royal Navy is not the main concern of my speech. I shall speak mainly about the other two services.
Regular surveys of those leaving the armed forces show each year that the largest single factor involved is the strain on family life. It is in that context that I want to focus exclusively on chapter 3 of the covenant and the new accommodation model. Many colleagues will be aware of the recent report from the National Audit Office that refers to the condition of the housing stock and the long backlog of repairs, but I am much more concerned about what it goes on to say about how short-term thinking over the past generation is setting us on a downward spiral. It states:
“To manage the estate within its budget, the Department has made decisions that subsequently offer poor value for money in the longer term, including the 1996 decision to sell and lease back the majority of Service Family Accommodation, which is now limiting the Department’s ability to manage this element of the estate cost-effectively.”
An additional problem in that regard will arise in four years’ time. It is a matter of record that I opposed that sell-off.
Against this unpromising background, I have much sympathy for my hon. Friend the Minister as he tries to find a new way forward for housing. He will no doubt tell us that the survey that the MOD has just published suggests that 55% of the 20,000-odd people who responded were broadly in favour of the proposals—almost twice as many as were against them. Nevertheless, I hope to persuade the House over the next few minutes that there are four reasons why that is a profound mistake.
The first reason why the new accommodation model is profoundly wrong is geography. Unlike the Royal Navy in Portsmouth and Plymouth, the majority of our garrisons and RAF stations are not near a supply of affordable housing to buy or to rent. Catterick and Tidworth, which are our two largest bases, are in the middle of nowhere—my sister lives near Catterick. Our RAF bases in Oxfordshire are among some of the most expensive housing areas in the country. All three of our fast jet fighter bases are in remote locations. Even where housing is plentiful, as in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), it is unaffordable.
The second reason is the effect on officers. The statement in the covenant is clear, but let me digress for a second. America has a policy of having allowances rather than family accommodation in some cases where housing in the area is affordable, but it is strictly based on rank. In contrast, the Government state that
“the accommodation allowance of tomorrow will be provided based on… need, regardless of…rank”.
I want to focus the House’s attention on the group who will lose out most. The critical group from which we are losing people is that of captains who are about to be majors in the Army. Company commanders and squadron commanders are the backbone of the regimental system. Those people and their counterparts in the RAF, which includes those coming up to the first breakpoint for fast-jet pilots after all those millions we have invested in them, will be told that unless they happen to have a large family, they will be given a small allowance instead of a substantial house in order to fund a much more generous arrangement for junior ranks with large families. Any civilian business that tried to follow such a principle would go bust within a year or two. Special arrangements for the regimental sergeant-major, the backbone of the regiment, are also being brushed aside.
The third reason is the continuing need for mobility. As long as I have been a Member of Parliament, every Government have committed themselves to greater stability, but there is some evidence that mobility has slightly increased. The Minister might well introduce a bit more stability, but all the staff training and all the best staff jobs for all three services are in southern England. However, the majority of Army units and almost all RAF units are not. Officers from those two services will continue to have to be posted up and down the country. It is the same for the submarine service, which is in a different position from the rest of the Navy.
Sir Gerald Howarth
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a complete nonsense that senior military personnel should have to go by second-class public transport? I had a general in Aldershot who had a national command. With a helicopter, he could brief his staff at 7.30 am in Aldershot and be up north by 10 o’clock. My hon. Friend is making an important point and the Minister had better listen to him.
Sir Julian Brazier
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his endorsement. He makes an important additional point.
This is not only about officers being posted around staff jobs. The centres of excellence where we train the next generation for the Army should get the cream of the senior NCOs from all over the Army. Brecon is shortly to have no Army units near it, but of course we have to post people in and out of there. The same goes for all the other phase 2 training schools. It is crucial that the best of the instructors go to RAF Valley, for example, but the nearby housing market is very thin.
The fourth reason is the question of cost, and that takes me on to the survey, about which I am sure the Minister will enlighten us. Let me provide some examples of how the wording of the questions and the issue of cost weigh against each other. The first is about housing quality.
The Australians operate a successful system whereby they lease properties in the local housing market. Their bases, unlike ours, are nearly all in major centres of population. They work on the basis that all the risk and all the maintenance is taken on by Defence Housing Australia. Such an arrangement is very expensive, and DHA funds it.
The reason that the majority of people gave for preferring the new system, as it was put to them, was that they thought they would get better houses. They were reminded in the survey—I have a copy if anyone wants to see it—that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with existing housing. The survey did not tell them that, in future, they will be responsible for all the risk and maintenance if they go away on exercises—as MPs, we all know how bad some private sector landlords are—unless they take on a huge extra cost.
Again, the survey says that we are going to reach out to unmarried families. I am in favour of that, and there is a serious case to be made for it, but how far do we go? If a soldier enters what might be a short-term relationship with a partner with three or four children from a previous relationship, are we really going to give them a gigantic allowance, perhaps twice as much as an RSM or a major with no children? There has to be a limit somewhere, but this is all dangled in the same survey.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some fantastic points, and forgive me for interrupting him because he is being crystal clear. I merely encourage him to observe one further thing, which is that the nature of military service means that people are frequently dragged away from their home base. That means that a spouse, perhaps from abroad or from a very different part of the country, is then responsible for dealing with a landlord or landlady who might not have their best interest at heart, to put it politely. The spouse will not then have the protection of the command structure above or of the Department, and they will not have civil servants to assist them; they will, quite literally, be on their own.
Sir Julian Brazier
My hon. and gallant Friend puts it in a nutshell, much better than I have.
I will finish in a moment, but I have one last point on the survey—you have been very tolerant, Madam Deputy Speaker. The survey refers to home ownership 11 times. People in the armed forces desperately want to own a home, and they worry about what will happen to them when they leave the service. Nowhere does the survey say that we are moving out of the many garrisons where home ownership is practical: Canterbury has closed; Chester is about to close; and Ripon is closing. We are focusing on areas where it is not practical to become a local owner-occupier.
What do I suggest? We need to come to terms with two basic points. First, within the defence budget to which we have committed ourselves, there has to be a degree of rebalancing. I—and, I suspect, most of the other people in this Chamber on a Thursday—believe that we should spend more money on defence, but if we cannot persuade our colleagues to spend more on defence, with all the threats out there in the world, the budget needs a degree of rebalancing. We either have to accept slightly smaller Regular forces or we have to buy less equipment. Rather that tearing up a model that works, we need to fund it properly.
Secondly, we have to find a vehicle for enabling a route to home ownership. The key to that for many people is buying to let, which means a special arrangement on last year’s Budget change that hugely disadvantaged service landlords, who are treated as if they are ordinary landlords, even though their property is the only one they have. They pay a higher rate of tax on the rent coming in than the relief they receive on their mortgage interest payments. There has been a bit of progress, but we also need to revisit the way in which the Forces Help to Buy scheme operates so that people do not have to apply to let the property, but can just let it when they get moved, with a guarantee that there will be no problems.
We need to find ways of reinforcing that model. We need to put a little more money into it, and we need to address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) that people in the armed forces at the bottom end of the financial scale should be prioritised on waiting lists. But—and this is a crucial but—it must be done in a way that is fair. This cannot just be where they are serving—my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) made a strong point about this—it must be in their place of origin, otherwise a few communities will carry the whole weight.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you and the House have been very tolerant with me this afternoon. I firmly believe that this Government are strongly committed to our armed forces and I have huge confidence in our Ministers, and I know that everybody who has stayed behind for this debate on a Thursday cares about our armed forces, but I believe that the new accommodation model is a serious threat to two of our armed forces.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
First, I thank the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) for securing this debate. I congratulate her on that, on her passionate support for serving personnel and veterans, and on her knowledge of the issues. I can safely say that we all welcome the publication of the fifth annual report on the armed forces covenant, but we should be very aware of the big challenges that remain, while welcoming the progress that has been made. The announcement last year of the £10 million per annum covenant fund was clearly a step forward, and the 300 projects that have resulted from it are a positive foundation that can be built on.
In recent years, society has become more aware and has more understanding of the effects of military service on the mental and physical health of those who chose to serve, and on their relationships with their families and their communities. However, quite apart from the rigours of their jobs, the challenges that face current and former military personnel in their own lives are many and varied, from post-traumatic stress or physical rehabilitation, to simply finding a house and job upon leaving the military.
Veterans are an asset to society and deserve our thanks, respect and support. There are some 13 million veterans in the UK today, amounting to one of the highest densities of veterans in a major country. In Scotland alone, approximately 1,800 men and women complete their military service and settle in our communities every year, many with their families. The transition from the armed forces to civilian is a hugely unsettling process. It involves leaving behind a job, a home, a community and a unique way of life—possibly the only life many servicemen and women have known in their adult lives. The importance of caring for veterans was underlined even further this week with the publication of a report entitled “Multiple deprivation in help-seeking UK veterans” by the charity Combat Stress. Among its key findings was the clear link between residence in areas with higher risks of deprivation and mental health difficulties. In addition, there was the startling finding that individual veterans take an average of 11 years before seeking help after leaving the military.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the stress that can be caused to servicemen and women, and their families and dependants, when they leave the service. Will she therefore join me in congratulating the Scottish Government’s commitment to supporting our ex-service personnel through the Scottish veterans fund, which contributes some £600,000 over three years to a range of one-off but vital projects in our communities?
Marion Fellows
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was coming on to that, and indeed will do so shortly.
For all the progress that has been made in recent times, there is clearly still much to be done to encourage veterans to seek the help they need and deserve. The fifth annual report does cover what has happened in Scotland but does not provide much detail, so I hope to provide that. In January 2014, Cabinet Secretary Keith Brown announced the creation of a Scottish Veterans Commissioner to act as an ambassador for ex-service personnel. On 28 June 2014, Eric Fraser CBE, a former Royal Navy officer, was appointed to that post. On 13 December last year, the Scottish Government announced that Mr Fraser was to be reappointed until August 2018. The commissioner has published three briefings on Scotland’s veterans: “Transition in Scotland”, in March 2015; “Report on Provision of Information on Housing for Service Leavers and Veterans in Scotland”, in August 2015; and, most recently, “The Veterans Community—Employability, Skills and Learning”, in November 2016. I recommend reading them—they read much better than their titles, which I have tried to enunciate.
As alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), the Scottish veterans fund was established by the Scottish Government in 2008 to assist groups and organisations that offer assistance to Scotland’s ex-service personnel and their families and dependants. It is administered by Veterans Scotland and has been designed to provide discrete amounts of funding to one-off projects. However, after last year’s announcement of £600,000 of funding over the next three years, the fund will now accept applications for two and three-year projects. It is worth noting that one of our big employers in Edinburgh, Standard Life, has contributed £240,000 to the fund.
In February last year, the Scottish Government set out their ambitious agenda for the future in the report “Renewing Our Commitments”, with the goal of making Scotland the destination of choice for service leavers. On healthcare alone, since last year’s report on the covenant, the Scottish Government have put in considerable work to improve services for current and former service personnel. For example, in partnership with NHS Scotland, the Scottish Government have provided £1.2 million for 2016-17 to fund specialist mental health services for veterans. They also continue to fund and roll out a network of Veterans First Point centres across Scotland, so that any veteran can get help with any difficulties they have—and that is not confined to any one area.
The Scottish Government give veterans priority access to low-cost housing through the low-cost initiative for first-time buyers, and provide schemes to help with deposits for private renters. In addition, they have awarded £1.3 million of grant funding to the Scottish Veterans’ Garden City Association—another mouthful—to build new homes, 25 of which are now complete across six local authority areas, to support impaired ex-service personnel. I am delighted to tell the Chamber that I pass 10 of those new homes every time I visit my constituency office in Motherwell and Wishaw.
The Scottish Government support applications to the education support fund and encourage veterans and personnel to grasp the opportunities that the fund could give them. As an ex-further education lecturer, I have had practical experience of teaching service personnel —mainly those who were still serving but were committed to leaving the forces and preparing for civilian life—and I have to say that I found them all to be both committed and diligent.
In Scotland, the most obvious and far-reaching differences found by personnel leaving the services concern the provision of public services, most of which have been devolved to the Scottish Government and are now delivered by local authorities and NHS Scotland. It is almost inevitable that everyone leaving the military in Scotland will need to engage with those organisations as part of their personal transition process, whether about their health, housing, education or employment.
Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. I recently visited one of my constituents, who is doing a lot for veterans. Indeed, quite soon he will be rowing solo from Portugal to French Guiana in aid of veterans. When he left the Royal Navy, he experienced quite severe mental challenges, and has recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Does my hon. Friend agree that the armed forces covenant and the work she has mentioned will mean—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. I am sorry, but I have just done some calculations and, given the number of Members who wish to speak, I am going to have to impose a six-minute limit on speeches after the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) takes her seat. That was a very long intervention, which would normally be fine on a Thursday, but we are going to be very pressed for time today. In the light of that, if the hon. Lady brought her speech to a conclusion, we would be very grateful.
Marion Fellows
May I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, lengthy though it was, and say that I appreciate the work that his constituent is doing?
I should also add at this point that an unfortunate few ex-service personnel do come in contact with the Scottish criminal justice system, which is also different. What may not be immediately apparent to the service leavers is the different approach to government in Scotland—I am talking about identifying which agencies have responsibility for the delivery of public services and what to expect in the way of support. Beyond the devolved public services, it must be remembered that Scotland also has several other characteristics that provide a different context for service leavers. Of those, perhaps the most important is the distinct nature of the third sector that provides vital support to the ex-service community.
We are also lucky in Scotland to have, across all sectors, a growing network of veterans’ champions who are dedicated to reinforcing the values of the armed forces covenant, and a private sector that is just starting to see the benefits of recruiting service personnel and their partners.
I was especially struck by the reference in the Scottish Veterans Commissioner’s third report, “The Veterans Community: Employability, Skills and Training”, published in November last year, in which he described how he met two students at Glasgow Caledonian University who had previously served in the military. They were early service leavers, who can face additional stresses on returning to civilian life. Both were inspiring characters, but one in particular left a lasting impression as he described the challenges that he faced during a short and troubled spell in the Army and a difficult transition into civilian life. He subsequently received vital support from the statutory sector, charities and the academic community—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I said that I hoped the hon. Lady was reaching a conclusion. Every minute that she takes is coming off subsequent Members. The speech limit is six minutes now, but it is rapidly coming down unless she really does conclude.
Marion Fellows
I apologise Madam Deputy Speaker. I got carried away in my enthusiasm.
In Scotland, we try very hard, through our devolved services, to support personnel and veterans. Scottish Veterans’ Employment and Training Service deserves a mention. It covers a wide variety of public, private and charitable institutions, and helps people who have left the military to gain employment. I have also experienced at first hand Motherwell and Wishaw citizens advice bureau, which provides, through the Armed Services Advice Project, programmed help for people in my area.
We all must play a part in improving the lives of serving personnel and veterans across the UK to recognise the valuable role that they play in the defence of our citizens. Scotland is well versed in partnership working, and this is a well-used route to help veterans in Scotland. I commend it to the Chamber.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing this debate and on the manner in which she presented it? Her work does her very great credit, particularly that in relation to the Public Accounts Committee.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) for giving us a wonderful plug and for promoting my book, which is available from all good booksellers. In a similar spirit, may I thank him for all his hard work on the armed forces parliamentary scheme—he has done a great job rejuvenating it and giving it a new lease of life—and for his work as chair of the all-party group for armed forces?
It seems like the covenant has been around for a long time, because, semantically, it has biblical or mid-17th century connotations, but the truth is that it was really only invented in 2000 in a staff paper. In 2007, the then Leader of the Opposition decided that it would be a good idea to create a Military Covenant Commission and appointed Frederick Forsyth as its chairman. People such as Simon Weston served with great distinction on that commission. It informed the thinking of the then Opposition and subsequent Government, and resulted in the inclusion of the military covenant in the Armed Forces Act 2011. That pretty much brings us to where we are today.
This report contains some great news. I give credit to the Government for their hard work and commitment, and I particularly thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Minister, who approaches this work with dedication and enthusiasm. There are a lot of positive things in the report. I was particularly taken by the fact that 73,000 pupils benefit from the pupil premium, which I feel strongly about as many of my young constituents benefit from it. Some 9,000 personnel are accessing the forces Help to Buy scheme, so that is having a real impact on people. The innovation is entirely compatible with the modern way of living for young people and has much to commend it, notwithstanding the points raised, quite rightly, by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) about the future accommodation model. I share many of those concerns. I could see that the Minister was listening attentively, and I am sure that he will go away and reflect on my hon. Friend’s insightful remarks.
Having been ever so nice about the Government, I would just like to reduce my diminishing prospects of preferment by pointing out that we have recently had some fairly bad news about the recruitment and retention figures for regulars and reserves. I am particularly worried about the Army. The figures are really very bad. Of all the surveys we do, this one matters most. People are not daft. They pick up on what is going on around them and vote with their feet. We are at a time of reasonably good, robust employment and people have other options, so we have to work twice as hard as ever to attract people and, much more importantly, to retain them.
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People simply walk. They do not give a reason; they just get fed up and go. That will not be reflected in any statistics. Those people are a wasted asset. I think that a lot of men and women who consider joining the reserve forces simply go and do something else.
The figures would have been even worse had we not changed the way in which we count people. We have now included phase 2 trainees in our trained strength. The logic behind that is perfectly sound in that phase 2 trainees can be used in the UK to do all sorts of exciting things do to with resilience and all the rest of it. Nevertheless, one is left—being a cynical politician—with the sense that this is, in fact, improving the figures. We have to compare like with like, but if we do that, we end up in an even more unhappy place—[Interruption.] I have been reminded that, of course, we are talking about phase 1 trainees: people who have completed phase 1, but not yet embarked on or completed phase 2.
The new employment model, the new recommendations for the service families accommodation and the future accommodation model have been discussed at length. I cannot expand on that in the time available, but I entirely agree with some of the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury. What has been proposed is exciting and forward-looking. It kind of taps into the way society is today. We always have to do that when trying to work out how the covenant will work into the future. However, it seems that this will disadvantage people and remove something valuable in service life. We must be very careful about that.
I am concerned about mental health in the armed forces. I wrote a report a little while ago called “Fighting Fit: a mental health plan for servicemen and veterans”, which the Government, to their great credit, implemented pretty much in full, but what I missed was the level of alcohol abuse in the armed forces. Some would say that that is up to the individual and has nothing to do with combat. I would say that the culture in our armed forces—I have seen this over many years—is one of encouraging the abuse of alcohol. We have a duty under the covenant to ensure that we deal with this, but I fear that we are not doing so at the moment. Some 65% of our military are at higher risk for their excess drinking.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
This has been an excellent debate with much consensus. I speak as someone who is proud to be the wife of an armed forces veteran from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Alcohol difficulties in the Army also reflect mental health issues. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that alcohol is often a suppressant for underlying mental health issues?
Dr Murrison
Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. If we accept that we have a culture in the armed forces that encourages the use of alcohol—possibly with some benefits, actually—we have a duty of care to people to ensure that we try to tackle it. We were told that we were going to have an alcohol working group and that it would report shortly. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister where we are with that group and when we can have its report and the action points arising from it.
I suspect that the advent of lawfare will be discussed at length by one of my hon. Friends in a moment. However, I would like to weigh in, because the issue has already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), and I agree with his remarks. I am deeply concerned about this issue. I wrote to the Prime Minister in October and received a very satisfactory response, in which she made it clear that she takes this matter extremely seriously. I am pleased to note that we have an intention to derogate from the European convention on human rights in respect of future conflicts. Of course, had we done so several years ago, we would not be running into some of the difficulties that have been alluded to this afternoon.
The Iraq Historic Allegations Team must conclude its work by the end of 2019. I am pleased that the Government have committed to making sure that that happens, in so far as they are able to do so. I am also pleased that they will be giving support to those veterans who find themselves having their collar felt; it is entirely appropriate that we should do that. Will that also apply to Northern Ireland veterans—Operation Banner veterans —who have been issued with letters from the Ministry of Defence inviting them to unburden themselves? Many of these gentlemen are in their 60s or 70s, and it is a troubling experience for them. My advice to them, quite frankly, would be, “If you receive one of these, you should seek the advice of a solicitor.” It would be nice to know that the MOD agrees with that advice and that it will undertake to fund it.
Finally, I would like to give my observations on accommodation in relation to CarillionAmey. My sense is that, in recent months, things have improved. As somebody who represents a garrison town, I of course get correspondence on this issue regularly from my military constituents, and it has tailed off recently. However, there is no denying the conclusion in the extremely good report from the Public Accounts Committee, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed contributed, that the
“performance of CarillionAmey has been totally unacceptable and it is right that the Department is considering terminating the contract.”
Those are strong words from a highly respected Committee of this House, and I would be interested to hear what the Minister is doing to rein in the worst excesses of a company that, frankly, has let the men and women of our armed forces and their families down.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on bringing this debate to the Floor of the House. She is to be commended for that and for her commitment to the armed forces.
I am a great believer in the idea that the armed forces must be rooted in, and reflect, the society they serve and defend. I commend the hon.—and gallant—Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) for raising the issue of making sure that our armed forces reflect the society they serve by living in it and not just in bespoke military hubs.
In their domestic lives, service personnel have similar problems to the rest of society, but we must recognise that they also face unique challenges. The Minister will be aware that I have raised issues on the Floor of the House in relation to children, veterans and carers, as well as pre-deployment and the length of deployment.
However, that does not mean that challenges do not remain. In terms of the report and the general debate, I am astonished to see the difficulties that veterans still face in accessing medical care. While there have been obvious improvements, work remains to be done across the whole United Kingdom—for example, in ensuring a better transition into civilian life for veterans by ensuring that service GPs can share their expertise across the NHS, which we have discussed on the Floor of the House on many occasions. Critically, in Scotland and across the UK there are differing NHS structures. Local provision in Scotland is made through community planning partnerships, where a whole range of partners get around the table. The discussion of the impact of service life in community planning partnerships does not seem to be having any influence.
In housing, there are problems with CarillionAmey providing service accommodation that lives up to the understandably high standards of the Ministry of Defence. That fact has drawn the eye of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, which indicates that much work remains to be done in delivering an improvement in the living experiences of service families and providing value for public money, as most of that money goes to a private company.
I wonder whether the future accommodation model should learn from elements of the Scottish housing standard, on which the Ministry of Defence could at least reflect, in introducing a basic standard. The Ministry of Defence in Scotland is exempt from the national housing standard, which every social landlord had to meet by 2015.
That brings me to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), who mentioned social housing. Rather than blaming pregnant women, perhaps the best way to give people access to social housing is not only to build more of it, but to stop selling it.
This week’s Combat Stress report highlights some of the fundamental problems faced by veterans and underlines the fact that much work remains to be done. The opportunities grasped by many who enlist in our armed forces are unfortunately not shared by nearly enough people. Those of us who take an interest in armed forces and veterans affairs will not be satisfied until that attainment gap is closed. I agree with the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed about the corporate covenant. I am seeing that in small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency. Last week, I attended a Burns celebration in which the chamber of commerce—it covers not only West Dunbartonshire, but the whole of the old county of Dunbartonshire—led the charge to get businesses involved in that corporate approach.
It is one of my great hopes that the idea of the covenant can become embedded in the culture of the armed forces. The service rendered by those who join must be returned many times by not only this Government, but Governments of the devolved Administrations—and by the society that those people have served. I welcomed the Scottish Government’s commitment, which some of my hon. Friends have mentioned. Last year, the Scottish Government set out their ambitious agenda for veterans with “Renewing our Commitments”, in order to make Scotland the go-to destination for those who leave the services.
In conclusion, I reiterate my welcome for the report and my satisfaction in the ongoing work of the armed forces covenant to ensure that those who have served are given the support and opportunities that they deserve. Like most people in this House and in the country, I know from my own family experience—members of my family have been on the front line—the unique challenges faced by those who serve in the armed forces, and by their families. I am happy to say that they deserve our respect, our thanks and our ongoing support. In doing so, I do not forget the work that we in this House and those in the Ministry of Defence must still do to ensure that veterans receive more support than we are giving them at the moment.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing this fantastic debate. I remember spending many great days and cold nights in her constituency on gunnery training exercises. Those are fond memories, mostly. I would also like to declare that my youngest son serves in the British Army, also as a gunner.
The armed forces covenant has had a positive impact in redefining the relationship between our civilian population, veterans and our armed forces. By enshrining it in law, we have provided our armed forces, both past and present, with a tangible agreement—almost a contract—between the people who serve, the politicians who make the decision, as we do often, to put them in harm’s way, and the rest of the population who benefit and are kept free by the service and sacrifice of our armed forces.
I was very proud during the last Parliament to serve on the Armed Forces Bill Committee, not only as a Member of Parliament who represents a constituency with a huge defence, MOD and military manufacturing capacity, but as a veteran and vice-president of the Stoke Gifford Royal British Legion branch. I put lots of pressure on local councils in Bristol and south Gloucestershire to sign the community covenant during the last Parliament, and I constantly keep up the pressure regarding its ongoing implementation.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
As one Royal British Legion vice-president to another, may I tell the hon. Gentleman that I very much take the point he is making? He will be aware, although the House may not, that every branch of the Royal British Legion and most branches of the Royal Naval Association have a welfare officer, who is very often the conduit or link between recently discharged servicemen and women, and the local authority, social housing providers and general providers of social aid and assistance. Does he agree that the Government could do more in the pre-discharge period to let servicemen and women know about the advantages of the Royal British Legion, which can do so much for them? In many cases, sadly, that offer is not taken up.
Jack Lopresti
The hon. Gentleman is of course absolutely right. There is a responsibility on our part as Members of Parliament to link up with service charities such as the Royal British Legion to make sure that they are aware of what we can do to help veterans in our own communities.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman support the Royal British Legion’s “Count them in” campaign, which calls on the next census to capture data on the armed forces community? That would help to improve the allocation of resources and services to this community, and I think the Government should support it.
Jack Lopresti
Of course I will support that. As I said, it is imperative on all of us to link up with local service charities and do whatever we can on all levels to help our veterans and their loved ones, families and dependants. I have done some work with a military charity called Alabaré, which does a lot on housing, and I helped to secure it considerable funding from the LIBOR fund to invest in veterans’ accommodation.
Overall, the covenant has definitely helped to improve the way in which our country treats those who have protected our way of life, or are still doing so, by serving in the armed forces. We must never forget the huge debt of gratitude we owe both those who are currently serving and veterans, as well as their families. Freedom is not free: we do not live in a free country by accident, as most people in this country fully appreciate and understand.
When members of the armed forces swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown, they enter into a covenant relationship with society—they swear to protect and serve us all—but, regrettably, this covenant has recently been shown to be one-sided. In the foreword to the armed forces covenant annual report, the Secretary of State for Defence says:
“We have a duty across society to recognise this dedication and sacrifice, by ensuring that the policies we make, and the services that we provide, treat our Service personnel, Veterans, and their families fairly, and ensure they suffer no disadvantage by comparison to the rest of society as a result of their service.”
As other hon. Members have mentioned in some detail, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) in particular, there is at least one aspect in which former service personnel are being disadvantaged by their service. I am talking about the ongoing, politically motivated witch hunt that is now taking place against former soldiers and service people who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Only last weekend, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wrote in an article in The Daily Telegraph that there is an “imbalance” that has led to a “disproportionate” focus on criminal inquiries involving former soldiers. That is a clear admission of failure in relation to the armed forces covenant and of people being disadvantaged by their service.
I was interested to read the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence in December that, in line with the Government’s commitment to the armed forces covenant, they plan, in order to stop service personnel and their families having to pursue lengthy and stressful claims in the courts,
“to provide better compensation…for injuries or death in combat equal to that which a court would be likely to award if it found negligence. As part of this reform, we intend to clarify in primary legislation the long-standing common law principle that the Government are not liable for damages as a result of injuries or deaths sustained in combat.”—[Official Report, 1 December 2016; Vol. 617, c. 53WS.]
The Secretary of State also said that that would address the so-called judicialisation of war. The Government are able to act, with primary legislation, to protect their own interests, but what is happening to our Northern Ireland veterans is also, in my opinion, a judicialisation of war.
Let me bring to the House’s attention one of the many ongoing cases in which the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland—incidentally, he is a former lawyer for Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams—is seeking to prosecute two surviving veterans who were part of an Army patrol that shot the known IRA terrorist John McCann. Sadly, one of the patrol has died in the intervening years. The soldiers were investigated fully at the time, and the fact that the length of time that has passed means there is a lack of forensic evidence and credible eye-witness testimony would in my view make the trial, in modern terms, untenable.
We need to bring in legislation quickly to provide a statute of limitations on all sides. That would help to draw a line under the terrible events of the troubles and bring the communities together. There would also be no further retrospective prosecutions of our service people. I want to make a point that I have previously made in the House: there is no moral equivalence whatsoever between terrorists and brave service people who were keeping the peace to protect all communities. Nine hundred and sixty one people were killed serving in the police, the police reserve, the Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Irish Regiment—nearly a third of all people who lost their lives in the troubles. It is clear to me that on this issue the Government have broken the military covenant. Clearly, we are not protecting or supporting our veterans who volunteered to put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf. The Government are letting them down badly.
Nobody is suggesting that military justice and due process should not apply on operations. Our people operate under the highest possible standards and with very strict rules of engagement. They are a great force for good in the world, but where service personnel have been judged to have carried out their duties, often in extremely difficult circumstances and at great risk to themselves, their actions should not be second-guessed years later for the sake of political expediency, a form of appeasement and the weakness of some of our politicians.
This is not just about dealing with the past. This is about upholding the covenant and our country’s honour, so that the people serving today and those thinking of enlisting have the reassurance that, whatever awful situation we send them into, it will not result, 30 or 40 years down the line, in their lives being ruined by retrospective, politically motivated prosecutions.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. I am afraid the time limit is dropping down to five minutes. I call Danny Kinahan.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti). I very much agree with his sentiments, and the soft way with which he put it, that we really must start looking after our armed forces, particularly those who served in Operation Banner.
The military covenant is a fantastic document and a great idea. I congratulate all involved in trying to put it into place. I apologise today for speaking mainly on Northern Irish issues. Before I do, I would like to congratulate the Minister, who often gives me the opportunity to talk through these issues with him. He was going to visit Northern Ireland, but has had to delay because of our election.
I want to congratulate in particular the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on the huge amount of work she does on this issue. She visited Northern Ireland, where she met victims suffering from appalling combat stress; she listened carefully to how things are in Northern Ireland. I welcome the fact that the covenant says that we will look at the regions and learn from each other. There is a great deal to learn from how Scotland and everyone does this. It is, however, right for me to concentrate on Northern Ireland, because so much there does not work.
I want to start with a story that was told to me many years ago, which always makes me think. Winston Churchill visited a Spitfire factory and the young, keen engineer told him, “We look at every aircraft when it comes back. We see where most of the holes are, and then we arm them and make them stronger.” Winston Churchill, quick as a flash, replied, “You are looking at the wrong aircraft. You are looking at the ones that come back.” What I am trying to get across is that we must all remember to think outside the box. We have the information in front of us about the 83% or 84%, but we have to make sure we consider the information we are currently not seeing. I believe there is a great deal we can learn from it.
We struggle in Northern Ireland because the structures are not properly in place. We heard from the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) about the difficulties in Northern Ireland. Working together, we now have someone on the reference group, but we need a non-political commissioner or champion who can work with all sides of the political spectrum in Northern Ireland and bring everyone together. As we know, one side in Northern Ireland sees all military and security forces as representing British imperialism. We have to show them the great work of our armed forces in the Mediterranean, picking up refugees fleeing Africa, and in dealing with Ebola. We need to show the mass of great work our armed services are doing.
In Northern Ireland, about 60,000 people served in the UDR and the security forces. I want to tell one more story. I was once valuing a painting near Dungannon. As I walked in, there was a photograph of the person I was meeting with all his colleagues in military uniforms. I said, “Gosh, you’re brave to have that photograph on display next to the door.” He took me out into the car park and pointed to about 20 houses nearby saying that in every single one of them the males had been shot by the IRA. That is the world they were living in. That is why people have mental difficulties. They never got a break. They did their duty, went back to work and lived with that threat.
That is why I have pushed so hard to make sure that we look after everyone. We need funding to help the Reserve Forces and Cadets Association to look after everyone, and we need to sort out who exactly is in charge of this in Northern Ireland. It is not the regular forces. The RFCA does most of it, but it needs resources. Councils do not have the support either. We have champions in every council, but they do not do housing or education; that is done up at Stormont, but it is not being delivered there because, as we have heard, the covenant is not seen as being in place in Northern Ireland. We had 197 shot in the UDR alone. We have to find a way of helping everyone. It needs someone to grit their teeth and look at how we make it work. If we look outside the box, I think we can get there.
I agree with everyone that we cannot have this witch hunt. I see myself as about as balanced as can be, but it is so biased.
Jack Lopresti
The hon. Gentleman and I both serve on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. In the last Parliament, we inquired into the implementation of the military covenant in Northern Ireland. Is it time we thought about another inquiry as an update on that?
Danny Kinahan
I very much agree. We should have an update. We also have to find a way of drawing a line, perhaps with a statute of limitations. We have to find some way of moving on in Northern Ireland, and part of that will mean looking after our armed services—not just the Army, Navy and Air Force, but the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the RUC, the prison officers and a whole mass of other people. As someone who lives in Northern Ireland, I want to end by thanking all those who have served there and secured peace. Let us make sure we keep it.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The main point of the armed forces covenant is to ensure good morale in our armed forces. Maintenance of morale is the second most important principle of war and has been described as
“a positive state of mind derived from inspired political and military leadership, a shared sense of purpose and values, well-being, perceptions of worth and group cohesion.”
It is thus at the heart of the armed forces covenant. Napoleon called morale the “sacred flame”. He went further, saying, “Morale is to the physical as three is to one”. When I was an instructor at Sandhurst, between 1979 and 1980, when some in the Chamber were not even born, I did not really understand that. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are waving at me. I taught it, but I did not understand it. It means that if an army has high morale, the enemy thinks it has more forces. I did not understand that until I went to Bosnia.
Stephen Pound
As someone who was around in 1979, I must say that, while I hate to disagree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I do not think that the prime purpose of the covenant is to raise the morale of the troops. It is to repay a debt of honour we owe to servicemen and women. It is a debt of honour being repaid by the civilian society. It is not just about morale, surely.
Bob Stewart
I absolutely—and graciously—accept that point.
When I went to Bosnia, I learned this lesson. The three main opponents always came to me and said, “How many men and women do you have under your command?”, and I would say, “Lots. How many do you think?” They would say, “Between 3,000 and 4,000.” I had 800. Those men and women were acting like that because of their morale. We have the best armed forces in the world thanks to high morale and training. We give them everything we can, but we have the best armed forces in the world, and the armed forces covenant is going to make them even better.
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Does my hon. and gallant Friend agree that what underpins the strong morale in the fighting elements of our armed forces is the confidence that when they come back into civilian life, they will be protected, nurtured and their sacrifice honoured?
Bob Stewart
I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for that very good intervention. The armed forces covenant will require constant care and attention. It is a responsive document that must interact with what is happening at the time, and hopefully, it will become even more effective.
Finally, to speak sharply, I want to complain to the Minister, who is sitting there complacently. There is not one regular unit of the Air Force, the Navy or the Army in my constituency of Beckenham, and that is disgraceful —sort it out!
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I am not quite sure how to follow the last point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), but I will try.
It is a great privilege to speak in this debate on the covenant, not least because in October 2011, Blackpool was the first town in the north-west to show its commitment to the armed forces by signing the community covenant, which I have a copy of here. I pay tribute to the late Jim Houldsworth—a Conservative councillor, as it happens—who was instrumental in bringing the community covenant together in the town.
Blackpool has a strong relationship with the armed forces. Every year, to tie in with national Armed Forces Day—indeed, we had one of the first in the country—the town also holds an armed forces week, which this year will run from 19 to 25 June, with a range of events taking place. As far as I am aware, we are the only town that has a whole forces week. We have an active armed forces champion in Councillor Chris Ryan, who is responsible for spearheading plans to improve access to services. That action plan complements the armed forces community covenant for Blackpool.
We also have our own arboretum—the Fylde memorial arboretum and community woodland at Bispham—for which Councillor Ryan is setting up a friends group. I have been privileged over the last few years to have a couple of armed forces roundtable events with members of the local armed forces community. They have included people such as Sergeant Rick Clement—he is something of a legend in Blackpool, as a double amputee who served in Afghanistan and has raised tens of thousands of pounds for military charities—Lieutenant-Colonel Johnny Lighten from the north-west veterans committee and Stephen Greenwood from Blackpool Submariners.
I pay tribute to the fantastic speech that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) made in bringing this matter to the House’s attention. However, I agree with other hon. Members that this debate should be an annual fixture in Government time.
My time is limited, so I will focus on just a couple of issues, the first of which is the return to civilian life. At my armed forces roundtable this year, that issue was the subject of a strong discussion, because many personnel are now leaving the armed forces at a younger age, in many cases having experienced very traumatic circumstances. However, they do not always find that the skills or qualifications that they have gained in the Army are readily recognised in civvy street. The in-service education metrics section of the 2016 report states that
“there continues to be low satisfaction with the training and education available in relation to gaining civilian accreditation and personal development”
and cites various statistics.
I urge the Minister to look carefully at that issue and to liaise with his colleagues in the Department for Education. I speak not only as a local MP, but as the shadow Minister for schools and further education, and I am well aware of this lack of transferability. We are not doing justice to our troops and armed services if they leave with qualifications that cannot be easily understood in civvy street.
I will give an example from a roundtable this year. Lesley-Jane Holt from LifeWorks for the Royal British Legion spoke about how a lot of employers use automated software to scan through CVs, but pointed out that it does not always recognise the skills relating to the forces. I urge the Minister to address that. With the Government making changes in further education and skills, with apprenticeships coming through and with the new Institute for Apprenticeships and everything that goes with it, now is an apposite time to do so.
I conclude with a plea from another person who attended that session, Councillor Edward Nash from Fylde, which is next door to Blackpool. He sent me a note for today that says:
“Some thoughts on the Covenant: It is seen as increasingly … London-based…All bids now go to London”.
We used to have a regional panel and we should resuscitate it. He continues:
“What does the Corporate Covenant with business actually achieve? Recruitment? Reservists?”
Who gets what out of it? I know that a great deal has been achieved, but as we have heard, a great deal more needs to continue to be achieved. It would be very useful if the Minister looked at these issues.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) not just for securing the debate but for the tireless work that she does for the armed forces in this House and beyond.
From the long winter of the Crimean war to the bloody waters of Gallipoli, the history of my constituency’s Green Howards Regiment is a shining reminder that the story of British liberty is inseparable from that of our military. It is an enormous privilege to represent the almost 1,500 veterans, service personnel and their families based around Catterick Garrison and RAF Leeming, yet for many years, despite their heroism, my constituents have too often found themselves at the back of the queue for public services. There will always be more that we can do, but in housing, education and employment, I am proud to say that the armed forces covenant and the work of this Government have moved us closer than ever to ensuring that the world’s finest armed forces are never penalised for their service.
Let me begin briefly with housing. Before the covenant’s introduction, retiring service personnel in my constituency often found that they did not meet the residency requirement to be considered for council housing. As a direct consequence of this Government’s action, I am pleased to report that that is now largely a thing of the past. I pay enormous tribute to Richmondshire District Council for its tireless work in this regard. However, although military families are used to having their lives uprooted when orders of a new posting come in, they are too often also used to finding inadequate housing when they get there.
In the most recent armed forces attitude survey, only 29% of military families said that they were satisfied with the quality of maintenance in service family accommodation. CarillionAmey’s failures to live up to the standards set out by the MOD have been mentioned before, and they are a betrayal of both the taxpayer and our armed forces. I very much welcome the action that the Government have already taken in condemning that failure. With the future accommodation model on the horizon, I am mindful that it will be a great comfort for my military constituents to know that the lessons of CarillionAmey’s shortcomings have been learned so that they will not be repeated. I also echo the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) about the FAM.
Let me turn next to education, a crucial area. With frequent school changes and parents left to manage alone during tours of duty, the sacrifices made by members of our armed forces are often felt hardest by their children. The Government have taken real action by introducing the service pupil premium—as we speak, that funding is helping schools across my constituency to meet the unique needs of military children. I also commend the Government for creating the education support trust, which funds North Yorkshire County Council’s excellent service pupils champions scheme. Thanks to the hard work of council leader Carl Les and Neil Irving, that has been an enormous success. I urge the Government to maintain the funding for that programme. My constituents welcome plans to expand Catterick to a super-garrison, but I urge the Minister to ensure that discussions with the local council begin as soon as possible so that we can ensure that adequate school places are made available when the additional soldiers and their families arrive.
My final point is about spousal employment. Fifty per cent of military personnel already cite the impact on their partner’s career as making them more likely to leave the services. The reason is that the husbands and wives of Britain’s servicemen and women represent a deep reservoir of talent that all too often goes untapped. That is a problem not only for families but for our economy, which is missing out on some of our nation’s most able and resourceful citizens. The work done by charities such as Recruit for Spouses, and the Government’s ongoing spouse employment support trial, is crucial to rectifying the situation. I hope very much that such work continues, and that it will remain at the heart of our thinking about the armed forces covenant.
The soldiers, sailors and airmen of north Yorkshire do not expect the path that they have chosen to be an easy one. All they want to know is that when they take on that burden, their Government will do what they can to make it just a little lighter. The annual covenant report makes it clear that we still have work to do, but with six years of success behind us, it is equally clear to me that it is this Government who can make that a reality.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I welcome the report, and I particularly welcome the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), who has done so much for the armed forces in just a year and a half. It is extraordinary to think how much she has already achieved in such a brief period.
We have heard much about the burden of service, and I think it might be helpful for us to remind ourselves of the joy of it. The reason I joined the armed forces—it is the reason many of us joined—was that it is the most extraordinary opportunity to serve one’s country in the most dynamic and demanding environments.
I cannot express to the House the joy that I experienced when conducting fighting patrols in Afghanistan and Iraq. It might sound absurd, but actually to spend days with men—in my case it was only men—who were like-minded, focused, determined in pursuit of a goal that they knew to be right in the service of a country that they knew to be honourable, and serving alongside men we knew to have integrity: what a rare experience that was. What an experience it was not to be clouded by mortgage fears or annoyed by the words of Whips, but simply to be free to do exactly what was right.
However, the experience was also hugely demanding. We were operating in very difficult circumstances, in heat and dust, sleeping little, often in danger—at risk of either improvised explosive devices or direct action—and also working alongside people from other nations. I speak not only of the Americans with whom, obviously, we worked very closely, the Australians with whom I had the great joy of serving, or the Estonians, Danes and Czechs, all of whom were impressive and quirky in their own ways, but of Afghans and Iraqis—men of huge courage and great integrity who literally put their lives on the line for us and many of whom, sadly, did not live to tell the tale.
That experience was almost like a drug it was so powerful. It is so electric to be challenged in everything you do—physically, mentally, morally—for such a period. It is so demanding. It is exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. That is why the covenant matters. The challenge of coming back is much greater than the challenge of simply going from an institution to a free civilian life. It is almost like kicking a habit. Living in such an environment that is so all-consuming and so demanding, but also so rewarding, gives you a purpose that very few things can match—even some of the things that we are doing now, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Jack Lopresti
In the light of my hon. Friend’s military service and the operational tours that he has done, may I ask whether he is comfortable with the way in which we have treated our interpreters and other locally employed civilians?
Tom Tugendhat
I have only a few minutes to speak, so if my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not talk much about locally employed civilians, except to say that I am hugely pleased that this country has given refuge to a wonderful man who served as my interpreter for a brief period when I was working for the governor of Helmand. That man went through several explosions with me—literally alongside me. We managed to escape with our lives from several relatively closer calls than I think my parents would have liked to know about.
I mention my parents for a specific reason. While I was experiencing the exhilaration of combat and the joy of camaraderie, my family and my then girlfriend—my wife should not hear about that too much!—were left behind. Of course, for many of the folk I was serving with, their families were waiting anxiously, hoping that they would not get a knock on the door. That, again, is where the covenant comes in, because when my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) is talking about accommodation models, he is talking about not only the place where people live, but a community that supports them. We must not destroy the communities that support our armed forces who serve in battle—those around Aldershot, for example—where the families live together and understand the pressures everyone is under. Accommodation is not simply about a need for a house—a set of bricks—but about a need for a family of a different sort that reinforces those families who also serve as they sit and wait.
James Cleverly
I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for giving way. On the question of support networks, does he agree that the Government and broader society need to be particularly aware of the pressures on people like him who were members of the reserve forces and do not have that automatic wraparound structure as a result of the diverse and dispersed nature of their particular circumstances?
Tom Tugendhat
My hon. and gallant Friend speaks absolutely correctly. Of course, he will know this very well, having served himself and also being a reservist.
I want to skip quickly on to a second aspect of the covenant, which I am sorry to say was not mentioned in the report: the law. We have heard mention of the Northern Ireland cases and we have touched on the Iraq historical allegations cases. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) has done an enormous amount of very impressive work on this. Sadly, for family reasons, he cannot be here today, but I am afraid that his work has demonstrated that our Government are not doing enough. We need to do more to protect those who have done the most for us, because what the covenant should be about is ensuring that those who have served—who have risked all and given all—can come back safe in the knowledge that they are safe, and that they are not going to be pursued by charlatans and liars like Phil Shiner, who has been struck off today by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority for his deceit, dishonesty and absolute treason to this country in pursuing fine, fine people. I am delighted that that has come to pass. If any man would wish to claim the faith that he does, he would do well to read his commandments: the eighth is:
“Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
I urge the Government to look very hard at the changes they are making with regard not only to future derogations from the European convention on human rights for operations, but also a statute of limitations, because it is not enough simply to support those who are vulnerable at home or to make sure their kids have schools to go to—important though these things are—if for the years after their service they are constantly looking over their shoulder, fearful of a knock on the door, because somebody who had tried and failed to kill them in combat is now using our own courts against them. That would not only leave them weaker, but leave them exposed. It would also leave the country exposed, and that is unacceptable.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I shall begin with a number of expressions of gratitude: gratitude to the Chair for allowing me to contribute at all when, because of another Defence Committee commitment, I could not attend as much of the debate as I should have; gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) for her splendid work on the armed forces covenant—she is relatively new to the House of Commons, but has taken to this place like a duck takes to water; gratitude to the Minister, who carries out his responsibilities with a great deal of conscientiousness, informed not least by his own frontline military service, for which the country has reason to be grateful; and gratitude to all hon. Members who have seen active service and have spoken so movingly today.
In particular, I single out my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), who has just spoken. He held the House in a vice-like grip and added an important piece of information that will affect my own remarks. I had not known that Mr Shiner, who I believe glories in the title of professor, had been struck off today. I was not going to say anything about him because I knew that he was facing ongoing proceedings, but I now feel it incumbent on me to say that if people like that had been around in the aftermath of the second world war, and if our troops in that war had known that they would have to face the duplicity, the manoeuvrings and the outrages perpetrated on subsequent generations of soldiers by such people, they could not possibly have fought with the valour that they showed in defeating Nazism and fascism.
This country will be failed by its Government if we do not find a method of preventing what is a much more lethal version of the practice that used to be known in industrial relations terms as the “work to rule” from being applied every time a soldier has to pull a trigger in a deadly conflict. That would make the carrying out of the profession of arms absolutely impractical and impossible. The words that we have heard today, time and again, are “statute of limitations”. The idea that anyone could come up with new and relevant evidence 40 or more years after crimes—if they were crimes—have been committed is frankly preposterous in the context of a military conflict. It is not going to happen. All that such a process will do is put people through a mental and emotional wringer for no purpose other than to demoralise the ability of the state to send troops into harm’s way, or indeed to recruit troops in the knowledge that they will be sent into harm’s way at the behest of the state. Not only will those troops have to face the violence of the enemy; they will also have to face the lies, distortions and blatant manipulations of a blind justice system after they have survived the dangers of combat. That is totally untenable and it has to stop.
A statute of limitations does not imply pardoning or guilt. It does not imply anything other than the realisation that if the settlement in Northern Ireland is to hold, it has to have fairness on all sides. We cannot have a situation in which one group of people are, if not amnestied, at least given a ceiling of a couple of years to any possible prison sentence, and are even enabled to hold positions of high authority in the political system, while the soldiers who were doing their job with integrity on behalf of the democratic Government are placed in harm’s way and pursued to the ends of time.
Tom Tugendhat
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are other lawyers who might be included in the points he is making?
Dr Lewis
I would say that we have to find a system to ensure that what happened in Iraq is never allowed to happen again. At some stage, that might mean standing up to the provisions of international law, and if we were to do that, we would have to use the strongest possible case. What case could be stronger than the existence of a settlement in Northern Ireland in which one group of people were protected while the soldiers who represented the majority of the people were unprotected and left exposed indefinitely?
As I have only a few seconds left, I urge people to look at the website of the Defence Committee to see details of the hearing that we held on 17 January, at which the Minister was questioned on a whole raft of issues about the welfare of our service personnel. In particular, I should like to give a little comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) and to assure him that, in the light of the comments that he and others have made, and of the issues that were raised in that meeting with the Minister, it is, shall we say, more than a little probable that we will be looking into the question of service accommodation in the not too distant future.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) and the Backbench Business Committee for arranging this debate. In these interesting political times, it is important that issues such as this are not allowed to fall by the wayside. Today’s debate has been interesting and useful, with many considered and thoughtful contributions. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) raised an important point about the pensions injustice for some war widows. I also pay tribute to the excellent contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows).
The SNP welcomes the publication of the report, and it is vital that we record our gratitude for the people who step forward and signal their willingness to put themselves in peril for the rest of us by joining the armed forces. That being the case, the least we can do is ensure that we drive this matter forward and establish which particular areas need concerted focus. I agree with other hon. Members that society is perhaps becoming more aware of the effects of military service on the mental and physical health of service personnel and veterans and also their families, an important issue that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw.
Like others, I am pleased that Scotland has a veterans commissioner, whose contribution is highly regarded, and it is a shame that that is not reflected more in the report. However, the report does highlight the work to engage with the Muslim community, with Nottingham’s Karimia mosque signing the armed forces covenant in December 2016. At a time when we are sending so many wrong signals to the Muslim community, that is to be absolutely welcomed. It would be helpful if future reports provided a more detailed analysis of progress in extending that kind of engagement with the covenant.
Approximately 1,800 men and women complete their military service and settle in Scotland every year. They are very welcome, but the transition can be challenging. The majority of veterans do manage to transition successfully, but we must acknowledge the hurdles that come with that magnitude of change. This week’s Combat Stress report provided a timely reminder of that and of the work that still needs to be done. Among the report’s key findings was the clear link between residence in areas with higher risks of deprivation and mental health difficulties. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw made several valuable points on that topic, and I share her concern about the problems experienced by early service leavers in particular, 63% of whom live in the most deprived areas. In stark contrast, just 32% of those who served for 15 years or more live in the most deprived areas.
Nearly one in five veterans seeking support for mental health difficulties from Combat Stress was an early service leaver. They are shown to be most at risk of mental illness, with a suicide rate three times higher than their non-veteran counterparts. Members will have heard today about the Scottish Government’s commitment to make Scotland the destination of choice for service leavers, and that is important to us. The Scottish Veterans Commissioner’s employability report has a useful focus on transferrable skills and attributes and on removing barriers to employment. On early service leavers, he notes that almost half of Army recruits leave school with levels of literacy and numeracy equivalent to those of an 11 year-old. Unsurprisingly, he reflects that they may become the early service leavers of the future. He highlights the story of Derek Boyd, who left school and quickly joined the Royal Engineers
“to keep himself out of jail.”
Although he left after just four years, he managed to get a carpentry qualification and used that to get into college, eventually graduating with a degree in building surveying.
The Scottish Government have put considerable work into healthcare, and I am pleased that colleagues highlighted the excellent work on Veterans First Point centres and mental health. Many hon. Members also pointed out the importance of priority opportunities for housing, such as the new veterans homes supported by the Scottish Government in local authority areas across Scotland.
When asked about the possibility of a post in the Ministry of Defence similar to the Scottish Veterans Commissioner, the Minister said that, while well-intentioned, it would duplicate existing provision. However, in a survey conducted by SSAFA, 70% of clients expressing a view felt that the armed forces covenant was not being taken seriously, so I wonder whether that could be considered further.
Of those who left the armed forces in 2014-15 and used the career transition partnership, 11% were unemployed and 10% were economically inactive up to six months after leaving service. That represents an almost doubling of the level of unemployment among former service personnel. When broken down by service, gender and ethnicity, the figures are particularly worrying: 13% of former members of the Army, and all female service leavers in some categories, were unemployed six months after leaving. Some 81% of white service leavers were in employment after six months compared with 73% of black and minority ethnic service leavers. None of that is good enough.
Of those in employment six months after leaving service, 23% were employed in skilled trade occupations, compared with 11% of the UK population, which clearly emphasises the value of supporting members of the armed forces to improve their skills and qualifications while in service.
The National Audit Office report on the MOD equipment plan for 2016 to 2026 concluded:
“The risks to the affordability of the…Equipment Plan are greater than at any point since reporting began in 2012.”
Some £1.5 billion of the required savings are to be provided from elsewhere in the defence budget, including through military and civilian pay restraint and savings from the running of the defence estate, which is already not a pretty picture in Scotland. That puts the pay of armed forces and civilian staff right in the frontline of meeting problems in the equipment budget, which is not acceptable.
The 2015 strategic defence and security review added £24.4 billion of new commitments to the MOD budget, including mechanised infantry vehicles, the Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and accelerating the purchases of the F-35 joint strike fighter. Those are welcome commitments, but they appear to have created the Government’s own version of the black hole that they frequently refer to having inherited from their predecessors.
After the Trident test malfunction, there is an obvious suggestion that the Government might refocus their defence spending on conventional defences, our military personnel and our veterans so that we can be sure they have the equipment they need, that appropriate support is provided for them and their families and that they receive a proper level of pay. Considering what we have heard from all the hon. Members who have spoken in this debate, surely that is what they deserve.
I conclude by echoing the sentiments of the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and appealing to the Minister to work with the Foreign Office to bring the Chennai Six—my constituent Billy Irving and his colleagues, all military veterans—home from India and back to their families, where they belong.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing today’s debate and on her important work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces covenant.
The covenant sets out a series of commitments that we, as a nation, have made to our armed forces in recognition of their service, dedication and sacrifice. We make those commitments to the entire forces community —to forces families and veterans, as well as to those who are currently serving.
When we were in government, Labour did much to pave the way for the covenant, with the first military covenant being published in 2000. It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) who, as Health Secretary, ensured that for the first time veterans got priority treatment on the NHS. It is encouraging to see such enthusiastic recognition of the covenant by businesses and by community and religious groups.
The annual reports on the covenant are an important way of making sure that it is being honoured and applied properly, but we must never become complacent about the covenant, particularly at a time of swingeing cuts to council budgets and the health service. We must defend and extend the services available to the forces community as a result of the covenant. Moreover, we can always do more to ensure that the two vital principles that underlie the covenant—that our forces should have special consideration and suffer no disadvantage—are a reality for all in the forces community.
I particularly welcome the work that the Royal British Legion will lead to establish a veterans gateway—a single point of contact for the forces community consisting of a gateway contact centre with a direct phone number and website. In my conversations with forces charities and service users, it is clear that the gateway could be a real benefit to the forces community, particularly to veterans who may not know exactly where to turn when seeking support or advice. Indeed Cobseo, the Confederation of Service Charities, describes it as
“an extremely positive development which will be of great benefit to those in need.”
However, it is essential that the MOD does all it can to publicise the gateway, particularly to those who left the forces some time ago.
The report describes the many positive steps that have been taken by local authorities across England to deliver the covenant, such as Blackpool Council, where the armed forces champion, Labour councillor Chris Ryan, is responsible for consulting interested parties and for putting together and delivering an action plan. The purpose of an action plan is to address shortcomings and make improvements. Will the Minister tell us what monitoring and evaluation his Department does of action plans produced by local councils and health bodies? What discussions does he have with them about setting targets for improvement?
The report also lauds the impressive commitment of the devolved Governments of Scotland and Wales. The Labour Welsh Government have made particular strides to improve the support available to the forces community, including by investing £650,000 in specialist health services, to fund improvements in psychological therapies and develop a fast-track referral pathway to support injured service personnel in their return to fully deployable status.
So there is much in this report that I welcome, but it is clear from the observations of the external members of the Covenant Reference Group that there is still much more work to be done to ensure that the commitments made in the covenant are fully realised for all. The forces families federations express real concern about the current and future provision of housing for service members and their families. Indeed, the federations state that they have heard more complaints in the past 12 months than ever before about poorly maintained and substandard housing units. Such complaints were about, among other things: leaking roofs; no heating for months; and broken toilets left unrepaired The federations issue a stark warning, saying that this situation represents a threat to recruitment and retention, as well as the morale of our service personnel, and is one for which they urge swift action.
However, we know that there have been serious questions about the maintenance of service housing for some time. In July, the Public Accounts Committee issued a damning judgment of both the MOD and CarillionAmey, concluding that they were
“letting down service families by providing them with poor accommodation, and often leaving them for too long without basic living requirements.”
This issue goes right to the heart of the covenant and to the duties we owe to our armed forces. I therefore ask the Minister to spell out what action he will take over the next 12 months to ensure that this sorry situation does not continue.
There is also great uncertainty and worry about the proposed changes to forces housing that are being considered by the MOD: the so-called future accommodation model. The families federations report increasing nervousness among the forces, not least because they suspect that these plans have more to do with cost-cutting than improving provision for them. The Department must provide clear information to our armed forces about what could be very significant changes to forces accommodation, and the MOD must ensure that the views of our forces and their families are listened to and respected. If this is an opportunity to both modernise and improve housing provision, to provide flexibility, to facilitate home ownership and to recognise the realities of modern living, that is a good thing. But if, as I fear, this process is driven more by cost-cutting at the MOD, with fewer options for forces families and increasingly exposing them to exploitation by private landlords, that is something else entirely.
Another uncertainty apparent from this report concerns the Government’s decision to close 91 MOD sites across the UK, which will see cities such as York and Chester losing their barracks and will affect some 22,000 military personnel and nearly 5,000 civilian staff. Of course the requirements of the defence estate will change over time, and there is a need to modernise and restructure to reflect that, but the complete lack of detail provided by the MOD to those affected by these changes is unacceptable. In many cases, we have no idea of the timeframe for a base closure and, crucially, whether civilian staff will be able to commute to other sites in their vicinity or whether they will lose their jobs altogether. I am concerned that one of the sites that has been earmarked for closure is the Defence Business Services site in Blackpool, which houses Veterans UK. All we are told in the Government’s publication is that the site will be replaced by a “Government Hub” in the north-west. If that ends up being beyond a reasonable commuting distance—for example, if it is in Manchester —we risk losing experienced staff who have an expertise in supporting our veterans community. The forces families federations have said that the many questions relating to programmes such as “A Better Defence Estate” mean that service personnel and their families are living in a period of increasing uncertainty. I therefore ask the Minister to try as hard as he can to provide our armed forces with the answers that they deserve.
As well as ensuring that the commitments contained in the covenant are being delivered effectively, we must also ensure that the covenant applies across Britain and that its application is not patchy or subject to a postcode lottery. Cobseo notes in the report that:
“the delivery of the Covenant is very varied across the country with a clear need to ensure...that appropriate training is given to local authority staff to ensure that the policies are properly implemented.”
Research published last year by SSAFA found that just 16% of the veterans that it surveyed thought that the covenant was being implemented effectively. We also need the Government to look at monitoring and evaluation, and to develop strategies that ensure that service providers—health boards, local authorities and schools—are implementing the covenant effectively.
Central to this whole issue is the question of identifying our forces community to ensure that they can access the services they need. One starting point, highlighted in the best practice guide to the covenant, is the way in which some local authorities include a question on veterans on some of their forms to help them to collate data. I urge the Government to consider developing that into a standard format—for example, in the form of a question on GP registration forms.
The challenge is always to find ways to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the covenant in ways that are effective, but not too burdensome or bureaucratic. We should not forget, either, that many of our public bodies are under considerable strain as they face cuts and increased demands. The “Count them in” campaign has already been mentioned; will the Government make a firm commitment to that so that we have a better understanding of the nation’s profile and the needs and locations of our serving personnel?
Last year, the Government announced the new £10 million covenant fund. What evaluation has the Minister made of the use of that money and the measurable outcomes? How will that information influence the future use of the fund?
The armed forces covenant and the services it guarantees are a moral obligation on us all, as a society, to ensure that our forces are supported and honoured for their service. It is also crucial to retention and recruitment. It is therefore incumbent on us all to ensure that our forces community truly get the very best, because they deserve nothing less.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
In the six minutes I have to respond to the debate—if I am to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) to wind up—I clearly will not be able to address many of the questions that have been raised. I shall therefore commit to write to Members after the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Her knowledge of this subject, as demonstrated in her speech, is second to none.
Before I outline some of the covenant’s key achievements, it might be useful to provide the House with some context. The notion of a special bond between the state and its armed forces is hardly new. Indeed, I was surprised that as early as 1593 the Elizabethans had introduced a statute ensuring disabled army veterans
“should at their return be relieved and rewarded to the end that they may reap the fruit of their good deservings”.
That is something we should be doing today.
The term military covenant was coined back in 2000, as my hon. Friend said. I remember first hearing the term around about the time I was serving in Kosovo. It was then little more than an informal understanding of the debt of service we owe to those who serve us. However, fears that the covenant was gradually being undermined led to its principles being enshrined in law in the Armed Forces Act 2011. Much of the progress over recent years has been highlighted in the debate, so I shall not dwell on that.
I shall focus in my speech on just three areas in which progress is most pronounced, but before I do so I wish to say a couple of words on the Northern Ireland legacy investigations, which have been raised by so many Members this afternoon. Although the Government firmly believe in upholding the rule of law, we are concerned that investigations into Northern Ireland’s past focus almost entirely on former police offers and soldiers. This is wrong, and does not reflect the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who served did so with great bravery and distinction. That is why the Defence Secretary and the Northern Ireland Secretary are working together to ensure that veterans are not unfairly treated or disproportionately investigated compared with others, in an effort to create a Stormont House agreement Bill.
We are acutely mindful of the burden that historical investigations can place on veterans and their families. When veterans face allegations arising from actions that they undertook as part of their duties, taxpayer-funded legal advice and representation is available for as long as is necessary. In addition to legal advice, the MOD will provide pastoral support, either directly through regimental associations, through Veterans UK, or in partnership with the veterans charities, depending on the individual needs and circumstances.
As I said, I shall touch briefly on three areas, starting with veterans’ health. It is only right that those who have sustained life-changing injuries in the service of our nation receive the best medical care, so we have worked with the NHS to ensure that recent veterans with complex amputation-related complications can now be referred, when necessary, to a dedicated clinic at the world-class Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre in Headley Court.
We are not just thinking of rehabilitation. The most seriously injured service personnel also need assistance in making the transition to civvy street, and through life, so we are working across the MOD and NHS to develop an integrated personal commissioning for veterans model. This fully joined-up system aims to bring the NHS, the MOD and the charitable sector together to provide services specifically tailored to an individual veteran’s needs. At the same time, NHS England’s new veterans trauma network, launched at the end of last year, offers a safety net for those with lifelong healthcare needs. Increasingly, we recognise that the scars of war are more than just skin deep, so the Government are also channelling £13 million from LIBOR to provide support for mental health in the armed forces community.
I, too, have recently met Sue Freeth, the chief executive of Combat Stress, to explore how we can work more closely with that organisation. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) for all the work that he has done, and I am delighted that we have now completed and implemented most of the recommendations in his report. Equally, I wish to focus on the preventive action that we can take with our serving personnel, which is why I am pleased that the trauma risk management system is now fully effective.
Clearly, there was a bone of contention between my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) and I on the matter of housing. I absolutely understand what he is trying to tell me. I feel somewhat at a disadvantage, because it appears almost as if he is sure what format the future accommodation model should take. I simply seize this opportunity to tell him once again, and to reassure him, that the reason we had our survey was to give us the evidence base for how to proceed.
We have yet to make any firm decisions about what format the accommodation model will take. It will evolve. It will be a complex process, and one size will not fit all. I want to dispel one myth: we will not somehow scrap all service family accommodation. I invite anybody who challenges that to come to Ludgershall, where we are about to award a contract to build new service family accommodation in Wiltshire. Off the top of my head, I think that we are talking about some 444 new homes. Why would we be building new service family accommodation if we will not be using it at all in the future?
It is absolutely right that, when we look at the accommodation needs of our service personnel, options should be available. We should recognise that young people, as the survey says, do not necessarily want to live in single-living accommodation. Why is it that more than 9,000 service personnel have now used our service Help to Buy scheme so that they can buy their own home and get into the private sector? It is all about delivering options and ensuring that our service personnel have those options. It is a complex model, and it is a controversial matter. Much of the problem is that we have not had the opportunity to communicate what the options will be in the future, and I am determined to address that.
I recognise that, having focused on that particular issue, I will probably have to conclude. To the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) I say that there is always a debate about where that line should be. I can tell the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) that I am very proud that some 95% of our new entrants are enrolled in apprenticeships. As for the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), I am more than happy to meet him to talk about Dale barracks.
Mrs Trevelyan
I thank all colleagues who have spent their Thursday afternoon here in the Chamber rather than in Stoke-on-Trent or Copeland, and the Minister who has sat patiently listening to all of us as we share our praise and our criticism of the way in which the armed forces covenant is rolling out.
There must be something about Kent, because my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) and for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) are both passionate about housing. The fact that it is not just about the bricks is the critical point. I hope very much that the Minister and the Ministry of Defence will hear that message, because that is the families’ message to them. The model needs to be good and it needs to be 21st century, but it is not just about the bricks.
Many colleagues talked about the statute of limitations. I know that the Minister is working on that. If the outstanding work on the Iraq Historic Allegations Team of the hon. and gallant Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who could not be with us today, can change the Ministry’s mind and drive forward some really good improvements, I hope very much that colleagues who have spoken today can push forward that statute of limitations and find a legal framework that can work.
The key to all matters to do with the covenant—the work that has been done over the past few years is extensive and very positive—is that unless our attempts at recruitment and retention succeed, we will not have the armed forces we need to take up the challenges that the world around us demands. Every decision that the Ministry makes cannot only be on cost-savings grounds. Value for money is about not cost saving, but about getting the right investment for our armed forces to ensure that we look after them and their families as they serve, and then for the rest of their lives.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Armed Forces Covenant Report 2016.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, you may recall that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union laid a copy of the White Paper before the House. I have my own copy with me. We have found that at least one chart in the document contains incorrect information. Chart 7.1 states that United Kingdom workers are entitled to 14 weeks of annual holiday, whereas the chart should state that they have 5.6 weeks paid holiday. The mistake has led to another error, as the chart claims that European Union minimum maternity leave entitlement is only 5.6 weeks, when it should be 14 weeks. The Scottish National party has corrected the chart for the United Kingdom Government. Perhaps the Minister would like a copy to save his blushes over what appears to have been only a desktop exercise today. Madam Deputy Speaker, would you please instruct me as to how this House can get the accurate, proper information to inform our already rushed debate on this rather important issue?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
I think the hon. Gentleman has quite successfully just done so himself. I am sure that the Treasury Benches will have heard what he said and will take action.
Colostomy Irrigation
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
When I secured this debate, I had not realised that it would be so close to World Cancer Day, which is on Saturday. Given the close connection between my subject and cancer, I could not have chosen a more appropriate date.
I begin by paying tribute to the colostomy nurses at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, particularly Tracy Lunt, my personal stoma nurse, who helped me through a difficult time in my life and who encouraged me and introduced me to colostomy irrigation 14 years ago. I also thank colostomy nurse, Julie Powell, who telephoned me late one evening this week to help me to prepare after hearing that I had secured the debate. Colostomy nurses are special people, drawn to an unglamorous job that involves helping and encouraging people at the most difficult time in their lives. I imagine the subject of this debate is not often the subject of debate in Parliament. Madam Deputy Speaker, you have been an MP for longer than I have and may remember another occasion, but I do not. As far as I know, this may be the first time that this subject has appeared on the Order Paper.
I had best begin with some explanation of why the subject is of such importance to me and to many people—we do not know how many people because the subject is not talked about much. It is difficult to know how many people are irrigators, how many could be irrigators or how many would be if encouraged and helped by a sympathetic introduction process. At this point, I should introduce the background to my interest, which derives from bowel cancer. Colostomy irrigation has given me the freedom to live a full and active life. I will mention bowel cancer quite a lot because of its close connection with colostomy irrigation.
I am an ostomate—a person with a colostomy. I have owned my colostomy for almost 15 years, since undergoing an abdominoperineal resection to remove a cancerous tumour in 2002. I did not want a colostomy, but the alternative at the time was a far less attractive prospect. It was perhaps the most traumatic event in my life. I was uncertain about the future or, indeed, whether I even had a future at all. It certainly gave me a good understanding of how others feel in the same situation. I consider myself to have been extraordinarily lucky in that I made a full recovery.
One of the key reasons for my good luck and full recovery was that my cancerous colorectal tumour was diagnosed early in its development, before the disease had spread to my liver and elsewhere, when full recovery would be much less certain. Unsurprisingly, I have been a champion of early diagnosis ever since, and played a role in promoting bowel cancer screening programmes in Wales, when they were introduced a few years ago. The campaigning charity, Beating Bowel Cancer, is currently leading a campaign to reduce the age at which screening is offered from 60 to 50, as it is in Scotland. Instinctively, I support early screening, but realise that it serves no real purpose unless accompanied by the availability of sufficient endoscopy capacity.
Colorectal cancer, or bowel cancer, as it is commonly known, is one of the most common forms of cancer, with 110 new cases diagnosed every day. It is a traumatic shock for many when the tumour is first diagnosed, but the cancer is completely curable if caught early enough. It is possible to recover and do some fairly crazy things. For example, after recovery, I initiated the establishment of the Welsh parliamentary rugby team. In passing, I should say that, rather shamefully, our first game versus the Lords and Commons parliamentary team degenerated into a full-scale brawl, which received much coverage in the national media, and that is when I first met the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), a Labour MP. I went training with the late, great All Black Jonah Lomu, who had also suffered life-threatening illnesses, in preparation for that game. My friends, of course, think it was even crazier to seek election as a Member of Parliament.
The final introductory point I want to make concerns the title I have chosen for this debate. Until recently, I used the term “colonic irrigation”, like most people, but it is too often associated in the public mind with a lifestyle choice available in health and massage centres—a practice I have never really taken much interest in—so I now use the term “colostomy irrigation”, which has no such associations, and which accurately describes the process.
My speech has three main purposes. First, I want to explain what colostomy irrigation actually involves—what it is. Secondly, I want to explain why I decided to become an irrigator. Thirdly, I want to explain why I am seeking to raise the profile and awareness of colostomy irrigation, which I have been doing for 14 years. This Adjournment debate is the best platform to raise awareness that I have ever secured.
First, on the actual process, I am constantly surprised by how little is known about it. Even people suffering illnesses such as colitis or bowel cancer, who face the prospect of a permanent colostomy, seem to know little about the procedure. A colleague MP with a background in the clinical profession approached me today and said that not even all colostomy nurses know about it or encourage it. It seems not to be thought suitable for polite conversation; the human mind seems to go into “block” mode if the subject crops up.
However, the process is very simple. All it involves is hanging what is in effect a polythene bag, containing 1,000 to 1,500 ml of warm water, on some convenient hook—I usually use the bathroom curtain rail. One of the problems with smart modern hotels is that there are often no convenient hooks. Luckily, I am a farmer by background, so I am quite practical and naturally given to improvisation, and a coat hanger can be quite a handy hook. The water is then allowed to run by gravity, via a polythene tube, into that part of the lower bowel that my brilliant consultant surgeon left me with after surgery in 2002. Then, the water is allowed to just run out naturally; there really is not much more to it than that. The biggest downside is that the irrigator has to remain in the same location for about 45 minutes, but with complete freedom to read, write, telephone, prepare speeches for Adjournment debates, do sudoku, watch TV and a whole host of other things.
I want to emphasise that the process is not suitable for all ostomates. There can be insurmountable physical and, indeed, mental barriers that mean irrigation is just not possible. There are additional bits of equipment, such as commercially available water pumps, that replace simple gravity, but my experience is that they are not usually needed.
There is another point of interest here—certainly to me and, I think, to the Minister. I am told that while a very small percentage of ostomates in the UK irrigate—less than 5%—a very high percentage do so in the US. That is thought to be because all the equipment associated with wearing a colostomy bag is free in the UK but has to be paid for in the US—1,000 ml of water comes free.
Secondly, why do I irrigate myself? When I am asked, I give the same answer as when I am asked why I voted to leave in the EU referendum on 23 June—it could one day become a pub quiz question: what is the connection between the EU referendum and colostomy irrigation?—and that answer is to take back control. I wanted to take back control of my own body and not allow my colostomy to rule my life, which it could well have done. I did not want to have to wear a colostomy bag. I wanted to continue my public life without being concerned about an “active” colostomy at inconvenient times. I can irrigate when and where it is convenient for me to do so. I take the decisions, not my colostomy. I have—as, indeed, have all the other ostomates who irrigate—genuinely taken back control.
Thirdly, I turn to the main reason why I am raising the issue in this debate. Having experienced the extra freedom, self-confidence and control that colostomy irrigation gives me, I want to encourage other ostomates to think about doing the same. I must emphasise that it does not work for every ostomate, and, in any case, it is a matter of choice. It is not a question of what one should do; it depends on what one can do and what one wants to do. All I want to do is to suggest to ostomates who have never thought about irrigation to consider it. There will be a few uncertain days to begin with while the body familiarises itself with the process, but, with the guidance and encouragement of their stoma nurses, they too may find the freedom and control that colostomy irrigation brings.
The background to every colostomy is some form of clinical need, involving fear, trauma, great uncertainty, great need for relief from pain or even simply a desire to stay alive. World Cancer Day is on Saturday, and I am really grateful that I have had the chance to play a small part in making life better for at least some of those who are suffering from the implications of bowel cancer.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on his excellent speech. I want to congratulate him on three more things: first, on securing the debate two days before World Cancer Day; secondly, on rightly saying that this is the first time that we have had a debate on the subject in this place—it is good that we are doing so—and, thirdly, on talking so passionately about his personal story in such a matter of fact way, if I may use that term. He spoke candidly and clearly about a subject that sometimes carries with it a stigma, or that is a taboo.
I have been looking after the whole area of cancer for the past six months. It strikes me that when people come into the system, we are as good as anywhere in the world at treating them and dealing with the illness. Unfortunately, one problem we have is that too many people come into our system too late. As a result, first or second-stage diagnosis is not possible and their outcomes are worse. One of the reasons for that is awareness—my hon. Friend used that word—and such debates can only increase awareness, so it is good that we have them.
My hon. Friend rightly said that uptake of colostomy irrigation is low. We think that some 5% of all those who could do so use the technique, rather than an alternative. I will talk a little about why that is and what we might be able to do about it. We think that there are some 6 million people in this country with bowel incontinence issues. Of course, the majority of them are nothing like as serious as the story we heard this afternoon. Similar stories may result from bowel cancer, and perhaps also from other types, such as cervical cancer. The choice of whether to use irrigation or another technique is a personal one. There are pros and cons to each, and I will try to set them out. Before I do, perhaps I should talk a little bit about what the Government need to do, and what they are doing, regarding the prevention, screening and treatment of bowel cancer. Obviously, if we were more successful at those, we would reduce the incidence of the disease and the need for the techniques that we have heard about.
The Government’s approach is informed by the cancer strategy, which came out about 18 months ago. It included 96 recommendations, all of which were accepted. It has been fully funded, and its implementation is now being led by Cally Palmer and Bruce Keogh from NHS England. We are finding that survival rates are increasing —we know that they are increasing quite sharply for most cancer types—but there is probably still a gap between us and the best in the EU. We are determined to close that gap, and although we are doing so, there is still work to do.
Of the parts of the cancer strategy that relate most to this debate, I want to talk about screening and about living with cancer and beyond—we have heard a story about doing so over the past 14 years. I also want to talk about one of the things that I think will be most important in improving cancer awareness and outcomes: the whole area of transparency.
One of my hon. Friend’s points was that there are staffing issues in this area, particularly in relation to bowel cancer. He said that we do not have enough endoscopists—that is true. The Government are committed to training a further 200 by 2020. Indeed, we have not been able to do some of the things on screening that we want because of those staff shortages, but we are addressing that problem very firmly.
The current screening test is an FOB, or faecal occult blood test, which is in the process of being replaced by the FIT—faecal immunochemical test—from 2018. A contractor/supplier has been appointed. The expectation is that that will lead to a sharp increase in the incidence of screening, the numbers of people coming forward for screening and the efficacy of that screening, which is very important.
In parallel, we have introduced a bowel scope screening process for males and females at or around their 55th birthday. This one-off test involves a full endoscopy, as a consequence of which polyps are removed. Whether or not they are benign, that process sharply reduces the incidence and risk of future bowel cancer, which is also very important. In the interests of full disclosure, let me say that I have also gone through the procedure. It was not anything like my hon. Friend’s, but I nevertheless went through it successfully. The process is a very important part of this fight.
The second aspect of the strategy is living with and beyond cancer. When I gave a presentation to the all-party group on ovarian cancer, I was struck that a lady whom I met afterwards said that she had received a terminal diagnosis for that type of cancer, but was not receiving support. That is obviously not where we want to be. The Government’s intention is that, by 2020, everybody who has a cancer diagnosis will have an individually designed package, with a cancer nurse specialist assigned to them. We are undertaking that programme in conjunction with Macmillan. It is important because cancer is increasingly curable, so we must increasingly put in place softer packages, as it were, to help people afterwards.
The final area I want to touch on is transparency. One of the frustrations is something that I often reflect on after talking to colleagues about the NHS and its effectiveness. Many of them are very concerned—almost certainly rightly—about the bricks and mortar of their NHS establishments, because they are very visible. Changes in configuration also concern them and their electors. I have fewer conversations with colleagues who are concerned about cancer outcomes in their areas. Those statistics are now published, so we know which are the best clinical commissioning groups, which are the worst and which are average.
One way in which we will increase the overall standard and quality of outcomes is through dialogue—with Members and the public more generally to act on the pressure points—about the performance of CCGs. I would argue that whether a Member’s CCG is doing one of the best or one of the worst jobs in the country might be more important to their community than whether the accident and emergency department is open for 24 or 18 hours. However, we do not always have such dialogues in this place.
On innovations in treatment for bowel cancer, keyhole surgery is making a big difference to outcomes. There are very clever people doing very clever things, which are leading to better outcomes and successful operations.
For many, however, a colostomy is needed. Broadly speaking, there is a choice of techniques: the irrigation technique that we have heard about this afternoon; or an appliance, which is typically a bag. There are pros and cons of each but, as my hon. Friend said, the appliance route is chosen 20 times more frequently than irrigation. This must be a personal choice, and NICE guidelines state that choices should be explained, but that is an extreme difference. As my hon. Friend said, the difference is far greater than that in the United States. It might well be that there is not enough awareness, so this debate has been one way to address that.
A recent paper by Sir Norman Williams, the senior clinical adviser to the Secretary of State for Health, set out the benefits of irrigation: there is no need for an appliance; the individual has control over timing; there is some evidence that fewer drugs are required, with a consequent increase in general wellbeing; and an individual is able to have a more varied diet. Those benefits suit many people. The technique might not be suitable for people with heart or kidney diseases or Crohn’s disease, and some might find that the 45 to 60-minute process is too onerous. In addition, I think I am right to say that the best results from this technique tend to come if the process is carried out at roughly the same time every day, which might not suit everybody.
The NICE guidelines are very clear: both techniques should be offered by the clinician or stoma nurse. The choice should be based on facts and personal preference. Whichever technique is selected by the patient, the nurse is responsible for teaching the process and supporting the patient until they are up and running, because it is extremely important to get it right.
I again congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and raising awareness of the issue. He has talked frankly about a process that has been a massive help for many people in their day-to-day lives.
Question put and agreed to.
Petition
Sentencing for death by dangerous driving
Local Government Finance Bill (Fourth sitting)
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Gapes. In what is a wonderful coincidence, one of my written parliamentary questions about when we can expect the publication of all the responses to the consultation document that Ministers released in July last year has been answered today by no less a figure than the Minister present himself. Helpfully, the answer tells me that there were 450 responses; less helpfully, it implies that they will be published in the fullness of time and only in summary form. Do you have any explanation, Mr Gapes, for why only a summary will be published? In the interests of full transparency, what is wrong with allowing us to see all the detail of the responses?
The Chair
I have not had an explanation for anything. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the procedure for publishing written answers does not come through the Chairs of Committees. I suspect that this will be a matter for debate as we go on. The Minister is present, so he will no doubt be able to answer questions or interventions at a later stage. Without further ado, we resume the debate.
Clause 1
Local retention of 100% of non-domestic rates
Amendment proposed (this day): 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2).—(Mr Thomas.)
This amendment would remove subsection (2) of Clause 1, retaining the requirement that a billing authority pays a proportion of non-domestic rating income to the Secretary of State.
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
‘(2) In Schedule 7B, in paragraph 8 of part 3, after sub-paragraph (1) insert—
(1B) The regulations may, in particular, make provision for the determination of an amount to be deducted in order that the billing authority retains the specified amount for the purposes of funding social care services.”’
This amendment would enable billing authorities to retain a specified proportion of non-domestic rating income specifically for the purposes of funding social care services.
Amendment 23, in schedule 1, page 32, line 23, leave out paragraph 7 and insert—
‘7 (1) Part 2 is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 4—
(a) leave out “each” and insert “certain”;
(b) leave out “authority” and insert “authorities”;
(c) at end insert—
(2) “certain authorities” are those authorities specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.
(3) The regulations may, in particular, impose conditions upon the use of central and local share funds calculated under paragraph 13(2) of this Schedule.”’
This amendment would enable a local and central share to be retained for designated authorities. The Secretary of State would publish criteria for the use of such funds.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. Through your leadership, we have had a very positive beginning to the Local Government Finance Bill.
I am mindful that I am following a very good speaker, someone who has significant powers and influence: first, the hon. Member for Harrow West magicked up a written answer over lunchtime; and, secondly, he was so persuasive when challenging my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South to engage with South Northamptonshire Council that that meeting also took place over lunchtime. Therefore, I fear that our very able Minister may be tempted to accept some of the amendments and I feel a need to step up and defend the thrust of the principle behind the debate.
The whole principle is that of incentivising and trusting local authorities, as we heard in evidence on Tuesday. From the Local Government Association briefings, it is clear that councils would like to have the 100%. That is vital in my opinion. I served as a councillor for 10 years and I have been lobbied by and have spoken to a number of local authority representatives. They are interested in seeing further details—I am sure we will be going over things in great detail in coming weeks—but the principle is that they wish to be trusted. They are best placed to make those decisions and to take those actions. On Tuesday, I challenged the witnesses about that. I asked whether there was sufficient business capacity. Understandably, the witnesses were quite defensive, but I was encouraged by their enthusiasm for the challenge and the opportunities being presented.
We must not forget the residents; that is also vital. Often, when we talk about growth in business rates, it means new businesses, expansion and development. That is not always universally welcomed by local residents, as anyone who has ever served on a planning committee would know. It is right that the principle is that, if they are going to be inconvenienced as a community, they should also be rewarded for that.
That also provides a focus for local authorities. I am very fortunate. My local authority is very proactive in this area—our local plan was agreed very early on and it does its best to encourage growth—but it does not necessarily have sufficient focus to speed up the process sometimes. I am lobbied by people trying to bring new development to my constituency, who say, “We would like it to be quicker.”
Mr Thomas
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has been encouraged, no doubt by the Minister and the Whip, to speak in defence of the Bill. As he will remember from Tuesday’s sitting—I think he was present—one of the witnesses, one of the voices of business, said that, because of the scale of the cuts in funding to local authorities, many of the services labelled as discretionary which help businesses have been substantially cut. Does that not underpin the concern that we on the Labour Benches have about the need for proper redistribution?
Justin Tomlinson
First, to be absolutely clear, I do not need any encouragement by the Whips to engage. I was elected in my own right. That intervention actually strengthens my point. Whoever is in government, difficult decisions have to be taken about public spending, and elected representatives are mindful of the people they are accountable to. It is often easier to focus decisions on some of the services—perhaps those that will directly affect businesses, since they will not necessarily queue up at the ballot boxes. However, under the proposed new system, protecting business income through business rates will become a greater priority for local authorities. We have rightly focused on new opportunities, but the change will also protect existing businesses and give them a greater ability to get an audience with decision makers and say, “By working together, we can not only grow but protect existing jobs.”
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman said that his local council does its best to encourage growth, and I am pleased to hear that. At the moment, his local council, on which I think he served, does not have the powers that the Bill will confer if it is passed. Is he saying that his local council would have tried harder to encourage growth and business if it had had those powers when he was a councillor?
Justin Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman pre-empts some of the things I am coming to. I made it clear that I am very lucky to be the MP for an area with a local authority that is proactive in this respect, but that is not a given across the rest of the country. I do not disparage other councils, because all councils have to decide their own priorities. I represent a high-growth area where, for those who are interested, 8,100 jobs have been created since 2010. I know it is hard to believe, but that is greater than the average gate at the County ground. That is because the council recognises that it should be proactive. Could we have done that faster? Yes. We are landlocked by several local authorities that are less keen on additional development and growth. They have their reasons for that, and I respect those.
We will deal later with the pooling of some decisions and the sharing of some benefits. I was particularly taken by the point about Heathrow, which I will come back to, because I see further potential in that area.
Mr Thomas
Before the hon. Gentleman flies away to Heathrow, may I take him back to the example that I gave this morning of Allerdale Council? Its one major town is Keswick and it is surrounded by natural barriers to growth, so it is highly unlikely that there is substantial space for the type of property-based development that I accept the Bill could encourage in some areas.
Justin Tomlinson
I was coming to that point. As a broad principle, we are looking at not only new opportunities but protecting established industries, which is obviously topical. Local authorities can lobby the Government to ensure that such industries are protected, particularly if there is ever a change in the country.
Justin Tomlinson
May I ask the shadow Minister to be ever so slightly patient? I am being tempted to fly in various directions. I will finish this point, then turn to that one.
Why does this matter? We all talk about new income opportunities and providing incentives, and trusting local authorities as the best vehicles to deliver those. That is incredibly important, but we seem to be missing the emphasis on creating jobs. As I said, 8,100 new jobs have been created in my constituency and unemployment has fallen by 60%, in part because new regeneration and development projects have attracted businesses from other local authority areas that have not supported the business community so proactively. Those things matter to the people on the ground, because they benefit directly. As I said, the 60% fall in unemployment is making a genuine difference to people. We have to protect the maximum potential of the incentives on offer.
Rob Marris
The hon. Gentleman said that some, not all, of the council areas surrounding his council were not as keen—I think that was the adjective he used—as his own council. What evidence is there that the changes in the Bill would make those surrounding councils, which he thinks are less keen, keener?
Justin Tomlinson
One of the elements that I have picked up is the principle of pooling, whereby different local authorities and local enterprise partnerships can sit down and work together and share the benefits of this growth. The whole point is that the Government will incentivise and reward those areas that are going to support additional growth and, therefore, there is an opportunity. I will give more detail on that shortly.
I come back to the point that this will work only if really big warehouses are built. Obviously, the smallest businesses are exempt from business rates through the small business rate relief. That is a hugely important policy that I hope continues because it benefits so many of our micro and small businesses. I ran my own business for 10 years and, just before I became an MP, I benefited for a year from that. It did make a difference in what was at that time a difficult financial climate.
We must remember that there is a significant number of small to medium-sized businesses that could be in offices not much bigger than this room but are larger than would qualify under the small business rate. So it is not just about getting distribution warehouses. That is an easy opportunity for some areas, particularly for those with lots of additional land and good transport logistics. It is also about these small and medium-sized businesses. It is about working with the existing small and micro businesses to help them to make that step up. I have been involved in a number of debates where it has been said that it is a lot harder to go from four-plus employees than to start a business because there are all the additional matters to deal with. The Bill provides an incentive for local authorities to have supportive forums, engage with communities and look at how they can shape the direction of their policies to encourage growth. Again, the bonus is that not only will that generate additional business rate income, which we all recognise that local authorities need, but it will help to create that next generation of jobs.
That was a powerful point about Heathrow. It is probably the case with any national infrastructure project that the communities closer to it get the vast majority of the inconvenience, while local authorities much further away will get some of the benefits. Take Heathrow: my constituency would gain significantly from Heathrow, for the convenience of residents going on holiday and for the businesses. So my local authority has written to the Government to say, “Please proceed with Heathrow.”
If I were an MP directly under the flight path, I would have a very different postbag. Again, that is where pooling could come in. Perhaps those local communities with the most inconvenience could go to the others to say, “We would be less minded to object, to try to delay and frustrate, if you would share some of the benefits that you would get.”
The principle of pooling can be expanded much further. Innovative council leaders would use that to go to talk to other leaders to say, “Look, we can work together here. You help us so that we are inconvenienced less or rewarded slightly more for the inconvenience that we will suffer. You will get your growth; we will get some of that.” Those are discussions that can be had and we have some very talented council leaders who, I am sure, would take advantage of that.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that councils have different roles and responsibilities? One is, of course, about economic development and growing the local tax base. The other is about being a voice of the community. A lot of the opposition to Heathrow and the flight path has been from local people who do not want their lives affected in that way.
Justin Tomlinson
Absolutely. I only focused on Heathrow because that was the one that was mentioned; there are lots of national infrastructure projects. The reality is that Heathrow will be expanded, so those residents are going to be inconvenienced.
At least this proposal would have allowed an opportunity for the respective and closest local authorities to do those deals and say, “We can see the inevitability, but we could speed up the process if we were to gain some more of the reward for the inconvenience of this national infrastructure project that happens to be sited in our area.” I would think that was a reasonable ask of my local area, if there was a demonstrable and tangible gain for that area.
Mr Thomas
The hon. Gentleman is advancing an interesting argument and I can see how, in certain circumstances, pooling might enable the benefit of a big infrastructure investment to be shared more widely.
Let us come back to the third runway. That is a national piece of infrastructure that will benefit the whole country. Therefore, the pooling point is surely less applicable than that about ensuring that the business rate growth that the third runway generates can be redistributed across the country. Amendments 1 and 23 would help to achieve that; I suspect pooling would not mean that every local authority in England would benefit.
Justin Tomlinson
I understand that, but that is saying to the local authorities, “We don’t trust you to lead on those sorts of negotiations.” I was incredibly impressed by the witnesses who gave evidence on Tuesday. I wanted to challenge and push them; I expected them to say that they were not up for this, but their enthusiasm and capability to deal with such matters was crystal clear. I am excited by these opportunities. There are lessons to be learned. We have seen some of this take place with LEPs. They are not perfect—they are still in their infancy —but there have been examples of good practice.
For me, the clause is about giving local authorities power, and a savvy local authority council leader would be leading conversations. I do not say that randomly. I have been an MP for six years and a councillor for 10 in a fast-growth town that has taken more than its fair share of housing development—in fact, it has been one of the fastest-growing towns, year on year, for the last 20 years. We have learned that it is better to lead those conversations, do the deals and talk to our less inclined neighbouring authorities to try to find ways to speed up the process, because, while I appreciate that there is inconvenience for local residents, it is good for the economy and good for people to be given jobs and housing. There is no better way of doing that than by releasing income.
Mr Thomas
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I agree that councils are often better at grasping the opportunities—be they for housing or infrastructure—that come in the wake of big decisions, and there are many examples of Labour leaders having taken a similar approach, Manchester’s being a classic case. However, that is not an argument against amendments 1 and 23, or indeed amendment 2. What does he have against the substantial redistribution that the amendments would achieve?
Justin Tomlinson
That neatly ties into my conclusion, which is purely about blunting the maximum incentive potential. If we are to focus minds, we should say to those innovative, great local authority leaders, “We will give you the tools to generate income and growth, and create new jobs, and to be rewarded for the inconvenience of growth and development.” We have to give them every single opportunity. If we have redistribution, local authorities will keep knocking on the door repeatedly to plead with the Minister for their special cases.
I have never found an MP or local authority who does not feel that their area is hard done by in some way. We are all skilled in looking at the statistics and saying, “We have a unique, special case for additional funding.” We need to allow like-minded local authority leaders who work well together, who lead with the LGA and share best practice, to have those sensible conversations. Fundamentally, we are not a million miles apart; it is just that the Government side are probably a bit more confident and trusting of the abilities and enthusiasm of local authority leaders.
Jim McMahon
I am not sure whether there is as much difference as the hon. Gentleman has laid out. There is acceptance that if there is 100% business rate retention, we need a system of tariffs and top-ups and a safety net to catch those who have unexpected changes in their business rate base. That is different from a scheme for business rate growth, which would incentivise local authorities who are really pushing forward. I would not say that those ideas are contradictory. What we are trying to do—I hope he accepts this—is ensure that the baseline is robust.
Justin Tomlinson
As I said, I recognise that there is not a huge amount of difference between us, but my plea to the Minister is: stay strong. We were enthused by the reference to “Dad’s Army” earlier, my dad’s favourite programme. Despite the realities that we face, we need to stand firm and trust and encourage local authority leaders.
Rob Marris
I salute the hon. Gentleman’s generosity in volunteering a transfer from the people of Swindon and Wiltshire down the road to, say, Hounslow or Heathrow. May I caution him that while his area has done well, which is great, he might come to regret some of these measures? For example, he might represent an area that has a major car manufacturing plant, which, faced with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, might decide to close down. The business rate scenario in that area—hypothetically, wherever it might be—might then look very different, and its representative might therefore look differently on redistribution.
Justin Tomlinson
That is a very interesting intervention. By pure coincidence, I happen to have the Honda factory in my constituency. Another MP raised that point on the Floor of the House during the Brexit debate. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that Honda operations, which used to supply 100% of its cars to Europe three years ago, was ahead of the Government and public opinion and switched to global exporting of the cars: 80% of the cars now go globally. The impact of the referendum does not cause any issue at all, now or in the future, to the major employer in my constituency.
We could look at this hypothetically. There will always be issues beyond local authority control, because the world changes. Industries and technologies will change. That is why there are protections in the Bill. There would also be an incentive for local authorities to start planning and looking ahead. Local authorities and MPs get lobbied regularly by employers telling us either that things are going great and they are looking to expand, or that things are potentially going wrong. When we are told that things are going wrong, there will now be an extra incentive to engage with them to find a way forward.
I remember when Honda was struggling during the financial downturn. It was still producing all those cars but could not sell them. The local authority—this is a good example—found the company significant amounts of land to store those cars on. Again, I was lucky that we had a forward-thinking, proactive local authority. Every local authority is different and they have competing priorities; this is about ensuring that that priority is absolutely at the top.
Mr Thomas
I have been listening keenly to the hon. Gentleman. He was going to come to the example of the council that has a series of natural barriers to growth: the Allerdale Borough Council, which Keswick sits in. I have not heard him talk about how the Bill will generate massive new incentives for it, but as the hon. Member for Waveney is now present, perhaps he might allude to the problems facing coastal authorities, where there is an obvious natural barrier to economic growth.
Justin Tomlinson
I would not dare to incur the wrath of the Chair of the Committee, Mr Gapes, who has made it clear that this is not the time to discuss coastal matters, although I am sure that by the end of the 10 sittings we would all welcome a day trip to some of those coastal constituencies to see them at first hand.
I felt I had addressed the point about landlocked areas. Although some areas will find it easier to attract additional large-scale developments, such as the warehouses I mentioned, this is also about maintaining and protecting industries that are already there. That may be a case of lobbying national legislators not to make changes, in order to protect them. It is also about expanding microbusinesses to tip them into a size at which they have to pay business rates, having grown sufficiently and increased their headcount. Not every element of additional revenue will be raised purely by big expansion; it will also be done by speeding up organic growth that delivers income and jobs.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I represent a coastal area; in fact, mine is one of only three constituencies that have two separate coasts. We see the coast and the sea as assets, not barriers to economic growth. They can drive economic growth through fishing, tourism and many other sectors.
Justin Tomlinson
That is exactly the enthusiasm and innovation that we need to unleash across local authorities. I have every faith that our elected local authority leaders will seize the opportunity with exactly the same enthusiasm as my hon. Friend, taking advantage of it to deliver extra income and jobs.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Would my hon. Friend be interested to hear that Torbay Council is looking at a town centre regeneration scheme around Tor Hill Road in part of my constituency? They are bearing in mind the ability not only to get a commercial return on investment but to retain the business rates.
Justin Tomlinson
I am greatly encouraged. I had a gut feeling, based on what the witnesses said on Tuesday, that this was a great policy; I now feel even more certain. The quicker we can introduce this, the better.
Following on from the point about town centre regeneration, let me say why this policy will make such a difference. The Mary Portas report, which looked into the decline of traditional high streets, highlighted the point that one of the biggest problems is that local authorities continually increase car parking charges because they generate significant revenue. Unsurprisingly, with increased car parking charges year on year, town centres started to wilt and business rate income fall away. Local authority leaders recognised that, but they needed short-term ways to access money. Maintaining 100% of growth would provide an incentive to cut car parking charges, which hon. Members will be delighted to know Swindon Borough Council did; it reduced charges to £2 for four hours. Anybody who has free time and wishes to spend money in Swindon is most welcome. Unsurprisingly, footfall went up, and we will start to see a boost and regeneration.
Jim McMahon
I do not want play car parking top trumps, but I have to highlight Oldham Council’s decision to offer two hours of free parking in the town centre.
Jim McMahon
I could not possibly shine a light on my own career. One of the proposals in the Bill that we will question later—I hope that the hon. Member for North Swindon will support us—concerns local authorities that are not part of a mayoral arrangement. They will have the ability only to lower business rates, and not to increase them elsewhere to make up the cost. A lot of areas with stunted growth would not be able to afford to do that at all.
Justin Tomlinson
We will explore that in great detail, I am sure. In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will be encouraged by the great enthusiasm for the potential that we will unleash. I am sure that there are local authority leaders poised by the phone to start striking those deals to benefit from economic growth, the delivery of new jobs and the additional income that we all recognise local authorities desperately need.
Jim McMahon
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. Congratulations on steering the debate so far. We have heard a lot in the debate about the complexities of the issues. At headline level, local authorities are crying out for more power and autonomy; they want to be able to crack on and get things done, but they also want a safety net. They want to know that if things beyond their control happen, the delivery of public services in their area can be maintained and will not be affected by a large employer pulling out, or something happening to the business rate base that is entirely out of their control.
A lot of the areas that would be most affected by the downside of this proposal are those that can least afford it. My local authority in Oldham has an historically low council tax base; the majority of properties—70%—are in bands A and B. To generate the same amount of council tax as a wealthier area, people in Oldham naturally have to pay more per property than somebody in the wealthier neighbouring areas of Stockport or Trafford. When we push further pressure on to the council tax payer to pay for the pressures on adult social care, we are expecting the poorest in society in those areas to pay proportionately more of their income to fund basic services that we all need and demand.
When the Minister reaches the age to need social care, I hope the system has been fixed. At the moment, there are 1 million people who need adult social care but do not receive it. Those same people would have got the care in 2010, but are not getting it today because eligibility has been pushed back so far. Many councils now have a two-tier system. People who were already in receipt of care are, by and large, receiving the care that they have received for a number of years. It is different for new entrants. Neighbours living on the same street, with the same health conditions, needing the same support are being told they cannot have care because they are new entrants into the social care system. That cannot be right. We talk about postcode lotteries and compare the wealthiest with the poorest local authorities as a way of highlighting that, but two people in the same area on the same street with the same conditions, but coming into the social care system at different times, are receiving very different levels of social care. That cannot be right in a just and fair world, and I worry about that.
I will extend my argument to council tax, because our discussion is about localisation and the self-sufficiency of local government finance. Let me highlight the table produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government that shows an additional £5.5 billion being generated, predominantly through council tax, to pay for adult social care. If any Government were to say to the public, “How about this for a proposal? We’re going to increase your council tax by 25%. What do you think about that?”, there would be uproar, yet that is exactly what the Department’s figures propose: a 25% increase in council tax over the Parliament. For a town such as Oldham, that will mean that a band E property will be charged £2,000 a year in council tax. Imagine public support for council tax at that point.
A lot of people think that council tax just gets the bins emptied, but universal services that people pay council tax for are being removed and reduced all the time to fund adult social care and safeguarding. Pretty soon, we will reach the point where people say, “What on earth am I paying my council tax for? I am paying more and more every year and receiving fewer and fewer services.”
Mr Thomas
Is there not a broader point here about the sustainability of support for council tax? The Prime Minister has made much of trying to help those who are “just about managing” with their family budgets. A 25% increase in council tax, introduced because Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government have no clout with the Treasury, will have a huge impact on the budgets of those whose finances are in the “just about managing” category. Does that not also play into the debate about the future of local government finance?
Jim McMahon
It is actually worse than that. If people thought, “Okay, the things that I rely on as a taxpayer are being taken away, but it will mean that my elderly relative or neighbour is being better looked after”, there might be a begrudging acceptance that that is the new settlement. The problem is that the additional council tax that is being collected will not even pay the additional national insurance contributions or living wage contributions that are expected. Even though people will be paying more in council tax, it will not mean more people receiving adult social care when they need it, because local authorities are struggling to keep their heads above water.
When local councils came to the Government to ask for support for adult social care, the Government did a three-card trick. They said that they would provide new money, but they took the money from the pot that already funds council services. They took £241 million from the new homes bonus, refreshed it and put it back in as an adult social care grant of exactly the same amount. Within the total amount of money in local government, there is no new money for adult social care.
The increase in precept that council tax payers are paying for this year will be a negative £6.7 million throughout the country, because all that money is going towards paying for the increase in national insurance and living wage contributions. It is not even enough funding to keep councils’ heads above water. Of the councils that have had new homes bonus money taken away, 57 receive less for adult social care under the new system than they did before. We asked for information on the criteria used to assess where that money went, but there were none. It was all completely fictitious—it was made up.
Let us be honest: the Local Government Association is a fantastic membership organisation, but it is often accused of going down to the lowest common denominator because it cannot quite get cross-party agreement. However, the one issue that has absolutely united the different parties on it is adult social care. The LGA highlights that there will be a £2.6 billion funding gap in social care by the end of the decade and notes that the Government’s settlement
“will…fall well short of what is needed to fully protect the care services for elderly and vulnerable people today and in the future”.
The LGA also states that
“increasing the precept raises different amounts of money for social care in different parts of the country unrelated to need and will add an extra financial burden on already struggling households…it is hugely disappointing that today’s settlement has failed to find any new money to tackle the growing crisis in social care.”
So a cross-party organisation chaired by a Conservative Member of the House of Lords, which at some point will consider amendments to the Bill, has come to a cross-party agreement to call this a crisis, yet in his evidence session the Minister completely denied that there was a crisis in adult social care. I am not sure what else we can call it, when a million people who need care are not receiving it and when the Government are putting the burden on council tax payers but not even covering the cost of keeping people’s heads above water. I am not sure how we can say that there is no crisis, when the new model does not at all take into account the pressures being put on people.
We hear that new money has been provided in the form of the improved better care fund. Let us bear in mind that the LGA identified a £2.6 billion funding gap. The better care fund provided £105 million. That is a drop in the ocean compared with the real adult social care pressures that we have. We still need to see the detail, but our expectation is that the £12.8 billion of additional business rates referred to in the evidence session will swallow up all the grants that are currently distributed to local authorities. The truth is that there will be no new money for social care as part of this. That is why amendment 2 is so very important.
Mr Thomas
I do not know whether my hon. Friend has seen the publicity about the statement that the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services made today on its submission to the Treasury ahead of the forthcoming Budget. It makes the case, similar to the Local Government Association, that there needs to be an injection of £1 billion now to prevent the social care system from going even further into crisis. Does that not also underline the case for amendment 2? If there are problems now and we do not sort them out, they will only be greater in 2020 when this new system comes in.
Jim McMahon
I absolutely agree with the professional response. The problem is we do not have proper checks and balances and we do not have a system of tariffs and top-ups and a proper safety net that catches people when they fall. We hear that that will come, but we have not seen the detail. We are being asked to agree a framework that allows this Bill to go through without actually knowing what impact it will have on individual local authorities across the country. It is a fundamental consideration when passing law that one understands the impact that law will have. We do not mind making bad decisions, but we should not be making bad decisions without all the information.
We are in a situation where spending on adult social care has declined by £65 per person in the most deprived areas of this country, but has increased by £28 per person in the least deprived areas. I would not resent that increase if it meant people got the care they need, but I do resent the fact that people who live in deprived communities are not getting the same access to social care that people in more affluent parts of the country are. We are meant to be one nation. We hear that all the time in the Brexit debate; when the Scottish National party kicks off about what is happening in Scotland we all say, “We are meant to be one nation. We take a collective responsibility for our nation.” Let us have a collective responsibility for adult social care and make sure that everybody gets the support they need.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that the social care precept construct will exacerbate those differences? Areas such as those that he and I represent will, in absolute and per capita terms, not raise as much money through the social care precept as advantaged areas will. I agree with him—good luck to advantaged areas—but we want those services for people who live in a wonderful place like Wolverhampton or a great place like Oldham.
Jim McMahon
That is the crux of the issue. Does this Bill really address a financial system that is under pressure and probably at breaking point—we all accept that it is time to renew local government finance and put it on a strong footing—or does it just reinforce historic inequalities across the country? Unfortunately, without the detail that we have requested a number of times we just cannot make that assessment. However, we are being expected to support this because we believe in devolution and have heard the calls from councils to have more responsibility and direction over their lives.
Let us be clear what the levers of change actually are. The Secretary of State will still prescribe what council tax increase can take place. By the way, they are saying that they are not going to report to Parliament on what that will be in the future—a minor point—and we are not going to get a local government finance settlement reported to Parliament in the future.
Not only is there no parliamentary scrutiny of this new world, but councils have not got the levers of control to reflect on the number of bands in their area. They cannot change the number of bands; they cannot introduce intermediary bands; they cannot have smoother transitions. They cannot even revalue properties—the last revaluation took place 26 years ago. Why is that? Central Government duck it year after year, time after time, because they do not want the backlash they would get at local level. Our councils are cross-party, by the way. This is about the Government not wanting to take the flak from the public for putting up council tax. That could be managed at a local level. There have been calls for areas to take that responsibility through some of the devolution deals.
Nor is there any ability to change the scheme of discounts. Fallowfield in Manchester, for example—where there is a strong student population living not in halls of residence but in terraced streets—is almost a whole ward occupied by students who pay absolutely nothing in council tax. Ask Manchester City Council if it would like the freedom to reflect that.
Even if we do not introduce that measure as part of the revision of council tax, we could put the burden on to landlords. Rather than put it on council tax, we could quite easily make provision for that within the business rates Bill. One might say that landlords will just put it on the rent, but if they own a three-bedroom terraced house in Manchester they will probably get £110 a week. If they rent that house to students, however, they will probably get £60 per student per room, so they are already earning far more by renting to those students than by renting to a family. It is right that somebody pays for the headroom to provide the services to the local community.
This is not, however, about whether we prescribe at local level. My point is that we are putting a burden on council tax and on business rates. We say that we welcome leadership at a local level and local innovation, but we are not giving local authorities the levers to affect the council tax or business rate base in their areas in the way that they have asked for.
Justin Tomlinson
Rather than seeking to tax students, perhaps we could be more innovative. For example, Oxfordshire council is not keen on development, but Swindon council could take some, and we would then gain from the council tax, the new homes bonus and the growth in the business rates, while Oxfordshire would have avoided the inconvenience of the development. That is the innovative way to do this.
Jim McMahon
I am going to pay a visit to Swindon at some point—it feels like it is the hallowed land for development. I have visions of 20-storey tower blocks shadowing the town.
It is not accurate to say that we are proposing to tax students. Let us approach this issue in a mature and measured way and stop the cheap headlines. This is about making sure that there is a resilient and robust tax base in every area so that local authorities can generate the tax needed for public services in their own places.
We know the impact of not doing so. Adult social care complaints have gone up by 25%—people who are in receipt of services have increased the number of complaints they feel they have to make—and there has been a rise in 15-minute visits. This is not a cost-free exercise. Government seem to have a view that if we just turn a blind eye, say that it is not our problem and tell local authorities to find a solution—and if we just move money around without there being any extra money, which just helps us feel a bit better about ourselves—there is no problem. Well, speak to NHS England and ask what the problem is. The longer we ignore the pressures on adult social care, the more we push the burden on to the NHS. People who should be looked after in their homes are being forced into hospital to get the treatment that they need, and people in hospital cannot go back home and are having delayed discharges because the support they need is not ready for them to be able to go home. The cost of that is £820 million a year. There is a cost of doing nothing.
Mr Thomas
At the risk of injecting a partisan note into the proceedings, which you know I hate to do, Mr Gapes, I wonder if my hon. Friend has had the chance to look at the 20 councils responsible for the highest number of delayed discharges from hospital, which the Prime Minister has raised concerns about. The majority of those councils are Conservative authorities. I sympathise with those authorities because I do not think that they should be under attack from Ministers when there is a huge funding crisis in social care. I wonder whether my hon. Friend has seen those figures.
Jim McMahon
I have seen them and they tell a story. Instead of just reading out numbers—this is that kind of debate—I am trying to focus on how I would feel if I were in that position and one of my family members needed that type of care. I would feel bitter, not just about council tax but about the country. Our elderly relatives have given their lives to this country, worked hard and done what was asked of them. They have made a contribution. Many have served in the armed forces in order to provide the freedoms that we enjoy, but when they are at their most vulnerable and need us most, we turn our back and say, “It’s not our problem.” That is not the type of country I want to live in.
The Minister needs to accept at some point that this is a Government problem born out of Government indifference and deferral. It is high time that they stepped up. If they did so, we might not have the highest number of delayed discharges from hospital for elderly people since records began, or an 18% increase in A&E admissions for elderly people. Those are real challenges and real problems.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend said that he wanted to go to North Swindon and I know that he will travel back to Manchester. May I encourage him to reflect a little more on the current situation? When the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) spoke on Second Reading, he drew attention to the fact that Westminster City Council collects the most business rates; the figure is some £1.8 billion a year and he expects it to rise to £2 billion. Without amendments 1 and 23, is there not a risk that some of the redistribution from Westminster—I do not know whether Swindon benefits from that, but Manchester and Harrow certainly do—might be lost?
Jim McMahon
It would be ludicrous if the paper on distribution, which we are waiting to see, resulted in Westminster, which has had every advantage, keeping 100% of £2 billion. I would be amazed if any Government would be that stupid. I know that the Minister would not allow that to happen, because the kick-back from Conservative authorities would be as loud as that from Labour authorities. It strikes at the heart of fairness. It cannot be right that the seat of Government, with so many Departments involved in the payment of business rates into the system, has nothing to do with the actions of Westminster City Council. History shows that we have reached this point because that is how the UK Government have developed over time.
Kevin Foster
The hon. Gentleman was talking about examples of delayed discharges and particular councils. The new integrated care organisation in Torbay has produced some of the lowest levels—possibly the lowest level—of delayed discharges, despite the challenges posed by Torbay’s demographics. Does he think that that model could be extended elsewhere?
Jim McMahon
I absolutely believe that there is more to be done to bring together health and social care budgets into one pooled pot for the local area, with local government being given the responsibility for teeming and ladling and being held to account by the public for that. That is absolutely the right way to go. Only by doing that can we break down the institutional silos.
To be fair, the NHS has not reformed in the same way that local councils have had to reform. Joint working could benefit both parties, but we have to be honest about the transition required to do that, and accept that any pilot that has enough money and energy thrown at it can be made to work. We need to consider whether the pilot can be mainstreamed. Different people may approach everyday activities in different ways, so the two systems will have to run alongside each other for a certain period, with the inherent demand continuing as the new system kicks in.
Councils have to be able to see that change through. It could take a five to 10-year project to see through the cultural change to systems and processes, staffing terms and conditions, and everything else that would need to be looked at to ensure that it works. We are seeing that with troubled families. The Government do not have the long-term vision or appetite to see through genuine cultural change in how we deliver public services. If they do not see a saving after year one, two or three, the money is pulled and we start from scratch with another pilot. I absolutely believe in reform, but it has to be sustained reform over a period of time, and we have to be realistic about the amount of time it will take.
Mr Thomas
I highlight a small vignette of the crisis. It is odd that Ministers have not addressed the additional cost for social care providers as a result of the so-called national living wage. It is a good thing, in and of itself, but care providers need funding to compensate for the rise in costs, and nothing that Ministers have had to say, including on funding pots, has addressed that. Does not that need to be addressed before the new system is introduced?
Jim McMahon
That problem relates to my earlier comment about the need for a transition period when aligning staff terms and conditions and salaries. The truth is that staff employed by local authorities and private social care providers are on significantly worse terms and conditions than those of their NHS counterparts who have similar responsibilities to them in hospitals.
The Government do not have an answer as to the number of care providers that could go bust. Councils will have a limited amount of money that they can pay, and some providers will decide whether they can remain in the industry. We do not have a solution if a significant number of those providers give up and pass the responsibility on to social care in the local authority. We cannot afford what we are doing today, and if they took such action we certainly could not afford the increase.
There is almost a double whammy: we want the local authority provision to be a decent place to live and a decent employer—because that is the state, and we want it to set the bar for a decent place. Not only are we telling private providers to pay the national minimum wage; we are telling them to pay between visits. It is not good enough that people get paid only for a 15 or 20-minute slot, and not while they are travelling to the next appointment. We have been pushing—good local authorities have been policing it—for their staff to be paid for their hours working on the job, including travel time. However, for some providers that has increased the staffing bill significantly, on top of national insurance contributions and the national living wage.
I have talked enough about social care. If I am honest, the Minister probably still has not been brought to the point of changing his mind about whether there is a crisis. However, I am satisfied as to my own experience in local government, as a member of the community with family receiving council services, and of listening to what is being said by professional social workers, the LGA, NHS England and, to be fair, Conservative council leaders. It strikes me that everyone accepts that there is a crisis—except the Minister, when he gave evidence to the Committee. I invite him today to put the record straight, face his responsibilities, accept that there is a crisis and commit today to doing something about it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow West for tabling the three amendments about the current central share of business rates income, and welcome the opportunity to discuss the important matters they raise.
To begin with amendment 1, removing the central share is essential to enable local government to retain 100% of locally raised business rates and to move away from its dependence on central Government and towards a more self-sufficient future. On Second Reading, the hon. Gentleman was supportive of the principle of 100% business rates retention, but his amendment would let central Government take a share of locally raised business rates income.
We have been working closely with local government, including doing significant work with the sector on developing the policy and on how 100% of business rates can be retained in local government. Keeping the central share would cut across the joint endeavour that the Government and the local government sector have embarked on.
The hon. Gentleman raised the principles of the fair funding review, the consultation response and further consultation. We have made it clear that it is a fundamental review of the approach to setting a baseline for 100% business rate retention. It is guided by the principles of fairness, simplicity and transparency, and we have been working in collaboration with local government in that respect. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we shall consult shortly.
Mr Thomas
The principles that the Minister outlines are all wonderful—who could possibly be against them?—but there is a touch of motherhood and apple pie about them. Will the index of multiple deprivation feature highly in the categories that the Minister has in mind for influencing how the fair funding review will play out?
Mr Jones
Last summer, we put out an open call for evidence from local government in order to get its views on that very type of issue. We have received its responses and we will provide them in due course. We have spent a significant amount of time today scrutinising this proposed framework legislation, and the hon. Gentleman will know that the detail of how the fair funding review will work, including with regard to redistribution and setting the baseline, will be dealt with at a later stage, when we have the time and information and have worked with the local government sector to put together a fair package. Many local authorities have responded to various departmental consultations in recent years by making it clear that they do not believe that the needs assessment, which was last looked at properly well over 10 years ago, truly reflects their demographics, because they have changed significantly since it was last done.
Mr Thomas
I entirely accept the Minister’s point about the needs assessment—it is entirely reasonable, in my view, that a new one be conducted—but there is a touch of mañana about his argument. He said, “The fair funding review will come in the fullness of time. Don’t worry about that. It will come in due course.” He could have submitted the Bill for prelegislative scrutiny; instead he is rushing ahead with it before any of the 450 responses have been published. Why is he so desperate to get the Bill through Parliament before we have had the chance to see the outcome of the fair funding review and a draft of the regulations?
Mr Jones
As the hon. Gentleman knows, this time last year the Government put out a four-year offer regarding the local government settlement to councils, 97% of which accepted it. At the same time, we made it clear that we would honour those commitments. We also made it very clear that we would be moving to a system of 100% business rate retention and that we would look at the fair funding situation. We made the timing of the move to the new system clear, and we have to have framework legislation in place to make that timing happen. Given that the fair funding review will be a significant piece of work and that we are going to look very carefully at need, we also need time to follow that piece of work through. So we need the legislation, and then we need to put the pieces of the jigsaw together to come up with a complete picture. I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands that.
David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)
Does the Minister recall coming to the Communities and Local Government Committee to give detailed information as part of its inquiry into the retention of business rates?
Mr Jones
Yes, I must admit that I have spent a number of pleasurable afternoons responding to a number of inquiries undertaken by the Communities and Local Government Committee—we have two esteemed members of that Select Committee here. We have been talking about it for some time and we have engaged not only with the sector but with colleagues in this House and particularly with the Select Committee. It is not as if we have just dreamt this up and not engaged with people.
Mr Thomas
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He often hides behind the four-year offers to local authorities when a difficult question is asked about the funding of local councils, but already the basis on which councils signed up to that four-year assessment has changed, because of the changes to the new homes bonus and the money being taken out for adult social care. I gently suggest to him that when it comes to completing jigsaws, it is helpful to have all the pieces to do so. At the moment, this Committee does not have all the pieces; we just have one third of them.
Mr Jones
The Government are committed to and have shown good faith in keeping to the agreement we made about the four-year settlement. Regarding the new homes bonus, which was not included in that settlement, we made it very clear at the time that there would be changes to it. In fact, this time last year we embarked on a consultation explaining that we wanted to sharpen the incentive in relation to the new homes bonus.
In addition, it was quite clear to local government at the spending review in 2015 that the new homes bonus would change, because the improved better care fund, which will total £1.5 billion by 2019-20, was intended to be funded by savings made from it. As such, changes to the new homes bonus have not necessarily been a shock to the sector.
Jim McMahon
I appreciate the Minister giving way, given the time that we have.
The Minister’s response would lead us to believe that the majority of councils are signed up to a four-year efficiency programme of budgets that can be balanced within the settlement that they have been offered, but I know from my own local authority that its four-year efficiency plan had a budget gap of £99 million between the cost of providing services to meet its statutory obligations and the income from grants, council tax and business rates. The Government have not come forward and said where the £99 million will come from; in fact, the changes being made through this Bill will potentially make that situation worse. Can we have a clear idea of how many of the efficiency plans submitted to the Government showed a gap of that nature?
Mr Jones
We did indeed ask for efficiency plans to be put forward and we did so on the basis of making the offer of the four-year settlement, and only 10 local authorities across the country did not accept that offer.
If the hon. Gentleman wants me to elaborate, I would not say to him that things are easy for local authorities—far from it. Local authorities have done an extremely good job in many ways over the last six years or so in doing their part in deficit reduction, which was so necessary after the shambles of a deficit that was left behind by the Labour party. I say they have done a good job because overall satisfaction with services has been maintained, and local authorities have again taken up the baton, particularly in relation to this four-year deal, and they have run with it.
Jim McMahon
I thank the Minister for that point. Let us be clear and honest with each other on this issue. The choice that local authorities had was not the choice of financial stability and security. The gap in provision is still the gap in provision. The choice put forward by the Government is basically a certain cut or an uncertain cut.
Mr Jones
The point was that local government knew there was a challenge to be met and they knew they were not immune to the reductions in public spending. Coming back to the point, what local government had asked for for many years, above a lot of other things, was certainty. With the four-year deal we have given a significant level of certainty to local authorities that hitherto had always been hanging on the word of Government come December as to what their position would be when they set their budget for the following financial year, which would start at the end of March and take them through to early April. Generally, local government have welcomed that. As to whether they would want a quantum of money within the settlement, I am sure many local authorities would, but at least the deal has allowed local authorities to plan and to use other resources. For example, in many cases it has allowed them to use reserves to bring forward transformation plans that enable them to meet the challenges that they face.
Let me respond to the point that was made about two-tier authority areas by the hon. Member for Harrow West and the way in which the splits would be made in terms of income between the different tiers of local government. The amendment to retain the central share does not achieve that aim. How business rating can be shared between the tiers will be set out in regulations under part 4 of schedule 7B to the Local Government Finance Act 1988. We do not need to retain a central share to distribute business rates income between tiers of Government. As has been the running theme through this and I think will be a running theme in Committee, we are working with local government to work out how the split should work under 100% business rate retention.
Mr Thomas
To pursue another running theme, is there any sense of timing for when those draft regulations might become publicly available so that local authorities, not just those on technical working groups between the Department and the LGA but local authorities in all their full glory, can see and understand what those regulations might mean for their finances?
Mr Jones
As I have said, there is still a significant amount of work ongoing with the sector that we need to bring forward to amend those regulations. That work will continue. When we get to the point where we are able to put more meat on the bone, we will certainly do so and that information will certainly be available to the House.
On amendments 2 and 23, the explanatory statement provided by the hon. Gentleman on amendment 2 demonstrates that he is seeking to ensure that a proportion of business rates income is retained specifically for the purposes of spending on social care services. Similarly, amendment 23 seeks to impose conditions on how locally raised business rates should be spent by a council and by central Government if we were to retain the central share. I will explain why the amendments are not necessary.
As the hon. Gentleman is aware, decisions are yet to be taken about the services to be devolved to local government to make 100% of business rates retention fiscally neutral. That does not require primary legislation and is therefore not a part of the Bill. Funding for all services that councils deliver, including social care services, will be part of the considerations. The fair funding review, which I mentioned earlier, will also consider the relative needs of local authorities, including adult social care, and will set initial funding allocations for the 100% rates retention system.
As I said earlier, we recognise the pressure on councils. Despite the comments from Labour Members, we also recognise the challenges of and the pressures on social care services, but we have taken action to help with such pressures. Local government will receive up to £7.6 billion over the course of this Parliament to spend on adult social care services. I assure the hon. Member for Harrow West that the introduction of the 100% business rates retention system does not mean that local government may no longer receive any funding from a central Government grant. Where there is need to provide a funding stream for a specific service or outcome, the Government can continue to make such provision.
I hope that I have reassured Members in a reasonably pithy way that the amendments are not necessary and that we can achieve their aims without taking a central share of business rates income. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Thomas
We have had an interesting debate. The challenge set before the Minister in amendments 1 and 23 was to clarify the Government’s intent towards the redistribution concerns of local authorities. We have not yet had clear answers to my specific questions on redistribution.
I asked how redistribution would work in practice. We have not had an answer to that question. I asked whether there would be amendments to the system for tariffs and top-ups. I do not think that the Minister mentioned them at all in his response. I asked how, given the importance of revenue support and other grants to ensure that areas’ spending power is equalised, the new system would make such compensation. We have had only a partial answer to that—I will come back to it in the clause stand part debate. I asked for more clarity on the key principles on which the fairer funding formula will operate. It is true that I got that offer of some principles, but no clarity beyond those very basic, broadbrush principles; nor was there any clarity—or even, I am sad to say, any recognition—about the concerns facing the poorest areas in income and spending power, as opposed to wealthier areas such as Westminster, under the new system.
I am concerned that we are no further forward. It was interesting to hear the Minister talk about the need to get the Bill through in order to move ahead with the other elements of the package, but as I indicated in an intervention there was nothing to stop the Minister from submitting the proposals to prelegislative scrutiny. The obvious place to do that would have been in the Communities and Local Government Committee, as has happened in the past for similar pieces of legislation.
The only thing that would appear to be absolutely fundamental for Ministers in the Bill is the abolition of the local government finance settlement and the scope for a debate in the House of Commons on the state of local government finances. The only thing that Ministers will benefit from immediately seems to be the absence of that particular form of financing.
Rob Marris
On the issue of redistribution that the amendments cover, does my hon. Friend agree that we could look at it and say that the Government have put the cart before the horse? They have decided that there will be 100% devolution, but as the Minister said a moment ago, they have not yet decided which additional responsibilities they will devolve to local government. Almost invariably, additional responsibilities require additional expenditure. They are setting the finance out in the Bill, but they are not telling anyone what to spend it on until down the road.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I will come back to the issue of new responsibilities, if he will forgive me, because it is better covered in our debate on clause 1 stand part than on amendments 1 and 23.
It was lovely to have the hon. Member for North Swindon get up and take part in this debate. I hope he will not be intimidated and will be a regular contributor on other occasions. I had a sense of Don Quixote and his trusty, loyal servant Sancho Panza as the hon. Gentleman defended the Bill’s principles without really getting into the issues of redistribution that we touch on in the amendments. It was rather revealing that he talked about the blunting of incentives if redistribution continued to be a significant factor; that rather gave the game away and will worry many in local government as to what this measure will mean in practice.
I was fascinated by the hon. Gentleman’s recollection of witnesses’ enthusiasm for the incentives in the Bill. Let me draw him back to the evidence we received on Tuesday from Mr Dominic Williams of the Federation of Small Businesses. Commenting on the incentives that Ministers suggest are in the Bill, he said:
“our view is that that is not really an effective incentive, for a number of reasons. First, it only applies to the development of new physical property. It is an incentive to permit more development; it is not necessarily an incentive to look after your existing business community. Secondly, throughout much of the country, particularly over the last few years, there has been very little development”.
That would suggest that the current system of 50% distribution has not produced evidence that 100% business rates retention will offer any more of an incentive. He went on:
“Thirdly, where there has been development, it has tended to be out-of-town shopping centres. The way that the system has worked since the last reform has given local authorities an incentive to give consent to out-of-town shopping centres, which take away trade from the existing town centre.”
He also said something rather revealing on incentives to work with business:
“What I think is more important is that if local authorities are correctly funded to do what they are meant to do, they will be supportive of business. If they are underfunded—I do not blame them for this—they have to put the money towards their statutory obligations and cut back on some of their discretionary activities.”––[Official Report, Local Government Finance Public Bill Committee, 31 January 2017; c. 45, Q81.]
Justin Tomlinson
It was very kind of the FSB to strengthen my case. First, 50% clearly was not enough; that is why we need the maximum incentive. On the town centre principle, I addressed in my speech how councils are only looking at car parking revenue, not the business rates collection within town centres; that strengthens my point. My final ask is that the FSB rallies its members to stand for positions in local authorities, so that they can directly influence how effective local authorities are.
Mr Thomas
As I said, the hon. Gentleman’s contribution was inspirational in terms of recalling great literature of the past and the tale of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The evidence from the FSB was revealing: the economic incentives will not be anything like as significant as Ministers hope and the measure will help to drive further reductions in spending power, it would appear, without any evidence from Ministers to the contrary.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that this demonstrates a triumph of hope over experience? If an apparent incentive is not working, we double it. Well, vitamin A is good for people, but after a certain point doubling the intake of vitamin A kills them.
Mr Thomas
I take my hon. Friend’s analogy—50% versus 100% is interesting. Given that 50% business rates devolution was championed as an economic incentive in promoting growth, and the business community does not think it has worked, it is not clear what evidence there is to justify the so-called economic incentives still being in place and arguably being greater when there is 100% business rates devolution.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman supportive of the principles of business rates retention or not? His colleague, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), chairs the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, where we undertook a detailed inquiry looking at this policy and he stated that
“this is an important policy and we want it to work.”
Does the hon. Member for Harrow West not agree with his own colleague?
Mr Thomas
The hon. Gentleman was unfortunately not here at 11.30 am when I made clear our support for the principle of 100% business rates retention. Clearly, we want the system to work. However, I suggest to him that the purpose of this Committee is surely to probe what evidence there is for the case that the Government are making. He is slightly more considered than the usual Conservative MP one gets to sit opposite on these Committees, so I ask him where the evidence is, for instance in an impact assessment, to suggest that there will be a significant increase in economic growth as a result of the Bill? If the 50% business rates devolution did not offer that evidence, as one would have expected it might, where is the evidence that 100% business rates devolution will produce that?
Let me make it clear: I do support the principle of 100% business rates devolution, but the job of the Opposition is to expose where there is a lack of evidence, to challenge Ministers to provide that evidence and to ask for the detail of how the system is going to work. In the absence of that, one is entitled to have a little scepticism.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman asks what additional incentive is provided for a local authority in a move from the 50% regime to the 100% regime. I am sure he will know from the Bill that we are scrapping the levy, which is effectively a tax on growth. That will give local authorities far more of an incentive to do the right thing, support businesses and widen their business rate base.
Mr Thomas
It is interesting that the Minister chooses to talk about the levy and not the lack of evidence for economic growth having been generated by the 50% business rates devolution. One would have thought that there would have been some evidence to justify the assertions that were made in 2013-14 by his predecessor that a whole new wave of economic growth would be generated as a result of the measures. In the clause 1 stand part debate, I hope to suggest that factors other than local councils’ attitude to development might be holding back economic growth.
Sadly, we did not hear anything from either the Minister or the hon. Member for North Swindon that offered confidence to a council such as Allerdale Borough Council that its difficulties with the barriers to economic growth will be dealt with. The hon. Gentleman made a valiant try by suggesting that pooling might work. I do not know whether he knows Keswick in the Lake District, which is the central town in Allerdale.
Mr Thomas
It is not a coastal area, but it is surrounded by other local authorities that are part of the Lake District national park, which are similarly challenged in terms of constraints on the land they can use. One suspects that the natural pool of authorities that Allerdale council could work with would face similar challenges in terms of land being available for economic growth. That underlines the concern about redistribution.
Jim McMahon
Does my hon. Friend agree that one solution for Allerdale would be to have a broad tax base on which they could draw to fund public services? It strikes me that in such an area a significant amount of money must be generated through stamp duty income from the sale of high-value homes in the district.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend tempts me now into very difficult territory. The shadow Chancellor has long eyes and if I were to rush to pronounce on a whole series of new measures on fiscal devolution without having first spoken to him, I would get into very serious trouble. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend makes a very interesting point.
The Chair
May I also say that that would perhaps move a little bit away from the provisions of the Bill? I think we should narrow our focus a little bit.
Mr Thomas
I am grateful as ever for your advice, Mr Gapes. The other concern that was touched on, but not answered, by both the Minister and the hon. Member for North Swindon was the concern about Heathrow. The extra business rates growth that will surely come in the wake of a third runway at Heathrow—their treasurers, if not their local residents, will surely already be beginning to count up and look forward to all the extra revenue—will probably be far more significant in terms of promoting economic growth in the areas surrounding that third runway than anything that local councils might do.
Steve Double
Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that expanding Heathrow is about growing not the economy around the airport but the economy of our nation? Cornwall expects to benefit in economic growth from the expansion of Heathrow because of the additional links that it will create with businesses in Cornwall.
Mr Thomas
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is precisely my point. In terms of business rates, the authorities that will benefit most from a third runway at Heathrow will be the local authorities in the immediate surrounding area. Without effective redistribution, there might be some additional business rates from businesses operating in Cornwall that are perhaps attracted to Britain as a result of a third runway, but primarily the main authorities that will benefit from the increase in business rates growth from that third runway will be the local authorities in the surrounding area.
Rob Marris
May I caution my hon. Friend on this line of argument? The local authorities adjacent to Heathrow will have to spend shedloads more money dealing with the health problems caused by a deterioration in air quality and will be spending more in social care.
Mr Thomas
I gently suggest to Government Members that Heathrow brings the issue into fairly graphic light. In the evidence that Professor Tony Travers gave on Tuesday, he acknowledged that, where there is a major infrastructure development, that, rather than any actions of the local council, is likely to be the key driver of economic growth and business rates in an area. One can imagine the same issue with High Speed 2, which, wherever a main station or terminus is located, will be the key driver of economic growth in an area, notwithstanding other measures that the local authority might take. That surely justifies even more the case for redistribution of the revenue generated by business rates.
Mr Thomas
The Minister says that it will be, but he opposes amendments 1 and 23, which seek to re-enshrine redistribution at the heart of local government funding arrangements. He has given us no information about how redistribution will work. We have to wait until mañana for the fairer funding review to report—it will not report for at least another 12 months, even if it sticks to time.
In his excellent contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton underlined the point about the lack of money for social care. The interjection into the debate by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services about what the Chancellor of the Exchequer should do in the Budget is a further timely reminder of our responsibilities in thinking about social care provision beyond 2020. My hon. Friend talked about the additional responsibilities that will fall on local government, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West. The clause 1 stand part debate will give us an opportunity to focus on the revenue support grant and the issues associated with ending that, and that debate is perhaps a better place for me to comment about those new responsibilities.
In winding up, the Minister came back to the idea of how wonderful it is for local authorities’ finances that four-year deals have been offered. It is already clear that the terms on which local authorities signed up to those deals are beginning to change. Many authorities that signed up believing it was the right thing to do and still believe it was the right thing to do, for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton gave, will nevertheless not be reassured about their financial situation from 2020 given the changes that have taken place already since they signed on the dotted line. It is clear from the Minister’s response that an awful lot of detail about how redistribution will work in practice is missing. Granted, that work is taking place and many people in local government have had the opportunity to think about it, but worryingly, no one in local government or this House has had the chance properly to look at that detail.
I do not intend to press amendments 1 and 23 to a Division, but I do intend to press amendment 2. The Minister has not given us any reassurance that he grasps the scale of the social care crisis. He could have said that he and the Secretary of State were marching daily down to No. 11 Downing Street to lobby the Treasury for more finance for social care. In that context, I might have been willing not to move the amendment, but the social care crisis is so serious that we feel that we need to divide the Committee on amendment 2. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 1.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) In Schedule 7B, in paragraph 8 of part 3, after sub-paragraph (1) insert—
‘(1B) The regulations may, in particular, make provision for the determination of an amount to be deducted in order that the billing authority retains the specified amount for the purposes of funding social care services.’”—(Mr Gareth Thomas.)
This amendment would enable billing authorities to retain a specified proportion of non-domestic rating income specifically for the purposes of funding social care services.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
We have had an extensive debate on the amendments to the clause, so I ask that the stand part debate be very brief.
Mr Thomas
The question of whether clause 1 should stand part of the Bill cuts to the heart of the debate about incentives for economic growth versus concerns about redistribution. In an intervention earlier today, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton drew my attention—as if I needed it drawn—to the strong support of the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for the principles of the Bill. However, on Second Reading, my hon. Friend recognised that we need to
“marry the need to give incentives for development…with the need to equalise within the system”.
He said:
“My concern is that trying to do that with one tax”—
business rates—
“is a bit like trying to play a round of golf with one club.”—[Official Report, 23 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 85.]
I have to say that I do not play golf; my source of leisure is watching the mighty Arsenal scoring their way to victory, so I will make the same analogy in football terms: it is like trying to play a match with defenders but no strikers, or with strikers but no defenders.
I believe that other measures are needed to encourage incentives for economic growth and to achieve equalisation within the system. When we debated amendments 1, 2 and 23, we did not focus on whether the revenue support grant should continue to be offered. We can see from the way the Bill is drafted that Ministers want to abolish the revenue support grant completely. My concern about that is that the revenue support grant has hitherto been one of the key ways of equalising things within the system of local government finance. We have debated the importance of equalising things out, because there is not enough of a revenue support grant in social care, but councils have a huge range of other responsibilities: school improvement, provision of leisure services and so on. Without a revenue support grant, if an authority has a small business rates tax base and a small council tax base, it may face having to offer much worse provision, in terms of leisure centres, school improvements, refuse collections and so on, than an authority with a high business rates tax base.
Why is that so important? If one looks at the regularity with which Governments seek to change the landscape for local authorities, one can sympathise with any treasurer or director of finance in local government who tears their hair out immediately after a Budget, whether it is from my party or the Conservative party, such is the change that comes local government’s way. One need only think of the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer’s most recent Budget, in which measures to extend business rates relief to smaller businesses and shops will take some £700 billion out of the total business rates take in England over the next five years. There was very little consultation about the loss of that funding from the business rates tax take for local authorities. The revenue support grant might help to compensate for that loss of revenue, but at the moment Ministers are saying that they want to abolish any provision of the revenue support grant at all.
There is some suggestion that local authorities will be compensated for that £700 billion loss. If that is right, it would be good news. However, keeping the provision to allow some revenue support grant to be provided by Ministers to equalise variations in the impact on finances would surely be a good thing if we are committed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton said, to the idea of a one-nation England with no person or area left behind.
The change from the retail prices index to the consumer prices index, again announced in that Budget, may mean that businesses have to pay substantially less in business rates over the years. That is a good thing if one is a business owner; for the director of finance at a local authority worrying about how to pay for the provision of local services, it is not such a good thing. Again, very little consultation took place before that measure was announced. We have touched on the changes around the new homes bonus to provide a little bit of extra social care funding. All those changes dramatically affect the local authority finance landscape. Keeping the revenue support grant is one way of helping to ease the challenges facing those local authorities in particularly difficult circumstances because of the scale of the barriers to economic growth in their area.
My hon. Friends the Members for Oldham West and Royton, and for Wolverhampton South West, talked about the measure supposedly being fiscally neutral. As a result, some £12.8 billion-worth of new responsibilities are likely to be passed to local government. That is a concern, because there is still absolutely no clarity about which of those extra responsibilities will be passed down, or about the impact on local government’s financial budgets. Surely it is sensible to keep provision for some revenue support grant to be paid to local authorities while the debate about which new responsibilities will be passed to local government is concluded.
The consultation document—Ministers have still not published the 450 responses generated since last July—gave a strong hint that at least five of the pots of additional money available to local government will be abolished. The rural services delivery grant is, I think, worth about £65 million and the public health grant is worth some £3 billion. One would think that Conservative Members of Parliament representing rural areas would get to their feet at some point to say that they worried about the impact that the additional responsibilities and loss of funding might have on their area. Retaining the provision for some revenue support grant to be paid might be a way for the Minister to settle the concerns of rural Members of Parliament.
Justin Tomlinson
Surely if developers were converting employment land into residential land, the council would still receive income, but through council tax rather than business rates.
Justin Tomlinson
I do not have all the figures immediately to hand, but I would be very excited about the new homes bonus money that would be released very quickly following the decision to transfer that land.
Mr Thomas
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. He would also acknowledge that if one has significant numbers of new people living in an area, one has to increase the services there. He presents an optimistic scenario, but although the business rates income might be matched, there might be additional costs arising from the provision of new or extra services.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman has made the point about converting offices, for example, for residential use several times. In the spirit of localism, which is what the Bill is all about, let me ask this question: is it not right that if a local authority does not want to take that approach, it could issue an article 4 direction, which would protect that office block as offices?
Mr Thomas
The Minister is right: the local authority could do that, but let us assume that, for whatever reason, it does not. Not every local authority will want to stop every landlord from converting land to offer housing. I think about my council and the housing crisis in London. There is a very difficult conundrum and balancing act for local authorities. Do they try to take action to deal with the housing crisis, because of the 100% business rate devolution? Do they look to encourage business rates growth? If Ministers cannot sort out the housing crisis, local authorities in this situation will be caught between a rock and a hard place, and they will have to make very difficult choices.
The Chair
Order. As a London MP, I am finding this absolutely fascinating, but this Bill is not about the provision of housing in London and I ask both sides, “Please can we get back to the focus of the actual Bill?” And Mr Thomas, a number of your colleagues also wish to make contributions, so I would be grateful if you could be relatively brief.
Mr Thomas
I am very grateful, Mr Gapes, for your direction that we should not talk about the housing crisis in London. However, you will realise that the revenue support grant helps to provide finance to address some of the concerns about homelessness. Obviously, one of the reasons for wanting to retain, potentially, some revenue support grant within the current local government system is to make it easier for financially challenged local authorities to deal with homelessness and some of the other issues that we have mentioned.
My last point, Mr Gapes—
Mr Thomas
For now. My last point is to ask whether there is a whole series of other impediments to economic growth. The implicit assumption that Ministers always seem to make in relation to the Bill is that local government is responsible for a lack of economic growth. Ministers are careful not to say that in such specific and grand terms, but that is the implicit charge behind the Bill.
One thinks of the difficulties in gaining access to finance that many small businesses experience as just one example of an impediment to growth. Therefore, local authorities deserve more recognition from Ministers, and not only those run by Conservative council leaders but others—such as Manchester and Oldham, and some in London, such as Hackney or Haringey—where there is a championing of the business community at local level and a real desire to see economic growth.
Surely, keeping the provision in the Bill for a little bit of revenue support grant might be, in the long run, one way of dealing with some of the issues on local government finance. That is worth thinking about by Ministers.
Rob Marris
It is, as ever, a pleasure to appear before you, Mr Gapes.
I am intrigued that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West is leaving as soon as I have started talking. [Laughter.] He has probably heard what I am going to say and agrees with it; I hope so.
I will focus on clause 1(3), which deals with the abolition of the revenue support grant, and to the surprise of some, I will actually be brief, Mr Gapes. I am concerned about that measure. We have heard talk of incentives but no evidence of that. I am concerned about the inequalities that the abolition of the revenue support grant may lock in.
Kevin Hollinrake
What evidence did Labour find before it introduced the local authority business growth incentive scheme, which served a similar purpose?
Rob Marris
There is a lack of evidence. Things do not work. Now we have this Bill, which is supposed to work. The 50% has not worked, so we are now talking about the 100% not working. I am not the Government. It is not my party saying in the explanatory notes—the Minister said this more than once on Tuesday morning—that the Bill will provide incentives. I understand that concept. It is just that a bit of evidence would be welcome.
Rob Marris
No, I will not, because I want to move on and talk about the abolition of the revenue support grant—I am not primarily talking about incentives—which is set out in clause 1(3). I appreciate that the abolition of the revenue support grant would not abolish the discretionary grant-paying power under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, but it would replace a mandatory with a discretionary funding approach. The explanatory notes, produced at the behest of the Government, are very helpful in that regard. They lay bare the Government’s intention, which is, in effect, to abandon just-about-managing authorities and to help those that are doing well—a kind of survival-of-the-fittest approach. I say that because paragraph 31 states:
“The removal of revenue support grant, together with provisions ensuring that local government will keep 100% of locally collected business rates, will increase the self-sufficiency of local government by making them less reliant on grant and more reliant on locally raised taxes.”
I understand the concept of self-sufficiency—it can be laudable—but we have to take into account where our country is at, not where we would like it to be at. That is the very point that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton made about us being one country.
We have heard about the incentives to balance this proposal and about what councils are going to do with their self-sufficiency, but in places such as Wolverhampton, which is one of the most densely populated cities in Europe—presumably because it is such a wonderful place and lots of people want to live there—there is not a lot of spare land. I understand—the hon. Member for North Swindon can correct me if I am wrong—that land is not such a pressing issue in Swindon or, indeed, in Wiltshire.
Hon. Members adverted to what councils might do with the self-sufficiency that the abolition of the revenue support grant in clause 1(3) is ushering in. They might have cheaper car parking. I understand that, for business rates purposes, they might think that will get more people coming in and shopping, and therefore the rental value of shops will go up, but it can be dog eat dog in terms of air quality, which is a huge problem not just in London but around our country, including in Wolverhampton.
Out-of-town shopping centres were adverted to. There are huge problems with the environment in that regard. There are problems in places such as Wolverhampton, a densely populated unitary authority. Any out-of-town shopping centre is likely to be next door, in the Chief Whip’s constituency. That is great for the people of South Staffordshire, but not so good for the people of Wolverhampton. We are going to get a dog-eat-dog approach, because South Staffordshire District Council is going to encourage that. We have heard about warehousing. I appreciate that, during the economic crisis, it was in Swindon’s interest to provide a giant car park for Honda, but that does not help the future economic development of our country.
This is not the way forward for our country. Getting rid of the revenue support grant, and having a system that is much more dog eat dog and “every municipality for itself” is not a good way to go if we want our country —England—to be a society where we have mutual obligations to each other.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman is gilding the lily slightly. The Government have been quite clear that 100% business rate retention means that 100% of the business rate will be retained by local government, not one individual council. Within that system, there will be a system of redistribution to reflect a number of things, including need. Does he not acknowledge that?
Rob Marris
We may get on to that when we discuss schedule 1, because paragraph 4 contains the tariffs and top-up provisions. Incidentally—I will be brief, Mr Gapes —I read that as a slush fund for the Department.
Rob Marris
I realise that, Mr Gapes, but it relates in terms of what will come without the revenue support grant.
The Chair
Please do not go on to the schedules now. We are dealing with clause 1 stand part.
Mr Thomas
Is my hon. Friend aware of figures I have seen from the House of Commons Library that suggest two thirds of businesses do not pay any business rates at all? If the point about economic incentives is right, authorities have to get particular types of businesses. If they cannot, they are in trouble—all the more reason, surely, to retain provision for revenue support grant to be offered, to help authorities that cannot attract that type of big business.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend is quite right. We touched on the issue this morning, so I will not rehearse it again, but the whole thrust of the Bill is that councils need the big hitters because, as he points out, small businesses—understandably, to encourage the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises—will not be paying business rates. If they get a big hitter, there is a problem if that big hitter moves away and there is no revenue support grant to make up for it.
There is a real problem for disadvantaged authorities such as mine and those up in the north-west, such as the constituency my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton represents, where there will be a crisis in local government funding. The underpinning support within our society in terms of social cohesion and solidarity provided by the revenue support grant will, under clause 1(3) be withdrawn. I urge the Government to look at that again, because otherwise they will run into the same problems they have run into with the so-called fair funding formula for schools, which is causing uproar around the country, including on the Conservative Back Benches.
Mr Thomas
Can my hon. Friend see a case for the retention of at least some revenue support grant in a situation where an authority with a low business rate base receiving a top-up decides to reduce the business rate multiplier? There is a risk that other local authorities paying a tariff will be effectively subsidising the reduction in business rate multiplier in that area, hence the need for the revenue support grant as an alternative.
Rob Marris
I agree—there is a risk of a beggar-my-neighbour downwards. The Government really ought to think again, in the absence of evidence that this will produce the change we all want in terms of business growth and growth of the tax base.
Mr Jones
To clarify the point that the hon. Gentleman just agreed with, made by the hon. Member for Harrow West, if a particular area decides it wants across its area to reduce the business rate multiplier, that local authority would have to pay for that within the quantum of its own business rates, and it would not be subsidised by another authority’s.
Rob Marris
I will not make the same mistake twice and get tempted off-piste by that, because we will discuss the multiplier later in the Bill.
Mr Thomas
I hope I can tempt my hon. Friend a little more on the Minister’s intervention. That is probably the first bit of clarity we have had on how the system might work in practice. The Minister appears to have said that if an authority reduces the business rate multiplier, no top-up will be available to it, even if it has a low business rates base, making it even less likely that authorities will choose that option. Keeping revenue support grants, surely, is potentially a better alternative for a local authority worried about its long-term financial position.
Rob Marris
With his brain like quicksilver, my hon. Friend was quicker than I was to pick up that. I cannot take credit for wheedling that out of the Minister—it was entirely serendipitous, in as much as it happened. It is, however, interesting that we have a little more clarity, I certainly agree there. I urge the Government to think again about subsection (3).
Jim McMahon
We have had a full and frank debate. We have just, only minutes ago, managed to glean more information—more in that second than we have had in hours of sitting or the evidence sessions about where the intention sits. Had the debate earlier been more honest and open, we could have dispensed with much of it today. Perhaps the Minister will be generous in the sharing of information, which he showed to be possible a few minutes ago.
Clearly, the reason the levy pool is not required is that the desire is for local government, not the Government, to administer the scheme. That would be in line with calls from local government, which has asked for an independent body to be established to look at redistribution formulas so as to ensure that is done in an independent way. That is something we are open to discussion about, provided there is a discussion to be had. I encourage the Minister in the spirit of openness to come forward with how that scheme will work in practice.
If there is an independent scheme, it would have potential and merit. We see that in the health service, where a separate and independent body is established to look at health funding and distribution. Something similar in local government potentially has merit, provided it has the freedoms. Whatever system is put in place also requires parliamentary scrutiny so that it can be held to account. A number of provisions in the Bill—the removal of the requirements to produce an annual statement of the funding formula and to bring forward the council tax increase cap—do not sit well with democrats because they reduce the possibility of proper parliamentary scrutiny.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton referenced a review that is being undertaken by the Communities and Local Government Committee. I have a great deal of time for the hon. Gentleman. He puts a lot of time into ensuring that such reviews are carried out in the right way. I give credit to him and his Committee for doing so. I hope he does not mind me saying, however, that he has provided a half-truth of the review—[Interruption.] Okay, he was 100% truthful about the truth he provided, but silent about the remainder of the recommendations in the report.
The review said, absolutely, that local government had been asking for freedoms and that there was broad support for 100% retention, but that some big and unanswered questions potentially undermined the success of the programme. That is what the report says. The interim report has been provided to the Government, and the response is being awaited. In particular the report talks about how volatile the situation could be if the system is brought forward, without proper scrutiny, while at the same time the revenue support grant is taken away. The Committee was clear at the time that removing the revenue support grant without the checks and balances in place carried inherent risk.
The report also made points about fairness, equality, distribution and what would be done for areas where the business rate base and take were low. The CLG Committee was, absolutely, in favour of retention, but a number of other truths were relevant to its recommendations and that context was needed to give a firmer view, so there is still a long way to go.
Kevin Hollinrake
I take exception to the phrase “half-truth”, but the hon. Gentleman is right that the Select Committee made a number of recommendations of modifications to the Bill, many of which have been taken up, such as dealing with appeals. He and the hon. Member for Harrow West ask for evidence, but the Select Committee took extensive evidence during its inquiry, and there was almost universal support for business rates retention. The overriding point in the Select Committee report is:
“We support 100 per cent retention of business rate revenue”.
Jim McMahon
That is absolutely correct. The Select Committee went on to say that it
“calls on the Government to specify how it will protect councils which rely on redistributed business rates and are worried that they will lose out under the new system.”
Let us have full, rounded contributions.
Mr Thomas
I hope that my hon. Friend will have noticed and will address the fact that, if I may say so, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton slightly distorts what I asked the Minister. I asked: where is the economic evidence that 100% business rates retention will work? Presumably, 50% business rates retention has been successful in encouraging the sort of development that the hon. Member for North Swindon thinks will be part of the new Jerusalem under 100% business rates retention. If the Minister can point me to that piece of economic evidence, I will sleep even easier at night than I do already.
Jim McMahon
I feel slightly like I am in the middle of a different debate, but my hon. Friend’s point about the new Jerusalem is quite apt. When I think about the new Jerusalem, I think of the dark satanic mills that bound the skyline of Oldham and by and large are still there. They create an inherent unfairness in the business rates base of a town such as Oldham.
The devil will always be in the detail, which we have not seen or discussed. There is aggressive provision in the Bill for pooling arrangements. Local authorities will come together as pools, which will have lead authorities that take responsibility for deals. In some ways, that provision continues that inherent unfairness, because it allows negotiations about distribution to take place within areas. There seems to be a view that creating a pool will allow areas to teem and ladle, less affluent areas will benefit from more prosperous areas and, by and large, there will be an overall benefit. But because more prosperous areas have the upper hand since they have the lion’s share of the business rates take, they can negotiate preferential retention arrangements that other areas in the same city region or neighbouring authorities cannot.
For example, in Greater Manchester, the business rates pool expands beyond the city region, in recognition of the fact that the travel to work area goes into Cheshire, so the pool includes the 10 Greater Manchester authorities, Cheshire West and Chester. The two Cheshire councils have negotiated 50% retention before any money goes into the pool to be redistributed across the conurbation. They might argue that they are not part of the Greater Manchester combined authority or the devolution deal that has been struck with the Government, and they add value to the pot but do not really take away investment. There is some sense in that, but Stockport and Trafford, the two most prosperous areas of Greater Manchester, have negotiated arrangements under which they will retain a third of business rates growth before it goes into the pool, because that was the only way of getting them to the table. Even within a pool there is not equity or the type of redistribution that the Government have promoted.
A town such as Oldham is caught between a rock and a hard place. What should it do? Should it leave itself vulnerable to central Government changing the rules or go into a pool even though it will effectively be treated as a second-class local authority in that relationship? That is a fundamental challenge to where the Government want to go. Either we are bringing local authorities together to work in partnership and act as first among equals, or we are saying that the wealthiest local authorities in an area will always have the upper hand. I do not think that is fair or just, and I do not think it can continue if a national scheme is rolled out, because it will eventually start to breed resentment. People will look over the border and say, “That’s just not fair. Why are we in this situation where Trafford, Stockport and Cheshire get to retain the lion’s share when we’re meant to be part of the same city region and the same business rates pool?”
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the iron fist of Government as it once was. Back in 2010, 80% of the money that went to local government was distributed from central Government, with the Government deciding exactly where that money went. Did that give much of an incentive for areas to grow their business rate base?
Jim McMahon
I thank the Minister for gently leading me into the scandal that was 2010, when the coalition Government rocked into office, holding hands in the rose garden and making promises of a brighter future. Oldham did not have that experience. Some £24 million was taken from its area-based grant; money put in place for urban renewal following the 2001 riots was snatched overnight at the cost of the town’s regeneration. In the same year, the housing market renewal programme, which was meant to reform the council tax and business rate bases in the area, was snatched. It left terraced streets, with boarded-up properties that had been bought for demolition, to stagnate. The Government have never come back to the table with an answer on what to do for urban renewal in towns like Oldham. Some in the room may look back on 2010 with fondness; I look back and think it was the year the Government turned their back on towns like Oldham.
The Chair
Order. We are in danger of moving away from debating clause 1. If possible, can we try to focus on clause stand part, however interesting it is to talk about what happened in the rose garden in 2010?
The Chair
I am not saying whose fault it is. I ask all of you to please focus on the Bill and clause 1.
Jim McMahon
Thank you for connecting us back to the Bill, Mr Gapes. My point connects exactly back to it, because the Minister’s challenge was whether we would prefer a centralised approach, or whether we want local areas to be given the freedom to crack on; that was what I took to be the essence of his contribution. He perhaps clouded that slightly with a reference to those horrible years in 2010, but nevertheless the spirit of it was related to the Bill. My response is this: there will always be a need for elements of redistribution, because we are not starting from a clean slate. We recognise that some areas will require more to bring them forward to the point at which they become self-sustaining and self-financing in the way that Government envisage. For a town such as Oldham, reframing the business rate base and the council tax base was critical. The funding streams from central Government that I referred to were absolutely relevant to that town’s success.
Let us leave the past in the past, and look towards the future and what the Bill provides as a way forward. There is no doubt that we need to move to a less centralising state, and that local authorities have been crying out for more freedoms, power and independence from central Government. This measure does potentially provide some of that freedom. However, power is nothing without the resources to get things done. We need to make sure that we are not effectively repeating inequalities of the past, or even deferring blame and responsibility for cuts and reductions down further to local government, when it has had it up to its eyes because of what it has had to deal with through austerity.
The framework of redistribution is about how we will collect money from local authorities that have a very strong base and where growth has taken place at an accelerated rate, sometimes through no action of the local authority. How do we capture that growth to make sure that it can be used to benefit the whole UK? That detail has not actually been brought forward. From the Bill we know what has been taken away, but we have no idea what is being put in its place. We know, because we have been told today, that central Government want to let go and allow local government to administer its own scheme, but we do not know what that scheme is, because the programme has not been brought forward; it would provide for a more meaningful debate if it had been. If the Minister were to intervene and give a bit more detail on that, it would be extremely helpful to the debate.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman refers to the question asked about the multiplier, which I answered. The information that he says I divulged today and brought to the world after keeping it to myself for so long was actually in our summer consultation in July last year, so there is nothing hidden in that sense.
Jim McMahon
I thank the Minister for remembering that and sharing it with the Committee today. It has been very useful for the debate. This is an open offer from this side of the House: if we get this right, it will benefit every local authority, provided that the framework is robust, proper checks and balances are in place, and there is a genuine mechanism for redistribution to ensure that a basic level of service provision can be provided in every area of this country—not as a result of their historical council tax base or business rate base, but because we believe in decent public services reflecting the need in local areas. That is exactly the call that is being made.
That will be a complicated formula, which will take into account the rural and sparsity issues; urban needs and deprivation; and the physical costs and limitations of delivering public services. We know that, but we need to see the detail and work through what it means in practice. When we have that detail, we could have a really serious debate about the future funding of local government. This will be a continuous call; this is not just one debate about public services and local government funding. Local government is asking not just for the retention of business rates, and to be left with council tax to sink or swim, but for fiscal devolution. That will mean a broader suite of taxes and duties, raised and retained locally, to help grow local economies, get people into better-paid work and provide decent housing. That is what local government is asking for. If the framework is the start of that, we should welcome it, but there is a lot of detail to be provided.
Kevin Hollinrake
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am fully supportive of a fairer funding formula. Quite understandably, if it is purely based on cost drivers, it will mean some local authorities losing out and some gaining. I would support that if it was a clear, transparent and understandable system. Would he also support it in that situation?
Jim McMahon
I need to give my response the caveat that I do not believe that enough money is being provided to local government services. If this is about redistributing a very scarce resource, it will lead to some very severely affected losers. I would like a single place budget, so that we looked at an area’s public sector spend from the Department for Work and Pensions, the health service, the Ministry of Justice and so on and allowed local authorities more power and control over that money, knowing that they could administer it better, teem and ladle and, hopefully, modernise public services. If we could do that, we might be able to see the future of local government financing, but that is not where we are today; today we are saying that the money we have is the money we have, and we will try to teem and ladle it in a slightly fairer way.
I have to say that towns such as Oldham have 700 asylum seekers, while the Prime Minister’s constituency has not a single one, yet no account is taken in any funding formula of ways to give the local authority the resources to support those people in the way they need. We need to ensure that any funding delivered has the right criteria, not just the sort of selective criteria that we saw being used for the rural services delivery grant.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes an important point about support for authorities in areas in which there is an increase in refugees being housed. Surely keeping the provision for revenue support grant would give the Government an easier mechanism for helping local authorities and their citizens to handle some of the additional issues that will arise. Retaining the revenue support grant in legislation would also enable Ministers to get money more easily to areas that are hit hard by flooding. When the hon. Member for North Swindon visits Keswick Town Council and Allerdale Borough Council, he will understand the significance of my point about flooding.
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. We have established the Allerdale question as a measure of whether—
Jim McMahon
No, I will conclude. I know that Mr Gapes is being very patient, but I can see a yearning in his eyes to go on Twitter and put the world to rights—and so have I, because it has been a busy few days.
We do not live in a world in which there is going to be a comprehensive review of local government finance—that is not what the Bill is about, and we need to be honest about it. But the Bill will have consequences that we need to take on board, and we can do that only if we have information that we can assess in a detailed way. As soon as that information is provided, we can bring more value to the system and, I hope, ensure that even with very limited resources, it is the best and fairest system that it can be.
Mr Jones
The Government support clause 1, which will enable the introduction of 100% business rates retention for local government. It covers a number of different decisions, including the changes in schedule 1, which I will come to later.
We discussed the scrapping of the central share extensively when we debated the Opposition amendments—
Mr Jones
I am not going to reopen that debate. I say that as a direct answer to the hon. Gentleman, who is quite good at looking backwards and never forwards in life—but I will not hold that against him. Instead, I will speak about the payment of revenue support grant, about which there has been much discussion during this debate.
Clause 1(3) will remove chapter 2 from part 5 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which provides for the payment of the revenue support grant in England. As part of 100% business rates retention, we will devolve existing grants and new responsibilities to councils. As the Committee has discussed on a number of occasions, that will give councils control of approximately an additional £12.5 billion of business rates to spend on local services. The revenue support grant, which will be worth £2.3 billion in 2019-20, is part of that.
Let me be clear that the Government will retain a number of powers. Much has been said about how the Government might be able to deal with payments to local authorities. To reassure Opposition Members, under section 31 and section 36A of the Local Government Act 2003 and section 88B of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, payments can be made by Government to local authorities. I will give a couple of examples.
Mr Jones
Before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, I will mention another example: the Homelessness Reduction Bill, brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). He has done a magnificent job with a Bill that the Government fully support and that will reduce the number of homeless people in our country. To support that Bill, the Government will make available additional funding—£61 million in this case—to local authorities through a section 31 grant. The assertion that if an authority does not have revenue support grant, funding cannot be given from central Government to local government, is false.
Mr Thomas
I intervene briefly to make the point that perhaps the difference between the provision of revenue support grant and of the grant for flooding to which the Minister alluded is that the grant for flooding was given after the event, whereas the provision of revenue support grant allows authorities to think ahead—“There may be issues around flooding here, so we will allow flood defences to be built earlier by providing a bit of money though the revenue support grant now.”
Mr Jones
I would not disagree with the principle of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but there are mechanisms other than revenue support grant through which payments will be made within the system. In particular, while 100% of the money raised through business rates will be retained by local government, quite clearly a core principle of that will be redistribution.
The removal of revenue support grant is part of wider changes we are making to provide increased funding for certain councils, which we know councils welcome. We are helping to move local government away from dependency on Whitehall through clause 1(4), which introduces schedule 1 to the Bill, containing a framework in law for multi-year settlements.
Rob Marris
The Minister may recall, if he casts his mind back, that I specifically referred to section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003 and counterposed it with the revenue support grant on this basis: section 31 funding is discretionary; the revenue support grant, in essence, is not. Therefore if one replaces or seeks more to rely on something discretionary, rather than mandatory, that takes power away from local government and puts it in the hands of the person who has discretion—in this case, central Government.
Mr Jones
As we have covered quite extensively, there is redistribution within the system. There will be resets of the system, and a baseline will be set, so there is the mechanism to provide that. The overriding point, as acknowledged by local government, is that it is good that the revenue support grant mechanism is not in the Bill.
Mr Thomas
One small reason to celebrate at the end of this clause stand part debate will be the revelation that something the Minister proposed in the consultation document is confirmed and will be a reality. As he is on a roll in that respect, will he tell us how long the gap between reset periods will be? Has his Department made a decision on that?
Mr Jones
As I have said to the hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions, a number of regulations and other pieces of work under the Bill will be needed to determine the detail of the scheme. We will be working carefully with local government to determine matters such as that to which he refers.
I do not intend to delay the Committee for much longer. Together the changes reflect the fact that under 100% business rates retention there will no longer be an annual finance settlement to distribute central Government grant to support local services. Local authorities will be more financially self-sufficient, funding local services from local resources. I therefore recommend to the Committee that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Thomas
I will respond briefly to the Minister. The Labour party will not object to the clause standing part of the Bill, but with this caveat: the abolition of so much grant funding from central Government to local authorities is an issue of considerable concern to local government, notwithstanding its general support for the principle of 100% business rates devolution. We will reflect on what the Minister has said, we will celebrate the little bit of clarity that we got in the debate, but we will not object to clause 1 standing part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Jackie Doyle-Price.)
Local Government Finance Bill (Third sitting)
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Chair
We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. Would everyone present ensure that all electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent? As a general rule, my fellow Chair and I do not intend to call starred amendments. The required notice period in Public Bill Committees is three working days. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room and on the website. It shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or similar issues.
A Member who has put their name to the lead amendment in a group is called first, and other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on all or any of the amendments within that group. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate. At the end of a debate on a group of amendments, I shall call the Member who moved the lead amendment again. Before they sit down, they will need to indicate if they wish to withdraw the amendment or seek a decision. If any Member wishes to press any other amendment or new clause in a group to a vote, they will need to let me know. I shall work on the assumption that the Minister wishes the Committee to reach a decision on all Government amendments tabled.
Please note that decisions on amendments take place not in the order in which they are debated but the order in which they appear on the amendment paper. Decisions on new clauses are made after we finish with the existing text—that is, after considering clause 42. I shall use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules following debate on the relevant amendments. I hope that explanation is helpful.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Gapes. You will probably be aware that the Minister’s Department issued in July last year a consultation document that is pertinent to the Bill. The Minister indicated in his witness appearance that he hoped soon to see the publication of those responses, which would be germane to the scrutiny of the Bill. I wonder whether you have had any indication from the Minister or whether the Minister might be suitably prompted to respond to my point of order to indicate when that might happen.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
Further to that point of order, Mr Gapes. I would like to reassure the Committee that the responses to the consultation will be published shortly. I stand by the assurance I gave the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West during the evidence session when I was a witness.
Mr Thomas
I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention. It would also be helpful to see soon details of how the pilot on 100% business rates retention schemes will work. That is germane to the passage of the Bill. I would also like an answer to a written question I have asked about an impact assessment setting out the economic effects of the scheme, which, again, is germane to the scrutiny of the Bill.
The Chair
The Minister has heard that point of order. I do not think we need to have a discussion on it now, but hopefully things will appear shortly.
Clause 1
Local retention of 100% of non-domestic rates
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) In Schedule 7B, in paragraph 8 of part 3, after sub-paragraph (1) insert—
“(1B) The regulations may, in particular, make provision for the determination of an amount to be deducted in order that the billing authority retains the specified amount for the purposes of funding social care services.””.
This amendment would enable billing authorities to retain a specified proportion of non-domestic rating income specifically for the purposes of funding social care services.
Amendment 23, in schedule 1, page 32, line 23, leave out paragraph 7 and insert—
“7 (1) Part 2 is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 4—
(a) leave out “each” and insert “certain”;
(b) leave out “authority” and insert “authorities”;
(c) at end insert—
“(2) “certain authorities” are those authorities specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.
(3) The regulations may, in particular, impose conditions upon the use of central and local share funds calculated under paragraph 13(2) of this Schedule.””.
This amendment would enable a local and central share to be retained for designated authorities. The Secretary of State would publish criteria for the use of such funds.
Mr Thomas
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. We all appreciated your guidance, not only on coffee but on how to address other Committee members. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford has been at pains to explain in detail what your guidance on both issues might mean in practice.
As Opposition Members committed to supporting the principles of the Bill, we are keen to undertake line-by-line scrutiny so that it might emerge back on to the Floor of the House in much better shape. As such, the occasional outburst of tough love may be directed at the Minister, but it will be with the purpose only of achieving a better Bill. We had a good debate on Second Reading, and one of the key points that emerged from that is germane to the amendments tabled in my name and the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton.
One of the most interesting moments in the Minister’s contribution on Second Reading was his description of this as a revolution in local government finance. An image of Che Guevara briefly surfaced across my mind, followed soon after by Corporal Jones of “Dad’s Army”. The Committee’s purpose is to adjudge whether what the Department offers us is more Che Guevara or more Corporal Jones. [Interruption.] At this time in the morning, yes, that is the best I can do.
Clause 1(2) amends the Local Government Finance Act 1988 by removing the provision for a proportion of non-domestic rate revenue to be paid to the Secretary of State. That effectively removes the mechanism by which the Government collect the central share under the current business rates retention scheme. Following the late Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 nationalisation of business rates—who ever thought we would hear “Margaret Thatcher” and “nationalisation” in the same sentence?—all business rates income collected by billing authorities was paid to central Government, with resources then distributed to local authorities up and down the country, according to need, by the revenue support grant.
Under the current scheme, introduced in 2013-14, local government collectively retains the local share, which is 50% of business rates revenue; the other 50%, the central share, goes to central Government. On the local share, there is a system of tariffs and top-ups, with those local authorities with relatively high business rates revenues paying a tariff and, conversely, those local authorities with relatively low business rates revenues receiving a top-up. The new system will see a proportion of business rates revenue paid into an account that will handle payments to and from authorities, including tariffs, top-ups and safety net payments.
Amendment 1 would delete subsection (2), thereby retaining the requirement for a billing authority to pay a proportion of non-domestic rating income to the Secretary of State. Amendment 23 follows on from that. It amends schedule 1 to enable a local and central share to be retained for designated authorities, with the Secretary of State required to publish the criteria for the use of such funds.
Opposition Members made clear our support for the principle of the devolution of 100% of business rates on Second Reading. We also made clear our concern about the almost complete absence of detail on how the measures the Bill paves the way for will work in practice. In the absence of that detail, many in local government and those who follow it closely are worried about the impact of this measure on the provision and quality of local services.
The first big issue with the measure as it currently stands is redistribution. Essentially, the key questions are as follows. How will the redistribution mechanisms associated with this measure work in practice? How will the Minister and his officials seek to amend the system of tariffs and top-ups? Given the importance of revenue support grant and other section 31 grants to helping to ensure spending power between areas is equalised, how will the new system compensate for the loss of revenue support grant and the promised addition of extra responsibilities to local authorities?
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Perhaps my hon. Friend, with his much superior knowledge, can explain this conundrum to me. How can one support 100% devolution of business rates, yet also argue for redistribution? It seems to me, prima facie, that those are contradictory.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend speaks to one of the tensions at the heart of the Bill. On Tuesday, we heard considerable concern about the impact of that tension from the witnesses in both the morning session and the afternoon session. I want to dwell on that tension in due course.
The other question associated with the concern about redistribution, and I hope the Minister will be willing to dwell on this in his response, is, what are the key principles that the fair funding formula will operate on? As I understand it, the fair funding review is currently working its way through his Department. We have no idea, sadly, when we can expect publication of that document. We are none the wiser about the rules by which the fair funding review is being conducted and the criteria that are being used.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this point is critical to assessing the impact of this measure, whether a positive or negative change is being made, and the way in which the Minister has tried to decouple the framework from the actual financial impact on local authorities?
Mr Thomas
I do agree. One wonders what the rush is to get this Bill through now, before the fair funding review and the draft regulations associated with the Bill have been published to allow proper scrutiny. Perhaps Ministers’ minds are focusing on the provision later in the Bill to delete any annual consideration of the state of local government finance and the scrutiny thereof, and that is motivating them to rush the Bill through. That is something I want to come to later in the Committee’s proceedings, if I may.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend, like me, detect a worrying trend here? The fair funding review consultation document has not been published and, yesterday, when we concluded two days of debate on Second Reading for arguably the most important Bill since the second world war, the White Paper had not been published.
Mr Thomas
There does seem to be a pattern of Ministers shying away from parliamentary scrutiny. I do not know why, because we always enjoy the Minister’s appearances, but it is a concern, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton also made clear. Given that this measure is one leg of the triptych of elements that are associated with 100% business rates devolution—the paving Bill, which we are discussing here, the fair funding review and the detailed regulations—one would have thought it better to have seen all those together at one moment so that we could have assessed the benefits or not.
Jim McMahon
That is a very good point. Given our assessment of this, it is very easy to be cynical about the motives for not wanting parliamentary scrutiny. It could well be that the plan is so bad that there is a fear of parliamentary scrutiny, but it could be that the Minister is just very nervous. If it is any help to the Minister, perhaps we can say that we will be gentle, encouraging and supportive during that scrutiny and that he should not fear it.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend has always been far more charming and conciliatory than me, but he is right: we support the principle of 100% business rates devolution and want it to work for local government, given the huge importance of the services that local authorities provide for the people of England. He is absolutely right that we should have had all three elements together at the same time, so that we could look in detail at the impact of the measure. It would certainly help if we could at least see the details of the responses from the whole series of councils and organisations that responded to the consultation last July. We are not in a perfect situation—he rightly says that the best possible arrangements for scrutiny would have been helpful—but it would help if we could at least see the consultation responses.
The last key question to which it would be helpful to get an answer is linked to redistribution. How will the poorest areas in England not lose out even more as a result of this measure than they have since 2010? I am pleased to say that redistribution engaged the minds of virtually all hon. Members who made speeches or interventions on Second Reading. Perhaps it is worth dwelling on some of their contributions. The hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) raised the funding gap, which he thought was already too wide, between predominantly urban and predominantly rural authorities—redistribution was an essential point for him. The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) worried that, for authorities such as his, which are
“surrounded by every environmental designation from here to God knows where…it is going to be far harder”
under the new arrangement
“to raise this additional money”.—[Official Report, 23 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 70.]
He was clearly worried that his local authority would lose out, and redistribution was at the heart of his concerns.
The Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), also raised concerns about redistribution and about how his authority and others might suffer if the redistribution arrangements are not right. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) raised concerns with the Minister that the improved better care fund might not be maintained, given some of the current problems with the social care precept. Concern about redistribution was at the heart of her question.
Even the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, who, sadly, is not in his place, raised, amidst his regular attempt to bash London local authorities, a concern about his local authority, which I understand is a more rural one, and how its spending power might be affected in comparison with other authorities. Again, redistribution was at the heart of his concern. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) was worried about the impact of the measure on the services from which Coventry City Council and Coventry residents benefit. Similarly, interestingly and almost counter-intuitively, the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) noted the significance of the business rates income that Westminster Council receives and generates, and how it sees some of that income redistributed around the country. He made clear that the redistribution arrangements need to be got right.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) expressed serious concerns about the redistribution arrangements on behalf of his local authority in Manchester. I will come on to Manchester, because it always figures highly in the index of multiple deprivation, which is the analysis of the poorest areas of our country. He was concerned about how the redistribution arrangements might work in practice.
There is surely a concern about the redistribution arrangements between tiers of local government. My amendments could have a significant impact on the sharing of business rates revenue between counties and districts. The arrangement in place involves the 50% retention of business rates. The Minister will know that districts get 40% of the increase in rates income and counties get up to 10%. That is because districts have more direct powers, with economic development planning being the obvious one. Counties, on the other hand, have much higher spending needs. They tend to be the authorities responsible for social care, for example. The system of top-ups and tariffs, as it affects the relationship between counties and districts going forward, will be particularly important.
Interestingly, the Institute for Fiscal Studies argued that a growth in the business rates tax base might mean that counties are likely to lose out over time, and that districts gain. Redistribution between tiers of local government, where multi-tier arrangements are in place, is of huge importance. I hope the Minister will dwell on that point.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend cited the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Does he share my concern that the Bill might be yet another attempt to slash funding for local government? The IFS found in 2015 that grants from central Government to local government had fallen by 38.7% a person between 2009-10 and 2014-15.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. On Second Reading, I mentioned some Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis that bears repeating. When the IFS considered what would have happened between 2013-14 and now if 100% of business rates income were retained at that point rather than having the 50% business rates retention scheme, it found that 16 councils would have seen their funding increase by 20% or more, whereas only one council saw its funding go up by 20% or more under the current scheme. Conversely, on the basis of the IFS analysis, 122 councils would have seen their funding fall under 100% business rates retention between 2013-14 and now, with 12 of those councils losing more than 2% of their income. No council has lost that much under the 50% scheme.
Therefore, the concern put by my hon. Friend in his usual forceful manner—it was about whether there might be further serious cuts in the spending power of local authorities and, crucially, how they would be distributed—was a point well made. That is a genuine concern, which the Minister needs to address.
Jim McMahon
Local authorities have commented that, because business rate valuations are so heavily dependent on rental values, every time there is a revaluation it has a bias to London authorities, where the rental market is overheated, and disadvantages local authorities outside London. There is a risk that, without the top-ups, tariffs and safety nets, presented in such a way that we can scrutinise them, local authorities could be seriously disadvantaged at the next revaluation.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would not say that the concern from the business community about business rates revaluation has dominated the pages of the Evening Standard, but it has been a significant theme for those who follow local government in London and business rates issues, as I do.
To return to the distribution of funding between multiple tiers of local government and, particularly, the allocation of funding between counties and districts, one concern is that if districts’ funding share were to be reduced, they would be less reliant on top-ups but more exposed to the risk of a fall in business rate income. Clearly, counties face the reverse risk that, if Ministers decide to reduce the available top-ups, services offered by county authorities to residents will come under even more pressure.
A similar tension was noted earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West. Ministers have talked about an incentive under the Bill for districts to capture business rate income by championing big businesses that want to build warehouses or other property, but would a lower share of income for districts reduce that incentive? The system of top-ups and tariffs critical to the extent and effectiveness of redistribution arrangements under the Bill is key to whether the incentives to promote new economic development that Ministers say the Bill will generate will work. Whether the incentives work in practice is intimately linked to the redistribution arrangements.
Amendment 1 would still require districts to pay a percentage of business rates to the Secretary of State, so that some of the funding could be directed onward to counties and beyond. This is an opportunity for Ministers to clarify their intentions as to redistribution between districts and counties. As I have suggested, one concern about the Bill is whether the huge incentives—the revolutionary incentives that the Minister talked about—for local economic development will materialise in practice. If they do not, the practicalities of redistribution become even more critical.
We have heard at some length about the type of economic development that could be created under the Bill. It is property-based growth. The only way in which local authorities will benefit from the purported incentives under the Bill will be by large businesses locating in their areas. It is easier to see how those incentives might exist for an authority with a large amount of land capable of development. However, quite a few authorities —you will not find it hard to imagine which ones they might be, Mr Gapes—face significant barriers to that type of development, and therefore to that type of local economic growth. That underlines the need to get the redistribution arrangements right.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are certain parts of the east of England—this may cover Waveney—where land availability is shrinking because the land is collapsing into the sea?
The Chair
Order. Can I ask Members please not to take us away from the scope of the Bill? And I think—
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I will just comment on what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West has said. The process he talked about has been going on for centuries—
The Chair
Order. The hon. Member obviously did not hear me. I do not think we are going to get into a discussion about coastal erosion.
Peter Aldous
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. Mr Gapes, I fully respect your views but I just could not resist making that point.
The hon. Gentleman is right to make his point about the importance of the areas that are disadvantaged by this change—I made the point myself on Second Reading. However, is he not aware that, for a very long time, local government has been crying out to keep all its business rates, which is why local government supports the Bill in its round form and is not supportive of his amendment?
Mr Thomas
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, because it is certainly true that local government associations up and down the country support the principle of 100% business rates retention, as indeed do Labour Members. However, I say gently to him that, as the case of his local authority exemplifies, the devil is in the detail. Surely he recognises that the Bill is the opportunity to try to establish how Ministers will operate the detailed implementation of aspects of the measures that are pivotal to the success or otherwise of 100% business rates retention. Redistribution, which was pivotal to the contributions of so many hon. Members on Second Reading, is fundamental to the success or otherwise of the Bill. It would be a tragedy if the support, tentative as it is in some places, for 100% business rates retention were to disappear, and if many local authorities lose out, because the Government get the fair funding review wrong, or because the regulations that implement the Bill in practice do not have sufficient and effective scrutiny.
I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that he is right that the principle is supported, but it is supported more loudly by those authorities that have a high business rates income and that see the potential for economic development because they have access to land. Authorities such as Allerdale Borough Council that are trapped in terms of the space they have for economic development might be more worried about the detailed implementation of the Bill. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman will not dwell on coastal erosion, because he would just upset the Chairman, but I hope he will think more about the question of redistribution and use his substantial influence with Ministers to encourage them to think through it.
Rob Marris
On redistribution, does my hon. Friend agree that one way to square the circle of 100% devolution while ensuring that we do not exacerbate unfairness would be to have a system whereby we had 100% devolution of business rates incomes to incentivise to promote development—as the Minister, without any evidence thus far, keeps telling us it would—but also retention of an equivalent to a revenue support grant to redistribute to less advantaged areas such as Wolverhampton and Oldham?
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point, but if he will forgive me, it is apposite to the clause 1 stand part debate, when it will be worth dwelling on the revenue support grant in a little more detail.
I was focusing on authorities that might have concerns about how redistribution would work. Many urban authorities currently benefit from top-ups under the scheme—perhaps that top-up or income is not quite as much as they would want—but are nevertheless very concerned about redistribution. I am thinking of my own authority. The London Borough of Harrow has a very high density of housing, and although there is some scope for new business development, it is a very highly developed area, and obviously constituents and the council want to preserve the character of the area. The Minister may say that there are incentives in the Bill to promote economic development, but in practice there are significant barriers to growth, even in many urban areas. That is one reason why the amendments are critical.
Jim McMahon
An important consideration, as I hope my hon. Friend will agree, is that this is not just about square footage, but about the value of that square footage. Let us take an industrial space in Oldham. According to the valuation office website, the average value of that land is £22 a square meter, compared with £42 a square meter in Trafford, so even within the same city region there are massive variations in land values. Clearly, Greater Manchester is part of a pooling arrangement, but other authorities, such as Oldham, that are not currently part of pooling arrangements would not benefit. In future revaluations, they could be seriously damaged.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend underlines the point that I am making about the concern that urban authorities face significant barriers to the type of economic growth that the Minister says will now sweep the land as a result of the Bill. They are looking to the Minister for more detail about how the redistribution arrangements will work in practice.
In the context of amendment 23, I want to focus on one example of where redistribution as a result of economic growth is particularly interesting. This is a topical issue, because it relates to the third runway at Heathrow. Members of Parliament not so lucky as we are to be on the Local Government Finance Bill Committee have to content themselves with a discussion in the main Chamber about the consultation arrangements for the third runway. I invite the Committee to assume that the third runway at Heathrow will be built. It is something that I strongly support—I only wish Ministers had got on with it a long time ago, but we are where we are.
Mr Thomas
You are quite right, Mr Gapes. We should not do that. That would not be relevant.
Let us assume that the third runway will go ahead. One assumes that it will be part of the central list, which is dealt with in other parts of the Bill. The local authorities in the surrounding area are likely to find that businesses will want to capitalise on Heathrow’s refreshed hub status once the third runway goes ahead and are excited about the prospect of the development in that area. Perhaps they do not want to be in the actual Heathrow environs but close enough to be able to get their goods and services to the carriers that will use the third runway. Councils such as Hillingdon, which will be very close to the third runway, and Maidenhead are likely to see significant interest from businesses wanting to take advantage of that area, and are likely to stand to gain significantly in business rates income from the third runway.
Is it fair—I think this is a reasonable question to ask—that those local authorities benefit substantially from the development of a major national asset close to their authority area, when in practice they have done very little to facilitate that development, given that it is a decision of huge strategic importance and has been taken at national level? Those local authorities could not have driven that economic development on their own. Why—this is the sub-question—should the building of a major national asset, which I hope the third runway will become, benefit exclusively, in terms of business rate income, the local authorities in the surrounding areas?
One has to consider the irony that many of the authorities that immediately surround Heathrow, and particularly the area where the third runway will be built, actively oppose it. Here they are, potentially benefitting in business rate terms from the building of a third runway, while actively trying to prevent it from happening. Redistribution of the benefits and wealth that the third runway will generate in local business rates income is pertinent to the question of a central share and a local share, and to amendment 23. Indeed, a less generous Member of Parliament than I might have tabled amendments to penalise the authorities that benefit from such business rates development if they had actively opposed the benefits that will come to our country from such a major national asset. I am not that sort, but it is fair to challenge the Minister to answer the point. How will redistribution work in terms of the business rates benefits that a third Heathrow runway will generate for Hillingdon, Maidenhead and other councils that, ironically, actively oppose its construction?
Jim McMahon
As much as people will see a direct benefit from that investment, we also expect local authorities that are not part of pooling arrangements to take a grown-up approach to, say, healthcare reorganisation. Local councils are part and parcel of such reviews. In some cases, they have accepted the downgrading of hospitals in their area and services being moved elsewhere. Under the current arrangements—
The Chair
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is making an intervention, not a speech.
Jim McMahon
Of course. Does my hon. Friend agree that, under the current arrangements, that could be a barrier? If a council loses the business rates income from a hospital, will it take the mature decision that is in the wider interest?
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think again of Allerdale Borough Council. In Keswick, there is a hospital that used to have an accident and emergency department, but that has been reduced to a walk-in centre and there is talk of it being closed. That is of considerable concern to the local community, but I suspect that it is also of concern to the treasurer of Allerdale Borough Council because of the potential lost business rates income. I hope that my hon. Friend will catch your eye, Mr Gapes, so that he can dwell on that point.
I want to dwell a little further in the context of amendments 1 and 23 on redistribution between poorer and richer areas. As I pointed out in response to the hon. Member for Waveney, if one analyses local government reaction to the Conservative party’s enthusiasm for 100% business rates retention, one will see that there is real enthusiasm for it in wealthier areas, because councils can see the potential benefits of the extra business rates income that might come their way, particularly if they have lots of land for development. However, poorer areas that have already lost out in terms of the revenue support grant, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West says, and where there is less scope for large-scale property development, are more worried about what this measure might mean.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman’s point. Cornwall is, by some measures, the poorest county in England, so will he reflect on the fact that Cornwall Council has welcomed this change and indeed volunteered to be one of the pilot areas?
Mr Thomas
It is commendable that Cornwall has offered to be one of the pilot areas. As the hon. Gentleman will have heard me say, it would be lovely to know how the pilot scheme will work for Cornwall, and indeed for Liverpool and London. The Minister and his Department have not yet got round to publishing more detail about that. The hon. Gentleman may have the advantage of knowing how the scheme will work in Cornwall, and I hope that he catches your eye, Mr Gapes, so that he can tell us. That would certainly give the Committee more information than I suspect most of us have. I would not be at all surprised if the Minister was not even sure how the scheme was going to work in Cornwall, so I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be extremely helpful in that regard.
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. When one thinks of Cornwall, which is a very attractive county, one does not immediately think of huge tracts of land being available for out-of-town shopping centres—the one area of economic growth that might lead to substantial business rates income for local authorities. Cornwall is surrounded by sea, which is a natural barrier to economic growth. It also has huge amounts of farmland, which is essential to retaining the county’s character and is also a natural barrier to economic growth. Of course, Cornwall Council will want to be one of the first pilot authorities, so that it can see how the redistribution arrangements might work. Although it may not yet have seen the detail of the amendments that I have tabled, I expect that it is concerned about how the redistribution arrangements will work in practice in the long term. The hon. Gentleman will be able to play back that at least the Opposition are fighting Cornwall’s corner, even if he is perhaps not quite so enthusiastic on that point.
I come back to the issue of poorer areas versus richer areas and the redistribution arrangements between them. A helpful analysis from the House of Commons Library compares the spending power of councils that have a high index of multiple deprivation rating—in other words, the poorer areas of the country—with that of authorities that have a low index of multiple deprivation rating, which one might describe as the richer areas of the country.
The analysis shows some stark realities, which are particularly pertinent to this debate about redistribution. Let me give a couple of examples. Blackpool, which ranks as the highest in terms of multiple deprivation, had an actual revenue spending power in 2011 of £165.51 million. By 2019, it is projected to have a revenue spending power of only £126.2 million—a loss of £39.31 million in revenue spending power, or a percentage loss of 31%. Compare that with Hart in Hampshire, which is the local authority that ranks lowest in terms of the level of multiple deprivation. In 2011, it had a revenue spending power of £9.35 million. It is projected to see that drop to £8.91 million by 2019, which is a change of £440,000, or just under 5%. So Blackpool is projected to lose 31% of its spending power by 2019. Hart in Hampshire is expected to lose just under 5%. That is a huge gap. In the context of that huge gap, Blackpool Council could be forgiven for being very nervous about what 100% business rates retention might mean, without more detail on whether it will benefit from the Minister’s changes to the redistribution arrangements.
Perhaps a couple of other examples will bear witness to the truth of that potential concern. Hull had £266 million of actual revenue spending power in 2011, which is projected to fall to just over £202 million by 2019—a loss of some £63 million, or a 31% loss in its spending power. Compare that with the Chilterns, the third least deprived authority in England according to the index for multiple deprivation rating. It had an income in 2011, in terms of actual revenue spending power—let me use the right phraseology—of £11 million. According to the analysis, that will drop to £9.86 million by 2019, which is a change in actual revenue spending power of just over £1 million. That is a drop of 11%—that is still a significant drop in its spending power, but is nothing like the scale of the drop that one is going to see in Hull. So the Chilterns local councillors might be forgiven for being quite enthusiastic about 100% business rates retention. They might think that, if the Government continue to operate the redistribution formula in the way that they have, although the council might lose, it might not lose much in relative terms.
One suspects that councillors in Hull, particularly those with responsibility for finance, will be extremely concerned that, if the current system of redistribution continues, given how much they have already lost in spending power and are projected to lose by 2019, they will risk losing even more capacity for spending power when 100% business rate devolution comes in.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that, unless amendment 23 is agreed, that unfairness could continue? The national figures from 2010-11 to 2016-17 show an overall 17% reduction, but the proportion of expenditure financed by centrally distributed income fell from 75.9% in 2010-11 to 57.4% in 2016-17, according to page 30 of the Library briefing. Does he agree that that is a shocking drop and that we need acceptance of amendment 23 to counterbalance that trend?
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I hope that the Minister is beginning slowly to get the concern of hon. Members, reflecting the concerns of local council leaders and councillors, about how the redistribution arrangements will work in practice.
I will end this point with one last example, which may be particularly interesting to one member of the Committee. That is the comparison between the 10th most deprived council, Tower Hamlets, and South Northamptonshire Council, the 10th least deprived.
Mr Thomas
I will give way in a moment. Tower Hamlets had an actual revenue spending power of £342.93 million in 2011. That is projected to drop to £272.39 million in 2019. That is a £70 million drop in spending power, or 25.9%. Compare that with South Northamptonshire Council, which I understand is quite close to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, so I will happily give way to him in a second.
That council had an income of £10.8 million revenue spending power in 2011. That is projected to drop to £9.9 million by 2019. That is a drop of under £1 million in actual revenue spending power; a drop of 9.19%. I would not want to understate the significance of that for local services, of course, but the comparison with Tower Hamlets is of a 25.9% drop as opposed to a 9.19% drop. That is not fair and, if the current redistribution arrangements continue exactly as they are, I suspect that the Tower Hamlets, South Northamptonshire example will continue to be grossly distorted.
David Mackintosh
I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), is not on the Committee. As a former leader of Northampton Borough Council, who has worked very closely with South Northamptonshire Council, I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he recognises that this measure is supported by lots of local authorities.
Mr Thomas
As I have previously alluded to, I recognise that there are many, many councils up and down the land that are desperate to see Whitehall, especially under the current incumbents, draw back from trying to influence what they do at local level. Of course, there will be commitment and support for the principle of 100% business rate devolution. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is welcome at South Northamptonshire Council, although I suspect he is. If he were to sit down and talk to the treasurer in detail, he might find that the treasurer acknowledges that there is a genuine and serious concern about how redistribution will work in practice.
Therefore, there is a real concern, given what has happened over the past six years, while the Conservative party has been in power, about the impact on revenue spending power and the redistribution that appears to have happened away from the poorest areas of the country, relatively speaking, to the richer areas. That is of profound concern for many councils.
Rob Marris
As ever, my hon. Friend is making a powerful argument, which is of course backed up by evidence. Does he agree that unless amendment 2 is passed, the trend is likely to continue and, as with the main thrust of the Bill, there will be winners and losers? Given social trends, the losers are likely to be deprived areas where residents tend to have worse health, greater needs and lower levels of financial self-sufficiency. Therefore the redistribution mechanism foreshadowed in amendment 2 is much needed.
Mr Thomas
I agree with the broad thrust of that; those in poorer areas, as evidenced by the index of multiple deprivation, are likely to be at most risk, in terms of social care. However, figures now available on social care funding suggest that the crisis is hitting areas beyond those that are poorer. There is clearly a national emergency, and I fear that it may get worse if the issues raised in amendment 2 are not addressed.
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend rightly highlights the fact that money is being reused and recirculated. Does he agree that a fair assessment was not made of where money was taken from? There is deep concern in the 57 local authorities that are now worse off under the new homes bonus changes to adult social care. No accurate assessment has been made of the impact.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I want to explore issues to do with current social care financing, because they are pertinent to the case for amendment 2. Local councils have had to deliver billions of pounds-worth of savings since 2010. Indeed, in the previous Parliament there was a 40% real-terms reduction in local government spending, which inevitably hit councils’ ability to provide social care.
The impact on social care spending has been severe. More than half of social care authorities reduced spending on social care between 2010-11 and 2016-17. The fear is that, if the Conservative party does not embrace amendment 2, authorities already hit by the current scheme’s redistribution elements will find that the same redistribution mechanisms, if they are used again, will mean even more severe social care cuts after 2020.
The cost of providing social care is of course not flat, so the spending cuts are an underestimate with respect to the actual reduction, and I have some pertinent examples, because 122 social care authorities have cut spending in real terms in the past seven years. Again, it is very sad that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton is not here, because his social care authority, North Yorkshire County Council, has been one of the lucky ones; it has been able to increase spending in absolute and in real terms. It is also sad that the hon. Member for Waveney has had to depart, perhaps to focus on coastal erosion outside the Chamber.
The Chair
I also gently remind the hon. Gentleman that we intend to have a lunch break at some point. I hope that he will not carry on speaking beyond 1 o’clock, because that may cause us some difficulties.
Mr Thomas
As always, Mr Gapes, I am grateful for your guidance, and particularly for the thought of what might happen at 1 o’clock, if I am lucky.
Sadly, the hon. Member for Waveney, is not here, but Suffolk County Council, his local social care authority, has increased social care funding by 8.4% in absolute terms. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West may or may not be reassured to hear that that still represents a real-terms cut of 0.6% in social care funding. The Minister seems to have looked after his own social care authority, Warwickshire County Council, which has cut spending by just 1% in real terms. However, Cornwall Council, the local social care authority of the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay, does not fare quite so well. Although it has increased social care funding by 5.6% in absolute terms, that is a real-terms cut of 3.2%.
Mr Thomas
Let us not go down that route. As I understand it, the hon. Members for Taunton Deane and for Somerton and Frome share a local care authority, Somerset County Council, which has cut social care spending by 6.2% in real terms. Northamptonshire County Council, which I believe the hon. Member for Northampton South knows well, has cut social care spending by 10.3% in real terms. Thurrock unitary authority, which serves the hon. Member for Thurrock and her constituents, has cut social care spending by 5.8%—a real-terms cut of 13.6%.
Of course, I do not want to leave out the hon. Member for Torbay. I understand that Torbay unitary authority plans to spend some £37.5 million on social care in this financial year, compared with £45.9 million in 2010-11—an 18.2% cut, or 25% in real terms.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman can guess what is coming. He has listed the figures but, as I said when I challenged him in the Chamber, we did not hear his party pledge more money two years ago.
Jim McMahon
I share my hon. Friend’s view that the 2015 Labour manifesto was a beautifully crafted piece of work, although it is fair to say that unfortunately it was not much read by the public. Does he share my view that this is not necessarily about the total amount of money spent by the public sector, but about where that money goes? There is still a massive block between the money spent in the NHS and the money spent on adult social care. By bringing that together, which was the manifesto commitment, social care would be better off.
Mr Thomas
I have considerable sympathy with my hon. Friend’s point. The new Prime Minister has taken up so much of our manifesto that one hopes she might want to take up that commitment as well. Certainly, that might help to deliver one other part of the long-term solution to the social care crisis, which I think everyone apart from Communities and Local Government Ministers thinks is necessary.
Rob Marris
As I hope my hon. Friend agrees, amendment 2 would help redress a greater imbalance to which he has not yet referred. The social care precept will raise proportionately far more money in well-to-do areas than in disadvantaged areas such as Wolverhampton, thereby increasing the disparity in provision that amendment 2 seeks to redress.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. He and the rest of the Committee should look at the very particular situation facing Surrey County Council. We have heard that every councillor in Cornwall and in South Northamptonshire is an enthusiastic supporter of the current distribution of finance and of these proposals. As I hope Conservative Members recognise, however, not every Conservative-run council shares that enthusiasm for the way in which local government funding is managed. Many have serious concerns. It is important for us to consider the evidence from those councils as well as from the South Northamptonshires and Cornwalls, in the context of whether the social care crisis will continue beyond 2020 under the Bill.
Surrey County Council’s leader, David Hodge, an experienced figure in local government, has revealed that he will call for a referendum on a proposed 15% increase in council tax. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton, who has significant recent experience of local government, tells me that Mr Hodge is an extremely effective and astute leader and an imaginative figure in local government.
Jim McMahon
I concur, having worked with David on the Local Government Association. Councillor Hodge, however, is more than just leader of Surrey County Council; he is also group leader of the Conservative group on the LGA. That adds significant weight to his intervention.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend underlines my point. Mr Hodge is a figure we cannot ignore in the context of this Committee’s work. Surrey County Council covers one of those otherwise great areas of the country that sadly lacks a Labour MP. [Interruption.] I did not expect to be heckled on that point. I can hear the objections from Government Members.
The Chair
Order. I remind Members that while this has been a long speech that may at some point come to an end, we need to concentrate on the Bill.
Mr Thomas
A long and fascinating speech—I think you missed out some words, Mr Gapes. Returning to Mr Hodge, 11 Conservative MPs represent Surrey, including the Chancellor, the Health Secretary, the Transport Secretary and the former Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove).
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman has expressed valid concerns about long-term funding needs, particularly of adult social care. Do such concerns not underpin the need for a fair funding review? How can it be right that Harrow’s overall spending power per person is £80 more than that of North Yorkshire when its population is, by and large, wealthier and younger?
Mr Thomas
Perhaps I foresaw the hon. Gentleman’s first intervention in this Committee. I took the liberty of quoting him earlier and paid tribute—sort of—to him for raising the issue of redistribution, which is central to the debate on this group of amendments. The one thing missing from his intervention today and his interventions on Second Reading was any recognition of needs; those in North Yorkshire are clearly different from those in Harrow, but perhaps that is a debate to be had elsewhere.
Coming back to Surrey County Council, Mr Hodge explained why he was moving to a referendum. He believes that he has a duty to local people. He said:
“We cut £450m already”
from the county council budget, and
“squeezed every efficiency and we can do no more. I am sick and tired of politicians not telling the truth. Surrey people have the right to know and I’m not going to lie.”
He says he will spell out what the options are ahead of the referendum and, if he does not get permission from Surrey residents for a council tax rise, what that extra £60 million forgone will mean. He says he will have to take an axe to services unless people vote for the 15% rise.
Mr Hodge is not the sort to raise the alarm unnecessarily. He has seen active service, having been in the Army for a long time. One respects his contribution, both before he became leader of Surrey and now. He has taken the arguably sensible measure of getting in the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy to verify the figures. It stated:
“We confirm that due to severe problems in social care, Surrey’s figures are exactly as their finance officers say.”
Social care costs are rising by £24 million year.
One MP in Surrey will support the 15% rise, but not all Surrey MPs share that one MP’s view. It would be good to hear the Minister’s advice to Surrey County Council and the people of Surrey on whether to vote for the increase. The fact that the council’s leader, who has considerable experience and is from the Government’s party, is underlining the scale of the social care crisis ought to make the Committee think very carefully about the case for amendment 2 and for supporting using some business rates income exclusively for social care as part of the long-term solution to social care funding.
Sadly, there are other examples that highlight the scale of the problem. The hon. Member for Thurrock was not willing to allow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) to sit on this Committee, which is a tragedy because he might have been able to comment on the terrible case in January in which an elderly woman with communication difficulties was left severely malnourished in a care home that Wokingham Borough Council had put her in. A local charity, Independent Age, which commented on the case, recognised that the council faced significant problems with social care because of a lack of money and staff. That further example underlines the case for amendment 2. I hope that the Committee accepts the amendment.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Jackie Doyle-Price.)
Westminster Hall
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Backbench Business
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Alcohol Harm
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered tackling alcohol harm.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello, and to speak on the importance of tackling alcohol harm. It is a measure of the concern across the House that there are not one but three all-party parliamentary groups concerned with alcohol harm. It was the three chairs of those APPGs who applied for the debate: myself, as chair of the APPG on alcohol harm; the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), who chairs the APPG on children of alcoholics; and the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), who chairs the APPG on foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. I will leave it to those Members to speak of the harm caused to children and unborn children through alcohol consumption, but as vice-chair of those two APPGs, may I commend and say how much I fully support their work?
We are all here to express, with one voice, our gravest concerns about the harm caused by alcohol consumption to individuals, their families and wider society. As we will hear, one thing is clear: the Government’s alcohol strategy, which is now five years old, must be reviewed. Urgent and much more robust Government action is needed to address the devastating damage caused by alcohol harm. It all too often harms innocent bystanders, whether those injured in road traffic accidents, children and partners caught up in domestic violence, patients needing treatments for serious illnesses—they have to wait because precious NHS resources are being used to tackle the issue—and taxpayers, through the tax bill we all pay.
This is not about saying that people should not drink—like many other hon. Members here, I enjoy alcohol—but about promoting responsible drinking and the need to change our country’s drinking culture and our relationship with alcohol. It is also very much about social justice, because the poorest and most vulnerable disproportionately suffer the most amount of alcohol harm. The Government need to wake up to the urgency of their need to take a lead on this. Urgent words were expressed in the 2012 alcohol strategy, but appropriately urgent action has sadly not followed.
The Minister will doubtless point to a few improvements in recent years, and they are welcome, although with major reservations. For example, although the number of adolescents who drink has gone down, the volume of alcohol that they are drinking has not. That sadly indicates that although fewer adolescents might be drinking, those who do are drinking to excess. A 2012 YouGov report revealed that 41% of 18 to 24-year-olds are drinking at harmful levels. We also hear reports of women of a certain age—around my age—drinking too much, and even of much older people struggling with alcoholism as they try to cope with loneliness and isolation.
The fact is that there is a massive problem in this country resulting from alcohol consumption, both excessive and just above Government guidelines. To evidence that, I refer to the Public Health England report, published in December 2016 at the specific request of the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, entitled, “The Public Health Burden of Alcohol and the Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Alcohol Control Policies: An evidence review”. It cannot be dismissed as just a thought piece; it has more than 200 pages of evidence-based information and conclusions, has been robustly peer reviewed no less than three times and was produced by Public Health England—an executive agency of the Department of Health that
“exists to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing”.
The report paints a bleak picture. Paragraph 1 states that
“there are currently over 10 million people drinking at levels which increase their risk of health harm. Among those aged 15 to 49 in England, alcohol is now the leading risk factor for ill-health, early mortality and disability and the fifth leading risk factor for ill health across all age groups.”
It continues:
“In recent years, many indicators of alcohol-related harm have increased. There are now over 1 million hospital admissions relating to alcohol each year, half of which occur in the lowest three socioeconomic deciles. Alcohol-related mortality has also increased, particularly for liver disease which has seen a 400% increase since 1970, and this trend is in stark contrast to much of Western Europe. In England, the average age at death of those dying from an alcohol-specific cause is 54.3 years… More working years of life are lost in England as a result of alcohol-related deaths than from cancer of”—
there are many of these—
“the lung, bronchus, trachea, colon, rectum, brain, pancreas, skin, ovary, kidney, stomach, bladder and prostate, combined.”
I deliberately read that out as I wanted it recorded in Hansard.
The Institute of Alcohol Studies quotes Public Health England, stating that
“167,000 years of working life were lost to alcohol in 2015”.
That is because alcohol is more likely to kill people during their working lives than many other causes of death—that is, it causes premature deaths. In fact, there were 23,000 alcohol-related deaths in England each year. Alcohol accounts for 10% of the UK’s burden of disease and death, and in the past three decades there has been a threefold rise in alcohol-related deaths.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on everything that she has said. In the mid-1970s, a Home Office report showed that Britain had the second lowest level of alcohol consumption in the whole of Europe; we have risen rapidly while the rest of Europe has been coming down. They have learned from their previous mistakes, and we ought to as well.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which reflects his long commitment to tackling the issue. I also thank him for his involvement with our all-party parliamentary group.
The NHS incurs an estimated £3.5 billion a year in alcohol harm costs. Treating liver disease alone now costs £2.1bn a year, for example. However, that is just the financial cost, which I rather suspect is an underestimate. Many other costs are incurred as a result. The all-party parliamentary group on alcohol harm recently produced a report called “The Frontline Battle”, which described the impact on the emergency services—the police, fire services, A&E departments, doctors and so on—of treating or helping people who are inebriated or suffering as a result of excessive alcohol consumption. It found that, on a Saturday night, 70% to 80% of all A&E attendances are alcohol-related.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
My hon. Friend paints a graphic picture—some cities and towns are like warzones on a Friday and Saturday night. I am the president of the all-party parliamentary group on beer. Does she agree that the Government could work with the industry? For instance, AB InBev is looking to work on lower alcohol-by-volume beers. At the moment, anything below 2.8% ABV is incentivised, yet that is less than 0.5% of the market. If the incentivised ABV rate is increased to about 3.5%, it would introduce far more choice, could lead to people drinking lower strength beer and could hopefully attract people away from some of the higher ABV beers that cause so much harm, as she has so beautifully demonstrated.
Fiona Bruce
My hon. Friend represents Ribble Valley, which I know contains many beautiful public houses, some of which I have enjoyed visiting. I would not want any Member here to think that we in any way wish to denigrate community pubs, which we consider to be community assets. He makes a vital point and has saved me from going into detail on that, which I was going to, having been briefed by AB InBev, which has a base in his constituency.
AB InBev UK and Ireland says that the introduction of a reduced rate of duty on beers produced at an alcoholic strength of 2.8% has not had the intended impact. In fact, it is providing only 0.15% of duty receipts. The impact could be achieved if 3.5% beer was included. I very much support what my hon. Friend says. Apparently, the Treasury has said that there is an EU structures directive that might cause a problem regarding that. It is fortuitous that, following yesterday’s vote, we should not be at all put off introducing a pro-health measure, for risk of upsetting our European partners.
Fiona Bruce
I absolutely agree. I am aware of that legal advice. I hope that the Government will do so and that the Minister will take note of that.
In preparing our report, the all-party parliamentary group discovered shocking harm, particularly to people working in our emergency services. I would like to refer to evidence we obtained from an emergency services doctor, Zul Mirza, whom I commend for his work in this area. He talked about how patients coming into his wards inebriated not only can be violent towards staff, but on many occasions damage valuable equipment needed by other patients. Our report also found that over 80% of police officers have been assaulted by people who are drinking. I was deeply concerned to hear one police officer tell us this:
“There is one thing that is specific to female officers and that is sexual assault. I can take my team through a licensed premise, and by the time I take them out the other end, they will have been felt up several times.”
That is shocking.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this extremely important debate to the Chamber. Given the figures she describes, does she agree that alcohol-related aggression needs to be addressed in terms of treatment? Having worked in the criminal justice system, I agree on the wide-scale aggression that is found in A&E departments at weekends and that the police face mainly at weekends, but also on many days of the week. Given that a low number of Members have turned up to this debate, does the hon. Lady agree that politicians should be taking the issue more seriously? More politicians could probably be found in the bars of Westminster today than here in this debate. We should be addressing this problem.
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is tragic that only 6% of dependent drinkers in this country access treatment, despite it being very effective. We need to do much more to make treatment available to them.
A concerning finding of our all-party parliamentary group’s report was that many of those in the emergency services themselves are suffering from depression or are even thinking of leaving the services simply because coping with this kind of pressure day in, day out is proving too much for them. We must tackle that.
After reflecting on the many and varied aspects of alcohol harm in this country, the Public Health England report goes on to say:
“This should provide impetus for governments to implement effective policies to reduce the public health impact of alcohol, not only because it is an intrinsically desirable societal goal, but because it is an important aspect of economic growth and competitiveness.”
What does this Department of Health review recommend? It talks about tackling three things: affordability, availability and acceptability. Affordability means price; availability means the ease of purchase—in other words, the number of outlets and the times at which alcohol can be bought; and acceptability means tackling our drinking culture. I want to give other Members time to speak, so I will not talk in detail about all those things, but I will touch in particular on affordability.
I had the privilege of asking Public Health England’s senior alcohol adviser this week what his top recommendation to Government would be to tackle alcohol harm, in the light of this substantial report. Without hesitation, he replied that it would be tackling affordability and putting in place policies that increase price. The report is absolutely clear:
“Policies that reduce the affordability of alcohol are the most effective, and cost-effective, approaches to prevention and health improvement. For example, an increase in taxation leads to an increase in government revenue and substantial health and social returns.”
However, since 2012 the Government have done the opposite: they cut the alcohol duty escalator. The report states:
“According to Treasury forecasts, cuts in alcohol duty since 2013 are projected to have reduced income to the Exchequer by £5 billion over five years”.
The very first recommendation in the 2012 strategy was to implement minimum unit pricing. Indeed, the most recent review states that minimum unit pricing is
“a highly targeted measure which ensures tax increases are passed on to the consumer and improves the health of the heaviest drinkers. These people are experiencing the greatest amount of harm.”
In the foreword to the 2012 strategy, the then Prime Minister said:
“We can’t go on like this… So we are going to introduce a new minimum unit price.”
Five years on, that has still not been done, while the alcohol duty escalator has been cut, even though the No. 1 policy recommendation to tackle alcohol harm in the Government’s own review is to address affordability. Will the Minister, who I know is a good woman, now take a lead on this and make it happen?
The Government introduced a ban on the sale of alcohol below the cost of duty plus taxation, but the review states:
“Bans on the sale of alcohol below the cost of taxation do not impact on public health in their current form, and restrictions on price promotions can be easily circumvented.”
Let us consider for a moment white cider products such as Frosty Jacks, which are almost exclusively drunk by the vulnerable, the young, the homeless and dependent drinkers. Just £3.50 buys the equivalent of 22 shots of vodka. The price of a cinema ticket can buy 53 shots of vodka. The availability of cheap alcohol, bought because of its high strength, perpetuates deprivation and health inequalities. Homeless hostels say that time and again the people staying with them drink these products, and many are drinking it to death.
Ciders of 7.5% ABV attract the lowest duty per unit of any product, at 5p, compared with 18p per unit for a beer of equivalent strength. There simply is no reason not to increase the duty on white cider, and 66% of the public support higher taxes on white cider. It is a matter of social justice that the Government should do that, and do it quickly. It need not impact on small, local brewing companies, which could have an exception, and it will not impact on pub sales. Tackling it would benefit the youngest and most vulnerable and save lives.
As I mentioned, the ban on below-cost sales has had no impact on sales of strong white cider. The current floor price of white cider, at 5p to 6p per unit—that is duty plus VAT—is so low that it can be sold for 13p a unit. Will the Minister ask our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to increase the duty on white cider in the spring Budget on 8 March? This is not the first time that has been asking. Three hon. Members —my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and I, and no less a person than the Chair of the Health Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)—tabled an amendment to the Finance Bill last September, asking for the duty regime for white cider to be reviewed. I urge the Minister to read the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate on 6 September. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who responded, said that the matter needed to be looked into.
Will the Minister press the Chancellor not only to work with her on that, but to introduce the promised minimum unit price and reintroduce the abandoned alcohol duty escalator, so that the tax system not only tackles alcohol harm, but incentivises the development of lower strength products and provides much-needed funding to help with treatment? Looking at all the evidence, we see affordability come out again and again as the most important driver of consumption and harm. Increasing the price of alcohol would save lives without penalising moderate drinkers.
Apart from tackling price, there are of course many other recommendations, both in the Public Health England report and in the APPG report, which came out a week before, that I would be grateful if the Minister would consider. I am grateful that she has already agreed to meet the APPG to discuss our report. Our chief recommendation is that the Government develop a cross-departmental national strategy to tackle excessive drinking and alcohol-related harm. Will the Minister take a lead on that?
Another key recommendation in the APPG report, which again is supported by the PHE report, is the implementation of training and delivery of identification and brief advice programmes and investment in alcohol liaison teams. I remember hearing one suggestion for brief advice to be given whenever anyone is having their blood pressure tested. Just in those few moments, it would be effective for whoever is doing the test just to ask the individual, “How is your alcohol consumption? Do we need to discuss that?” That kind of brief intervention can make people stop and think.
We must pursue earlier diagnosis of those with alcohol problems or potential alcohol problems. There are 1.5 million dependent drinkers, only 6% of whom access treatment. Many people are just drinking in excess of the chief medical officer’s low-risk unit guidelines. In fact, Drinkaware’s research shows that 39% of men and 20% of women are drinking in excess of those guidelines. It says that nearly one in five adults drink at hazardous levels or above. Many people need help through early intervention programmes, as well as more comprehensive treatment and support. Why are we not providing that when we know that it works?
Implementing such interventions is cost-effective for the NHS. I will give a powerful example that was drawn to my attention by Alcohol Concern. St Mary’s hospital in London has trained staff to give brief advice to patients presenting at A&E. It has designed the one-minute Paddington alcohol test to identify and educate patients who might have an alcohol-related problem. That is called the teachable moment and it has resulted in a tenfold increase in referrals to the alcohol health worker, who then carries out further brief interventions, resulting in a reported 43% reduction in alcohol consumption by the people referred. That is a very effective intervention.
It is interesting to note that the Public Health England report confirms that health interventions aimed at drinkers already at risk and specialist treatment for people with harmful drinking patterns are effective approaches to reducing consumption and harm and
“show favourable returns on investment.”
However, it points out that their success depends on large-scale implementation and funding. Will the Minister look at how her Department can give a national lead to share and implement best practice in this field, such as that which I have described?
I would like to say much more on the subject, but I will turn now to the issue of drink-driving. Unpopular as it might be to talk about this in policy terms today, the Public Health England report is clear. It states:
“Enforced legislative measures to prevent drink-driving are effective and cost-effective. Policies which specify lower legal alcohol limits for young drivers are effective at reducing casualties and fatalities in this group and are cost-saving. Reducing drink-driving is an intrinsically desirable societal goal and is a complementary component to a wider strategy that aims to influence drinkers to adopt less risky patterns of alcohol consumption.”
That could not be clearer. The UK is out of line with almost all of the rest of Europe when it comes to drink-driving alcohol limits.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The hon. Lady might have seen the statistical release from the Department for Transport, which I think came out this morning, that says there has been a statistically significant increase in the number of drivers and riders who are killed or injured while driving over the limit in the last year.
Fiona Bruce
I have not seen that release, but I am very interested to hear of it. I hope that the Department of Health will look at that and work with the Department for Transport to review the policy. The APPG would like to see a reduction in the drink-drive limit in England and Wales from 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood to 50 mg. As we have heard, there is a direct link between increased alcohol consumption by drivers and an increased risk of accidents resulting in injuries or fatalities. The Government need to consider lowering the legal limit and possibly a further lower limit for young drivers. They also need to ensure proper enforcement and strong penalties. If we are taking stronger action against the use of mobile phones at the wheel because we know that such action will help to save lives, surely we should do that to reduce the damage from drink-driving. The signal that that would send out to reduce our drinking culture would be major.
I will close with this. During the first world war, the Government introduced controls on alcohol to help the war effort. The crisis of the war offered the opportunity to develop a national alcohol strategy. We have reached our own crisis today, and the Government must take action.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello, and it is an extreme pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who made a superb speech. She takes a very strong lead on all the serious matters relating to alcohol, and we are grateful to her. She has also taken the lead by securing this debate, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). I have supported as best I can of all their efforts, and I am pleased to take part in this important debate. I admired the eloquence of the hon. Lady’s speech. Some of what I say may overlap with what she said, but I hope that that will just reinforce what she said rather than causing difficulty.
Many serious problems arise from inappropriate alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a subject about which I have been concerned since I first entered the House in 1997, shortly after which I was elected chair of the all-party parliamentary group on alcohol misuse, now the APPG on alcohol harm. Over many years I have spoken and asked questions in on the subject in the House, and I have tabled a number of early-day motions during the past 17 years, expressing concern and asking for action on the damage to people’s lives and to society as a whole that is caused by alcohol. Several of my early-day motions have referred to foetal alcohol spectrum disorders —the lifetime damage to babies caused by alcohol consumption in pregnancy. I shall speak more about that later.
Just two weeks ago, I raised concerns about alcohol in my oral question to the Prime Minister, and a little earlier I put another oral question to Ministers about Britain’s high drink-drive alcohol limits. It was disappointing that I received a most unsatisfactory, perfunctory answer to the latter question, which was little more than a brush-off. The Institute of Alcohol Studies had briefed me before that question and has again provided compelling statistics about the costs, in lives, injuries and money, of drink-driving. Indeed, it has provided today the statistics that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill referred to. The total number of drink-drive accidents rose by 2% to 5,740 in 2015, there was a 3% rise in overall drink-drive casualties to 8,480 in 2014, and about 220 people are killed in drink-drive accidents each year. Going back, there were 240 deaths and 8,000 casualties just in 2013.
Our drink-driving limit is sadly higher than that in every other country in Europe except Malta. A lower limit would prevent a minimum of 25 deaths and 95 serious casualties a year—I suspect it would actually prevent a lot more. When the lower limit is imposed, as I am sure it will be at some point, rather than people perhaps having a couple of pints and thinking they are probably under the limit, the limit will be low enough to deter people from drinking at all before they drive in case they get too close to the limit. Reducing the limit to European levels would have a disproportionately beneficial effect. There is also wide popular support for a lower limit: 77% of the population, rising to 79% in towns. The limit must be reduced. In 2013, the death toll from drink-drive accidents rose by 25% in just one year.
Another serious component of Britain’s alcohol problem—especially England’s alcohol problem—is the burden on the health service, as the hon. Member for Congleton mentioned. That is another matter I have raised with the Prime Minister. According to statistics provided by the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, the NHS’s costs related to alcohol are £3.5 billion a year—the hon. Lady was absolutely right in suggesting that is probably a significant underestimate—and one in five hospital admissions are alcohol-related. In the nine years to 2013, hospital admissions related to alcohol rose by a staggering 51%.
To bring us up to date, 70% to 80% of all A&E attendances on Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol-related, resulting in a massive burden on hospital staff and resources as well as assaults on staff. I also understand from the report the hon. Lady mentioned that other patients, particularly children and elderly people, are often frightened by violent drunks on Friday and Saturday nights in A&E. Some 80% of police officers have been assaulted by people who have been drinking. As I said in my question to the Prime Minister, alcohol is heavily implicated in domestic violence and attacks on women. After that question, I was contacted by people concerned about child abuse, who again said that many cases of such abuse involved alcohol.
By far the most tragic of all the problems caused by alcohol, in my view—this view is probably shared more widely—are foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Estimates suggest that each year some 6,000 babies are born damaged for life by alcohol consumed in pregnancy. It causes misery for those children and their families and costs the state vast sums of public money every year. In Canada, the lifetime cost to the state has been calculated as up to $3 million dollars for every child suffering from FASD. The children concerned are referred to, somewhat unkindly, as “$1 million-dollar babies”. I have a good friend who lives in Canada—a former school friend—and he tells me about the situation there.
FASD also causes learning difficulties and behavioural problems. A high proportion of people convicted of crimes and in our prisons are victims of FASD. Research by the Medical Research Council has concluded that even moderate drinking in pregnancy has an impact on IQ and learning abilities. There is no safe level, and that must be communicated to all women planning and experiencing pregnancy and, above all, to all professional medical staff. The recent report by the all-party parliamentary group on foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which I was happy to contribute to, made strong recommendations on such information; I was pleased to emphasise the information that is required. FASD is the leading known cause of learning disabilities, and much of what is thought to be autism is actually the effects of alcohol consumed in pregnancy. The Government must wake up to the tragedy of FASD and take urgent action to ensure that all women know about it.
Again, in Canada the Government take the matter so seriously that girls are made aware of the problem in primary school. They are asked in class what they must not drink when they have a baby in their tummy, and they all say, “Alcohol.” They know about the problem. In the US and elsewhere, alcoholic drinks containers are required to have warning labels—not just a small symbol of a pregnant woman, and not on a voluntary basis. The Government warning in the US states:
“According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.”
If every woman was aware of that, I am sure that the levels of drinking in pregnancy would drop like a stone. However, women are not aware of that—even women I know have not been aware of it. I should say that my daughter-in-law did not drink at all during her pregnancies, and we have two delightful and very healthy granddaughters as a result.
Such a warning should be compulsory on all UK alcoholic drinks containers and should also be displayed in all NHS medical facilities—GP surgeries, clinics and hospitals—as well as all establishments selling alcohol. Women cannot be blamed for not knowing about the dangers, but the Government must be responsible for ensuring that in the future all women are alcohol-aware and know the dangers of drinking during pregnancy. Tackling FASD must be the priority for the Government’s alcohol policy.
Finally, we must do something to help prevent the consumption by young people in particular of strong, cheap alcohol, which the hon. Member for Congleton mentioned. It can, and does, quickly lead to addiction. In recent decades we have seen people as young as 30 dying of cirrhosis of the liver, which is quite appalling. That used to be a disease of older people, but now it is a disease of young people who are drinking vast quantities of cheap, strong alcohol.
As the hon. Lady said, minimum pricing is absolutely essential for reducing alcohol abuse and addiction. I emphasise addiction again because so many people talk about this as though it were a matter of choice. If any of us drank to excess over a prolonged period, we could become addicted. It is a serious danger. A 50p unit price would have no effect on pub prices—I am a lover of the great institution of the British pub and drink wine—but would stop the selling of vast quantities of cheap alcohol by supermarkets. In some cases, as has been reported many times, alcohol is actually cheaper than bottled water.
In recent decades Britain has had a dangerous love affair with excessive and damaging alcohol consumption. That must be stopped. Moderate and sensible consumption —as I have said, I drink myself—would not be affected. What I am suggesting would actually put a brake on the booze bandwagon, which has been out of control for some years now and has to be stopped.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Flello. I congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on leading the charge to secure this debate, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) on the work he does on this subject.
If we all knew that every year in this country 35,000 children were born with brain damage that could be prevented completely, we would of course do everything in our power to prevent it. Yet worrying evidence is emerging that that may be what is happening every year, and that the figures may be going up rather than down. I want to speak about the incidence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, which my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) just spoke so well about, among other things. I chair the all-party group on the subject and we produced an excellent report on it just over a year ago.
The worrying sign is that the numbers of people drinking in this country in general are increasing, as we have heard, including the numbers of women. That is especially worrying. It was the culture in the 1970s that few young people, especially young women, drank alcohol at all. That changed from the 1980s onwards and we now see an increase in the numbers. It was very unusual to come across children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorders or, as a recent report in The Lancet put it, “prenatal alcohol exposure”—I will come back to that report, but these days it is increasingly evident. I became interested in this subject because as an adoptive parent, I discovered how common it is among children who are adopted, including my own two children; I should declare that interest.
Fiona Bruce
If the hon. Gentleman recalls, when the all-party group received evidence about the impact of foetal alcohol syndrome on adopted and fostered children, one survey indicated that up to 70% of the cohort of adopted and fostered children assessed were affected.
Bill Esterson
Yes. I thank the hon. Lady for being the vice-chair of that group, and for the immense support that she has given to everybody in it. She is right; we took evidence from professionals in the children in care sector that as many as three quarters of children in care could be affected by alcohol damage during pregnancy. It is one of the major factors contributing to them ending up in care in the first place. I am glad that she raised that point. We also heard a suggestion that many children put up for adoption are damaged in that way, and we heard adoption described by one adoptive parent as a family-finding service for children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. It is a family-finding service with inadequate support; I will come to that shortly.
In our report, to which the hon. Lady rightly brings me, we identified that increasing prevalence, as well as the impact on children for life—not just while they are children—of irreversible brain damage and the impact on carers, parents, schools, health professionals and society of so many people with brain damage being unable to function fully in society, and all that that brings with it. As The Lancet reported on 12 January, the most extreme end of the spectrum, which is generally referred to as foetal alcohol syndrome, includes
“intellectual disability, birth defects and developmental disorders”.
The article goes on to list
“secondary disabilities including academic failure, substance misuse, mental ill-health and contact with the law due to illegal behaviours, with huge resultant costs to our health, education, and justice sectors.”
In our inquiry, we heard that 40% of people in prison exhibit symptoms of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. High numbers of care leavers and people with mental illness end up in prison. Given the evidence that I have heard, it would come as no surprise to me, once we start to explore the root cause—I hope that such work can be carried out—to find that alcohol during pregnancy is a primary contributory factor.
Our inquiry took evidence from professionals who made the case that action must be taken. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North spelled out how those in north America have managed to calculate the economic costs; the same will be true here. The societal costs are fairly obvious, from what I have described, but there is also an impact on families. If they must care for a child with the kind of disability that we are describing—believe me, it can be pretty challenging at times, from my personal experience—it can often have a dramatic financial impact, because people have to give up work to care full time, with little or no support.
Liam Byrne
My hon. Friend is making an extraordinary speech. As he will be aware, half of families living in poverty in this country have somebody with a disability in the household. It is not just a family issue or a public health issue; it is an inequality issue too.
Bill Esterson
Yes, that is right. My right hon. Friend has described his experience before, and I am sure that he will say more later. Many people are affected by being children of alcoholics; I think that the issue is directly related and a similar concern and challenge. Poverty and inequality are clearly linked to the damage done by misuse of alcohol, and I am afraid that the group on which I am concentrating is one of the most affected in our society.
We heard in our inquiry about the lack of support. There is only one specialist clinic in this country to diagnose FASD—it is in Surrey, and is led brilliantly by Dr Raja Mukherjee, who gave evidence to our inquiry—but that simply is not good enough. If 35,000 children are affected every year, we need a lot more than one clinic to help diagnose them, because diagnosis is needed in order to ensure that support is available.
Kelvin Hopkins
I applaud everything that my hon. Friend is saying in his speech. It was reported at one stage during our deliberations on the report that some medical staff literally do not know about FASD, even now. That is appalling.
Bill Esterson
That is right. The symptoms are misunderstood and significantly misdiagnosed, and too many professionals dismiss them. I have seen entirely contradictory diagnoses—doctors have described FASD symptoms perfectly well and then said that the child does not have it, due to the kind of misunderstanding that my hon. Friend just mentioned. We must improve understanding among health professionals. We must improve awareness, information and education among professionals, not just in health but in education.
In our inquiry, we also heard that children often cope at nursery, reception and key stage 1, and well into key stage 2, and it is only much later—from about year 6 onwards, as the expectation of independence grows in the school system—that the real problems start to emerge. Children who are damaged in this way find it difficult to cope in the school system, but because they have not been diagnosed early—because there has been no awareness or understanding, and they have got that far in the school system—it is assumed that FASD is not the problem, and that it might be due to what is going on at home or other external reasons, when the true cause is a disability. Again, we need greater support, awareness, understanding and training for education professionals as well as those in health and elsewhere.
What is needed? The Government should consider the following objectives. One objective should be to reduce the number of children exposed to alcohol during pregnancy. The Lancet’s report goes into great depth: international research suggests that just under 10% of the world’s population of women drink during pregnancy, but in this country, the figure is 41%, more than four times the international average. A similar figure was presented last year in the evidence of the FASD Trust, which serves as the secretariat for the all-party group and for which I am very grateful. That level of drinking during pregnancy suggests that the incidence of FASD may be four times higher in the UK than in the rest of the world. If we follow that logic, the World Health Organisation’s international figure is 1%, so in this country it may be 4% or 5%—that is where the figure of 35,000 babies comes from.
As well as an objective to reduce exposure to alcohol during pregnancy, the Government should introduce an objective to increase support and understanding in schools, in the health and care sector, in criminal justice and in wider society. How should they go about that? During our inquiry, we heard that the phrase should be used is
“no alcohol in pregnancy is best for baby and you”.
That fits the description of the strategy that we should adopt in this country. I welcome the fact that the chief medical officer revised the guidelines after we published our report—perhaps not entirely because of it, but I am sure we contributed. That was a big step forward. The guidelines now say that women who are pregnant or are trying to conceive should not drink alcohol at all. That is right, but by no means does it go far enough, because people do not know the guidelines—I am afraid that the increase in alcohol consumption suggests that, sadly, that is all too true.
As part of our strategy, we have to increase awareness, not only among professionals but among the wider population, of the support needed for women before pregnancy. In north America, which my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North mentioned, information is displayed in all the health facilities, education facilities and even airports—I have seen big signs in Canadian airports that say “Don’t drink if you’re pregnant or trying to conceive”.
Kelvin Hopkins
Another factor in America that I did not mention, because people draw back from it, is that people who are under the age of 21 cannot drink alcohol, and anyone who supplies alcohol to somebody under 21 can be sent to prison. That actually happened to a young Englishwoman who was on holiday in Florida: she provided alcohol to her younger sister and was sent to prison for corrupting a minor. It is taken very seriously indeed.
Bill Esterson
I am sure that the Minister has heard my hon. Friend’s comments. I agree that we must raise awareness among girls—and among boys too, because it is really important that boys and men play their part in influencing their partners in abstaining from drinking.
Awareness among professionals of how to prevent drinking during pregnancy has to be part of our strategy, but so does the support that is needed afterwards. Drinking during pregnancy will still happen, however much we are able to reduce it. Very sadly, some of the worst damage happens straight after conception; if someone has a drink before they know they are pregnant, it is too late to do anything about that drink. Support is essential throughout society, and it begins with awareness.
I was really disappointed that the briefing note for this debate did not make reference to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. It made some really good points about other issues that we have discussed today, but it did not mention FASD. Given that FASD was one of the topics clearly indicated in the bid for the debate, that was really unfortunate—I shall not say anything stronger.
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. I share his concern about this matter. I also share his concern that the chief medical officer’s guidelines on this issue have not been sufficiently promoted by the Department of Health. I know that some of the chief medical officer’s other guidelines were contentious, but the clear advice that women who are pregnant—or are considering pregnancy, I should add—should not drink has been received and accepted by everyone throughout the drinks industry and by all the organisations that seek to tackle alcohol harm. I join the hon. Gentleman in asking the Minister what her Department will do to ensure that that much needed guideline is much more adequately promoted throughout the country. It is shameful that that has not happened.
Bill Esterson
The hon. Lady’s comments are so good that I cannot really add anything to them. However, they bring me to the 2012 alcohol strategy, which makes the risks very clear and which refers to lifelong conditions that can have a severe impact on individuals and their families. Those conditions are caused entirely by drinking during pregnancy, so they are completely preventable. It is all already there in the strategy, which leads to the question of why the Government have not done more to promote awareness and reduce the incidence of this terrible problem. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point.
Let me cite some evidence from elsewhere. In Denmark, improved education and awareness led to an increase from 69% to 83% in the proportion of women abstaining completely from drinking during pregnancy. It did not eradicate the problem completely, but that is a significant improvement and a significant reduction in the number of children affected. It worked in Denmark and it can work here.
In 2015, I presented a ten-minute rule Bill on labelling—I am grateful to hon. Members present who supported it. Labels are just not adequate. They are so small and insignificant that they are ignored or are not noticed, and they are not enough anyway. Again, in north America, such information is displayed in big letters on the walls of pubs, bars and so many other places. That is another suggestion for the Minister: more awareness in places where people are drinking and more information on the bottles themselves.
It is crucial that we get the point across, because many women think that it is okay to have one or two drinks. But define “one or two drinks”! How much is one unit or two units? Most people have very little understanding of or insight into how much alcohol they are drinking—and anyway the evidence is that we just do not know whether there is a minimum level, which is why the only safe advice is abstinence.
Fiona Bruce
I apologise for intervening again, but I want to remind the hon. Gentleman of evidence that we have received. The reason that the recommendation has to be not to drink alcohol is that women’s individual alcohol tolerance levels during pregnancy are simply not known. I remember that he once mentioned a dramatic piece of evidence that showed—he will correct me if I have got it wrong—that a single drop of alcohol on an embryo resulted in that embryo becoming completely insentient for two hours. That is a startling piece of information.
Bill Esterson
I am pleased that the hon. Lady reminded me of that piece of evidence. Perhaps we should tour the country as a double act, because this is turning into one: she can remind me of all the bits I forget.
The hon. Lady is right about how important this is. It is not just about individual tolerance; tolerance changes as women get older and as they have more children. In families in which, sadly, more than one child is affected by exposure to alcohol during pregnancy, it is invariably younger children who are damaged most.
We all know about the dangers of smoking—now, nobody would dream of saying anything other than, “Don’t smoke during pregnancy”—but we have not got to that point with alcohol. FASD was first diagnosed in 1973. It has been known about since then, so why has so little been done about it in this country? Much more has been done in other countries; they have approached FASD far more effectively. We had good progress from the chief medical officer, but we need so much more.
What do we need to do? We need to have a prevalence study to understand the situation in this country fully, including why women are still drinking during pregnancy. Some of it is about awareness, but there are some other findings from Sweden that I will draw to people’s attention. In a Swedish study, women mentioned societal factors such as peer pressure, not wanting others to suspect that they were pregnant, and insufficient education, as some thought that drinking small amounts during pregnancy was harmless, and we have just heard about the problems that causes. Personal factors were also important, for example not wanting to miss the enjoyment of alcohol. Those were reasons that women in Sweden gave to explain why they felt that abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy was so difficult for them. We must understand those factors in order to do something about them.
That is why it is so long overdue for the Government to go so much further than they have already. We need a prevalence study to understand whether the 35,000 figure that I have cited is correct, and to understand why women are drinking during pregnancy to the extent that they are. Then we can start to make progress in reducing the incidence of problems and providing the support that is needed, because the cost to those children who are affected by alcohol and their families is catastrophic, and it is hugely expensive for us as a society and economy. The situation cannot be allowed to continue.
I urge the Minister to act. I think this is the first time that she has been involved in a debate on this particular issue—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)
indicated assent.
Bill Esterson
This is a chance for the Minister to start on the right footing and to really make some progress.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am delighted to speak in this important debate and I warmly thank the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing it.
The costs that alcohol imposes on our society—the social cost, the health cost and the cost to families and communities—simply cannot be counted, because of course that cannot always be measured in pounds and pence. Across the UK, alcohol accounts for 10% of our burden of disease and death, and it is one of the three biggest lifestyle risk factors for disease and death. Alcohol is 60% less expensive now than it was in 1980, and everyone knows that when the price of a commodity goes down, consumption goes up.
I will share with the Chamber today the alcohol-related challenges that we face in Scotland. NHS Health Scotland has reported that in 2014 retail sales data demonstrated that alcohol sales in Scotland were 20% higher than in England and Wales. Scottish sales of low-cost vodka are more than twice as high as those in England and Wales. It is estimated that one in three Scots are affected by a mental health problem each year, with depression and anxiety the most common illnesses. Alcohol and problems with mental wellbeing are closely related.
We in Scotland therefore have much greater and more pronounced challenges than the rest of the United Kingdom. The damage that alcohol is doing to our population is extreme, so bold solutions are required. In Scotland, such bold solutions have not been shied away from. The overall strategic approach in Scotland is different—I would argue that it has to be different—from that of the rest of the UK. A whole-population approach is required to reduce the harm caused by alcohol.
The important point is that, in addition to analysing existing data such as alcohol-related deaths and hospital admissions, our approach uses sales and price data from market research organisations to examine the relationship between price, consumption and harm. The effects of specific policies have also been examined, such as the policy on multi-buy discounts—it is worth noting that such discounts are now banned in Scotland. Scotland is the only part of the UK to produce such detailed information on alcohol, including sales data.
Whether we are talking about alcohol, gambling, obesity or lack of physical activity, we need to consider how all of our high streets and neighbourhoods can support good health, rather than contributing to our ill health. For example, we know that deprived areas have 40% more places to buy alcohol than more affluent areas. The more widely available and easily accessible alcohol is, the more we drink, and therefore the more harm that is caused.
As well as knowing that 20% more alcohol is sold in Scotland than in England and Wales, we know that Scottish male death rates are approximately 50% higher than those of other UK countries, while women’s mortality is 30% higher in Scotland than in other UK countries.
Kelvin Hopkins
I think this statistic is true: life expectancy in central Glasgow is the lowest in the United Kingdom.
Patricia Gibson
Indeed. That appalling and very sad statistic is one that has touched my own family, as I will come on to explain. Alcohol continues to cause premature deaths in some of our most socioeconomically deprived areas and we must take action—I will go on to say how the Scottish Government have taken action.
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention came at a very personal moment in my speech. Indeed, I have a very personal stake in this debate. By all accounts my own father, of whom I have no memory, was an extremely heavy drinker. Was he an alcoholic? He probably was, but alcoholism was not readily talked about in working-class communities in Glasgow in the 1960s. I did not witness my father’s heavy drinking, because he died when I was nine months old, not least because of his heavy drinking. My husband’s father was an alcoholic, which led to his early death. In Glasgow, where both my husband and I grew up, such deaths were not unusual in the past, and even today alcohol-related deaths are still more common in our communities across Scotland than many people would think.
Here is the main point: I am extremely proud of the fact that against much opposition—some of it, unfortunately, on tribal grounds—the Scottish National party Government in Scotland took a very bold decision. They decided that the damage that alcohol was doing to our population, our families and our communities could no longer simply be measured and talked about and that action was needed. What else could kill 22 people each week in Scotland, cause 670 hospital admissions each week in Scotland, cost Scotland £3.6 billion each year and not require bold action?
Such action came in the form of minimum unit pricing. In our supermarkets and similar outlets, alcohol can cost less than bottled water; in some cases, it sells for as little as 18p per unit, which is disgraceful. There is clear evidence from research that shows there is a direct link between changes in minimum pricing, and changes in alcohol harm and consumption. Estimates show that a 10% increase in the minimum price of alcohol is associated with a 32% reduction in the number of deaths that are wholly attributable to alcohol. Work undertaken by the University of Sheffield shows that a minimum unit price of 50p is estimated to result in 121 fewer deaths a year, a fall in hospital admissions of just over 2,000 a year, and a fall in hospital admissions of just over 2,000 a year by year 20 of the policy.
Minimum unit pricing is more effective than taxation, because it is better able to target the cheap, high-strength alcohol favoured by the heaviest drinkers. Such a public health measure is supported by Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands. I know that England is looking at this measure and I urge everybody in this Chamber to support its introduction. It is bold, but it needs to be bold to help deal with the blight that alcohol has cast over too many of our communities.
Global corporations in the alcohol industry fought a hard legal battle against Scotland’s introduction of minimum unit pricing, but the measure was passed with overwhelming support in the Scottish Parliament. It has been tested in the European courts. The appeal against it in the Supreme Court, following victory for the Scottish Government when the measure was tested at the Court of Session, is the final stumbling block to the introduction of the policy. I hope and believe that it will be resolved by the summer at the latest and introduced in short order thereafter.
Responding to the points made by the hon. Members for Congleton and for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), in Scotland we have already reduced the drink-driving limit to 50 mg per 100 ml of blood. That means that the rest of the UK—this is a cause for great alarm—has the highest limit in the EU, alongside Malta. I urge the Minister to follow the lead of Scotland and the rest of our EU partners. Reducing the blood alcohol level for drivers saves lives.
Fiona Bruce
I am interested to know from the hon. Lady directly how that change has not only saved lives, but changed the drinking culture. How have people changed their attitude towards drinking? One of the points that has been made to us about the Scottish experience is, “Well, it’s only a very few lives that have been saved,” but there is a bigger picture, is there not?
Patricia Gibson
There is indeed a bigger picture. Laws do not necessarily change attitudes, but what they do over time is change a culture. They send out a clear signal. The point was made earlier that when people are out and using a car, they tend not to drink. They are more likely not to drink at all due to the reduction in the drink-driving limit. It has also been a great educator for people who are out drinking and not driving, but who might be driving the following day. They decide, “I had better not drink tonight, because I might still be over the limit tomorrow when I get in my car.” We know that many of the people who have been pulled over, had their blood alcohol level tested and been found to be over the drink-driving limit were simply not aware of it, because it was from the previous evening; they had not considered that they might still be over the limit.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that the lower drink-driving limit has been particularly effective with younger drivers?
Patricia Gibson
Indeed. Our younger drivers are the most likely to be inexperienced. They are therefore not willing to risk it, after all the blood, sweat and tears to pass their test. The limit is helping to reduce the alcohol intake of young people for a whole variety of reasons.
Alcohol is killing too many people in our communities prematurely—I do not think anyone in the Chamber would dispute that. It is splitting up too many families. Its pervasive, insidious influence is the context in which too many of our children grow up. It is costing our NHS billions. It is exacerbating mental health challenges for too many people. It is rendering too many people economically inactive.
Alcoholism is a disease and, as with any disease, we need to find the cure. One silver bullet will not cure the disease. We need minimum unit pricing. We need all our high streets and neighbourhoods to look at how they can support and contribute to good health. There must be a presumption against an over-concentration of outlets selling alcohol, preying on our socially disadvantaged communities. All those things combined can make a difference, because they tackle price, availability and consumption. A serious problem and disease such as alcohol addiction or misuse requires a serious, bold solution. I urge the UK and Welsh Governments to look at the measures and the determination of the SNP Government in Scotland to tackle the issue head-on. It is one of the most serious health challenges of our time.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Flello. I offer my thanks and congratulations to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) for bringing this debate to the Chamber.
I am here this afternoon to speak on behalf of Britain’s 2.5 million innocent victims of drink. They are the children of hard-drinking parents, and I start my remarks this afternoon with heartfelt thanks to such charities as the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, Childline, Turning Point, Aquarius in my home city of Birmingham and many, many others for all the difference they have made to hundreds of thousands of children. For every child they have helped, for every life they have saved and for every life they have changed, I want to say on behalf of us all, “Thank you.”
I am here because I, too, am the child of an alcoholic. My father, Dermot, was an extraordinary man, and I would not be in politics—I certainly would not be in this place—had it not been for his inspiration. He was the son of Irish immigrants who came to Britain before the second world war. He was one of that generation of radicals in the 1960s. He was the first in his family to go to university. The first speech that really inspired him was Kennedy’s inauguration, with that immortal line,
“ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
That inspired him and my mum to go into public service. It was that ethos of public service that he handed down to me.
My father loved new towns. He was a practical idealist, and that is how I ended up growing up in Harlow. The reality was that as he rose up the ranks of Harlow Council to eventually become its general manager, his dependence on alcohol became deeper. When my mum died of cancer of the pancreas when she was just 52, it knocked him over the edge. He moved from being what I guess would be called a functioning alcoholic to becoming a non-functioning alcoholic.
For much of my life, I have grown up with that gnawing insecurity that is all too common for children of alcoholics—that constant feeling of guilt, constantly asking yourself whether you are doing enough. Why can you not do more to stop your mum or dad from drinking? I know what it is like to feel that cold nausea when you find the empty bottles hidden around the house. I know what it is like to feel sick when you hear your parent being sick first thing in the morning because they have drunk too much. I know what those feelings are like, and I know what the psychological reactions are like. I know all about the drive for perfectionism as you try to make the world perfect and impose some kind of order on it. I know what it is like to build up that kind of armour-plating so that nothing can ever hurt you, and I know all about the insecurity and the shame.
I know what it is like to have your parent on the front page of a paper because he has been caught driving four times over the limit. In fact, it was my little brother who was delivering those papers on his paper round. I know what that insecurity and shame feel like, and I know how it lasts a lifetime. I know what it is like to spend lots and lots of time in A&E. I know what it is like to spend lots of time in intensive care units. In my case, I was holding my dad’s hand as he suffered multiple organ failure, only to see him pull through and start drinking again. I know what it is like to spend the final days of your parent’s life in a hospital. It was almost two years ago, just before the last general election, that I was called to my home town of Harlow to be told that my dad only had days to live. I will remember for ever the compassion and care of the staff of the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow. I will remember for ever that cold dawn on St Joseph’s day nearly two years ago when the staff of the hospital folded down my dad’s blanket so that we could hold his hand as he breathed his last. I will never forget the compassion of those national health service staff and the way that they cared for us.
I know what those things feel like. I know how deeply they have affected me, and I know how deeply they have affected my brothers, but in a way I count myself as lucky, because since I first took the difficult decision to speak out on this a year and a half ago, I have been inundated with stories from colleagues here, whether they are in the House of Lords, staff or fellow right hon. and hon. Members. I have been inundated with stories from the public. I suppose I learned that like all children of alcoholics, we cannot change things for our parents, but we can change things for our children. What I want to do with others who are here is help use the experiences of the children of alcoholics in this country to change the policy of Her Majesty’s Government. That is why I am glad to see the Minister in her place today.
The stories I have heard are terrible, and I want to bring some of the voices of children of alcoholics to this place this afternoon. One person wrote to me to talk about their experience, saying:
“I felt alone, confused, guilty and second best.”
Another person said:
“Growing up with an alcoholic parent was not great. You feel like a failure, you feel like it’s your fault, you feel second best to the bottle. You never know what state you’re going to find your parent in.”
Another talked about the feelings of helplessness, hate, devastation, frustration and denial. Some felt worthless. Some were carers. Some had behavioural problems. I have teachers write to me about children they look after who are in that position.
Another person wrote and said:
“I am 36 and grew up in an alcoholic home. My mother drank heavily until she died in 2010. She was a lovely person until she drank when she became hateful and emotionally abusive…She was in and out of rehab, detox centres and mental health units for all of her life.”
Another said that they felt awful, that there was little love shown and that they felt alone the majority of the time, although luckily they had grandparents who were supportive until they passed away. Another described their childhood growing up with an alcoholic as
“horrible. I used to come home from school and see my mum drunk/passed out on the floor. I could never concentrate on school work because I’d constantly worry about her. Is she okay? Was she still alive for when I got home? It was a constant worry.”
Another person talked about their feelings of loneliness and how much they hated the signs that their dad had been drinking or in their mother’s speech. Another wrote:
“I wanted to die at 14. I tried but lived sadly.”
One person described their experience as
“losing my childhood, and becoming a parent to my younger sister and trying to shield her as much as possible. I was quiet and withdrawn, not wanting any attention and associating all attention with the embarrassment I felt when my mum was drinking.”
Another wrote about her experience of living in a household where “don’t mention Daddy’s drinking” was the byword. The year that he died, she got sober too. I could go on and on and on. These are not the experiences of a few people; these are the experiences of 2.5 million children in our country—that is one in five children.
From a public policy point of view, should we care? Of course we should, because the evidence is that those children will be twice as likely to develop difficulties at school, three times as likely to consider suicide, five times as likely to develop eating disorders and four times as likely to become alcoholics themselves. This great epidemic of agony is cascading down the generations. The cost of alcohol abuse that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) spoke about —that £21 billion, although some say it is £50 billion—is cascading down the generations. In this House, we have to stand together and break the silence and the cycle of this terrible disease.
Given the scale of the problem, we would expect that the Government, local authorities and the national health service would be all over it and on top of it, making sure there was action, yet the opposite is true. In a series of freedom of information requests that I conducted at the end of last year, we discovered that none of the 138 local authorities that responded have a specific strategy to help the children of alcoholics. Almost no local authority is increasing its drug and alcohol substance abuse budget, even though many of them are seeing rises in A&E admissions due to alcohol harm. Just 9% of the local authorities where A&E admissions are going up are increasing treatment budgets. A third are cutting the budgets.
In some parts of the country, referrals for alcohol treatment represent 0.4% of dependent drinkers. In other parts of the country, that figure is 11%. That is a wide variation. In some parts of the country, an average of £6.61 is spent per hazardous drinker. In other parts of the country, it is £419—that is in Sefton.
There is no uniformity in the data used to collect statistics across the system. What is clear is that children of alcoholics fall through the cracks because they sit at the junction and on the borders of three different systems: the adult social care system, the children’s social care system and the public health system. Not one of those systems has explicit defined responsibility for helping children of alcoholics. So what happens? Children of alcoholics just slide through the gaps.
That is why charities such as the National Association for Children of Alcoholics are so important. When I was in an agony of public shame after the last election, it was Hilary Henriques, whose son is here this afternoon, who got me back on my feet. I had the prospect of the Prime Minister wandering around the country waving the leaving note that I left back in 2010, and that brought me immense public shame. What I could not describe at the time was the private shame that I felt, having just lost my father to alcohol. I was at my lowest ebb after the last election. It was Hilary who helped me see that there was something constructive and productive that I could do to aid this particular cause.
NACOA has had 1 million contacts in the last 15 years by phone, email or through the website. The demand for its services is going up and up. What I find most troubling is that a third of people who contact NACOA have not told anybody else about their issues. These poor children are suffering in silence. They feel a profound sense of shame and insecurity. They feel that it is their fault. They curse themselves for not being able to do anything about it, and not only do the suffer in silence, but they feel like they are on their own. No wonder so many go on to suffer difficulties in the future.
On 13 February, we will mark international Children of Alcoholics Week, which is when we get the chance, around the globe, to stand up and speak for the children of alcoholics. Thanks to the concerted effort of the all-party parliamentary group on children of alcoholics, we will be able to launch on 15 February, the day after Valentine’s day, the first ever manifesto of children of alcoholics. It has not been written by me, NACOA or by charities, but by children of alcoholics, many of whose stories I read out earlier. I want to give the Minister some highlights.
First, the clear message is that the Government have to take responsibility for children of alcoholics—no one else is going to help these children. Their parents are not going to help. They cannot tell their neighbours. The Government have got to step into the breach.
We need a national strategy for children of alcoholics. We talk about children’s mental health and we talk about alcoholism, but, again, children of alcoholics are in the middle. They need a national strategy of support.
[Ms Karen Buck in the Chair]
We have to properly fund support for children of alcoholics. Helplines such as those from Childline or NACOA are run on a shoestring, yet they make a world of difference. They need a little bit of extra help from the Government.
We need to increase the availability of support for families. There is clear evidence now that family therapy can make an extraordinary difference. We should be boosting education and awareness among children and for those who have responsibility for working with children. I cannot count the number of times that I was involved in talking to the national health service about my dad’s condition. Even when I spent five days sitting on the ward of an intensive care unit, not once did anyone ever say to me or my dad, “Is there a conversation about alcohol that we need to have? And, by the way, are you okay?” We need to transform education and awareness among those who look after our country’s children.
As the hon. Member for Congleton said, we need to develop a plan to change public attitudes, and we need to revise the national strategy to focus on price and availability. The evidence from Canada and Ireland—and I hope soon from Scotland—is very clear that price makes an important difference.
We need to curtail the promotion of alcohol, particularly to students. When kids put up posters of football teams with alcohol brands plastered across their strips, alcohol is being advertised in their bedrooms. We have to think anew and afresh about how alcohol is promoted in this country.
I say in support of the hon. Lady that the Government should take responsibility for reducing the rate of alcoholism. This is a public health question, pure and simple.
Fiona Bruce
The right hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to point out that the Public Health England report says that the evidence is sufficient to support policies to reduce children’s exposure to marketing. They are needed, and that is what the report says.
Liam Byrne
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. There are a million and one ways in which we can do this. Someone called Gemma contributed to the report and said:
“Going down any street with a pub on it in the UK and there will be a sign outside with a quote such as ‘Drinking at 9 am doesn’t make you an alcoholic’. Well, to be honest, it probably does.”
There are common-sense restrictions that I think we should be debating.
Kelvin Hopkins
My right hon. Friend is making a very good point about the opening of pubs at all times of the day. I am one of those who opposed the relaxing of licensing hours. Sadly, it was our party’s Government who did that, and I think that was a mistake. I hope that one day we shall get into power and reverse that, if it is not done before then by the present Government.
Liam Byrne
Let us hope it changes even before then.
The Prime Minister has put great store on two things: first, restoring social mobility in this country, and, secondly, children’s mental health. I understand that it will not be too long before the social mobility strategy, or the social justice strategy, is produced. I do not mind or particularly care what it is called, but I look to the Minister for a cast-iron commitment that children of alcoholics will be discussed at the Cabinet Committee next week, and that we will insert into the strategy that is published in the weeks to come a commitment to develop some of the ideas I have talked about this afternoon.
The Government are well aware of our ambitions. We have written to all and sundry about them, including the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister is in any doubt about the importance and urgency of this debate, I will close with a word from His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said:
“We all know that having a parent who abuses alcohol is one of the most disruptive experiences for any child and leads frequently to long-term effects in one’s self confidence, one’s capacity to relate, and even for some people in their own relation to alcohol itself. My experience, whether easier or more difficult than that of others, was fairly difficult...One of the things I most missed was the company of others who understood the issue.”
He concluded in the most powerful of ways:
“We are never ourselves when we are solitary, but in all of human history and community it has invariably been the case that it is in relationship that we become most fully what we are called to be, provided that relationship is healthy.”
Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
I applaud the right hon. and hon. Members who secured this debate with the hope of influencing the Government to update the alcohol strategy, which is absolutely necessary. In particular, the all-party parliamentary group for foetal alcohol spectrum disorder would like an update on action on point 5.15 of the strategy. It reads:
“Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders…result from mothers drinking alcohol during pregnancy. They are lifelong conditions that can have a severe impact on individuals and their families—leading to a wide range of difficulties including low IQ, memory disorders”—
such as forgetting how to swim, “attention disorders”, such as when people detach themselves from family members and adoptive parents—
“speech and language disorders, visual and hearing defects, epilepsy and heart defects. They are caused entirely by drinking during pregnancy, and so are completely preventable. We do not have good information about the incidence of FASD…FASD can be caused by mothers drinking even before they know they are pregnant; so preventing them is strongly linked to reducing the levels of heavy drinking in the population as a whole, and especially among women.”
The rate of alcohol consumption is much higher among women in my constituency than in many others. The alcohol strategy says that we need to reduce consumption in the population as a whole, especially among young women,
“including by increasing the awareness of health professionals.”
There is a lack of understanding and awareness about this problem.
Let me give a general overview. Some 10.8 million people in England drink at levels that pose a risk to their health. Most of us have a drink, which is why we do not recognise the problem—we say, “They are just having an extra one. They might have had a bit more than me, but they have not really got a problem.” Overall, alcohol costs the UK £21 billion every year. It affects millions of lives and places a huge burden on public services. The Government cannot afford not to do something about alcohol, because of the drain on the national health service, social services and children’s social care, and because of the number of children who have been placed in care or are up for adoption because of alcohol.
I have seen younger relatives die from alcohol. A great friend of mine died from alcohol—he was head hunted to work in this place some years ago. That professional, skilled person was lost to alcohol, and nobody recognised or faced the problem.
Alcohol is 54% more affordable now than in 1980, which has helped to drive the historically high levels of alcohol consumption. I could not believe, and could not convince my colleagues on the council, how much cheaper alcohol is than bottles of water. I took them round two local supermarkets where alcohol was cheaper than water—cheaper than milk, even. Supermarkets frequently use heavy discounts to sell alcohol more cheaply. The evidence is still around us today.
The figures suggest a modest drop in overall consumption in recent years, but we are still drinking at historically high levels. It is the culture where I come from. St Helens was born of Irish immigrants; it was as far as people could walk from the docks of Liverpool when they landed there after escaping the potato famine. They worked very hard in the pits and in glass and chemicals manufacturing, so it was normal to have a drink at night. But what has gone wrong is that many of the pubs and clubs where the working men could enjoy good company with their pals on a night out have closed down, largely because supermarkets are selling drinks so cheaply. People buy alcohol and drink it at home, where they do not get the company and other people do not see how much they are drinking—it is just their families, who are least able to cope with the problem.
Some 2.1 million children in England are negatively affected by other people’s drinking every year, and the Government have to do more for them. Children do not ask to be born. Young people in the UK tend to drink more and start drinking earlier than young people in other European countries because they see drinking in the house more. Children exposed to a lot of alcohol advertising are more likely to drink heavily and start drinking at an earlier age—10 to 15-year-olds in the UK view more alcohol ads on TV than adults over the age of 25. By the age of 15, 44% of girls and 39% of boys in the UK have been drunk at least twice.
In England, 100 children end up in hospital each week due to alcohol. I could go on and on with the facts, but I would like to give a general overview. More than anything, I want to focus on children. As a member of the all-party group for FASD, I was driven to this issue. I was alarmed by the number of cases coming up at my surgery, many raised by parents seeking to adopt children. It was heartbreaking. I want to talk about one family in my constituency that came to see me. They were a couple with two children in their late teens and they were on the road to adopting a young child aged eight. They had fostered her and had been given no information at all on health issues, but it soon became obvious that the child was a victim of FASD. She had detachment disorder and had forgotten how to swim, even though she had been taught. She displayed inappropriate behaviour towards visitors and their families, and visitors stopped coming to the home.
A dreadful battle ensued to get a diagnosis and a care package from the local authority. It was difficult because the child was not from the local authority area that the family were living in. They were advised that if the adoption was not completed in a certain timescale, the child would be removed from them. The adoptive parents had taken time off work, but had to return to their jobs. They were prepared to reduce their working hours to care for the child, but they needed a diagnosis and a care package. They were at risk of losing their home—that is how much they loved that child.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend is speaking incredibly well. I pay tribute to her for the work she has done as a constituency MP and for the support she has given the all-party group as well. The point she is making demonstrates the need for support for adoptive parents. All too often there is no post-adoption support, particularly with this condition of FASD. It is even more important than perhaps we knew in the past, so perhaps I can make that point via my hon. Friend to the Minister to pass on to colleagues in the Department for Education.
Marie Rimmer
I totally agree with my hon. Friend.
My constituents needed diagnosis and a care package. They were at risk of losing their home. They were heartbroken at the thought of the child being taken away from the family and put into another foster home, and then going through, again and again, more placements because families cannot cope with such children. It is so difficult to care for them and yet they are so lovable. The parents were absolutely heartbroken. Silent tears rolled down the cheeks of this professional couple. The tears rolled down quietly as they sat facing me. It was heartbreaking to watch them. The child was part of the family. The two teenage children were beside themselves at the thought of losing their little sister who had become a part of the family. It was only through my direct contact with the local authority chief executive that the child was allowed to stay with the family. In the end, the chief executive apologised and gave a commitment to the family that the necessary diagnosis, care and support would be provided.
More than 7,000 children affected by FASD are born in the UK each year. As a member of the FASD all-party group, I have raised the issue with officers at St Helens Council, where statistics show that alcohol-specific hospital admissions of females were the fourth worst in the country. It is a cultural thing. We see drinking in the family: it goes on, becomes the norm and then leads to an extra drink. Where I come from, we never used to see alcohol in supermarket baskets. There was certainly never any alcohol in our homes. Unfortunately, alcohol is in most homes now. That is where families and children see it being drunk and then becoming part of the culture. It becomes the norm and it is much harder to tackle.
In Peterborough, 75% of children referred for adoption have a medical history of pre-natal alcohol exposure. Most of the looked-after children in St Helens come from alcohol-related problem families. I have met officers at St Helens Council who have given me a principled commitment to progress matters. I am delighted that a training programme with all appropriate staff took place last year. It is estimated that 1% of babies born each year in Knowsley have FASD—that could mean 19 babies in the two wards in my constituency that are in that authority.
I am delighted that action is being taken locally by St Helens Council, but without a national response from the Government, FASD as an issue will continue to be overlooked by the population as a whole. As a local MP, I have done my best, but it is certainly not enough. I have supported the awareness strategy and campaign at Whiston Hospital maternity unit. A recent survey found that 72% of people in Merseyside believe the Government have a responsibility to reduce alcohol-related harm, which is a drain on services.
My understanding of where I live in the north-west—not just in the Merseyside authorities but outside—is that well over 50% of the children on looked-after registers and going forward for adoption are damaged by alcohol and are being raised in families with alcohol-related problems. How can the Government not look at that drain on services, but—more importantly—the damage to those children’s lives? What will they grow up to be? What quality of life will they have? They do not ask to be born. The Government must do more than they are doing now.
I commend the hon. and right hon. Members who secured this debate. So many people and families are distraught at the damage caused by alcohol. More must be done and I plead with the Minister to act accordingly.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and to take part in this important debate. I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on securing it and I praise the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for leading it. She mentioned that we have as many as three all-party parliamentary groups relating to alcohol. I had not realised that, but it reminded me of a lyric from an old country and western song:
“One drink is one too many and a thousand not enough”,
which highlights the problem that many have—apologies for the corny remarks.
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s points. Although they relate to the English and Welsh alcohol strategy, they will strike a chord north of the border in Scotland. Many of the points are totally applicable and I agree with much of what she said, particularly with regard to minimum unit pricing and drink-driving limits.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that Scotland has a long-standing and problematic relationship with alcohol. The damage that misuse causes is indeed stark. It causes harm to individuals’ health, employment and relationships, as well as to community wellbeing and public safety. Then we have the financial burden on the economy through costs to the NHS, police and emergency services, and lost productivity to businesses. Many points that illustrate that have been highlighted today by various speakers.
The hon. Member for Congleton advised us that 70% to 80% of accident and emergency admissions at weekends are alcohol-related, and that 80% of police officers have been assaulted by drinkers, which is absolutely shocking. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) gave us a wonderful summary of the lifetime damage to babies and the costs that obviously creates through foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. He also highlighted the drink-driving statistics, which paint a totally frightening scenario.
The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) included the risks to young women who drink. He highlighted the 40% of the prison population with FASD and the 41% of women who drink during pregnancy. Again, that is truly shocking in this day and age, given the knowledge we now have. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) reminded us that not every cost can be measured, which is entirely true. I am an ex-banker and I always think in terms of numbers and statistics, but it is the human tragedy that is more important. The problem falls disproportionately on the sections of society with the fewest benefits, and the most disadvantaged are at the greatest risk. In fact, the simple horror story is that alcohol is 60% less expensive than it was in the 1980s. Some things have not kept pace.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) gave a powerful personal account that dealt with the psychology of the issue. One of the inspirational points that he made was that we can change things for the next generation. That is a message we must all take away from the debate. The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) highlighted the many avoidable conditions related to alcohol—they could so easily be prevented—and the need to improve health professionals’ knowledge. I fully agree on that; there is great consensus in the Chamber today.
You will have noticed, Ms Buck, that I am male, Scottish and a Member of Parliament, which must be three of the worst demographics for alcohol harm, so perhaps I should confess that I finished a bottle of whisky last night, and when it comes to enjoying occasional refreshment I am certainly not teetotal. However, perhaps I should clarify that I opened the bottle in June 2015—I hope that I will be seen as an example of moderation, not excess. Sadly, not everyone’s experience with alcohol is moderate. Excessive consumption has been responsible for many issues in society, including, at worst, the rates of alcohol-related deaths. Scotland’s figures have shown higher death rates for males over the past 20 years than the other UK nations. The 2014 figures put that at 31.2 deaths per 100,000 compared with the English rate of 18.1.
Kelvin Hopkins
Another horrifying statistic is that Russia’s population has been in fairly serious decline in recent years, and the major factor in that is alcohol consumption, which is epidemic.
Martyn Day
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point.
There is sufficient evidence to show a clear link between levels of consumption and of harm. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran has already given several examples. It is particularly worrying that retail sales data show that sales in Scotland are higher than in England and Wales—they were 20% higher in 2014—particularly for low-cost spirits. It might surprise Members to hear that since 2008 vodka has outsold blended whisky by about 20% in Scotland. In 2015, 10.8 litres of pure alcohol was sold per adult in Scotland, which is equivalent to 41 bottles of vodka, 116 bottles of wine or 476 pints of beer. When I consider my consumption rates, or those of my friends and family, many of whom take less than I do, the average means that there are people out there consuming a phenomenal amount of drink. On average, alcohol misuse causes about 670 hospital admissions and 22 deaths a week, and it is costing Scotland £3.6 billion each year, or £900 for every adult in the country. How much better that would be spent on other aspects of the NHS.
I served for 13 years on the West Lothian licensing board and in that role learned a lot about the licensed trade and alcohol issues within many of the communities that I now represent in Parliament. One of the more encouraging developments that I saw during those years was the Best Bar None award scheme, which is a great example of partnership working. It has operated in West Lothian since 2008 and has 20 accredited venues, with the Glenmavis Tavern in Bathgate nationally winning overall best bar at the awards in 2015. Best Bar None is administered by the Scottish Business Resilience Centre, whose remit is to create a secure Scotland for business to flourish in. It promotes responsibly managed licensed premises in Scotland, with the aim of partner agencies working together with licensed premises to create safer and more welcoming city and town centre environments. The crux is that it is also about changing Scotland’s relationship with alcohol—something that I believe can be achieved only by working together as a society.
The Scottish alcohol strategy, published in 2009, recognises that a whole-population approach is needed to reduce alcohol harm. Harry Burns, who was the chief medical officer of the Scottish Government at the time, said:
“Every one of us must ask frankly, whether we are part of the problem and whether we are going to be part of the solution.”
I wholeheartedly agree with that comment. The approach is correct, and indeed we have encouraging signs that it is working. Scotland had the steepest fall in alcohol-related deaths between 2004 and 2014. The rate fell from a staggering 47.7 per 100,000 to the current 31.2. Significantly, the fall in death rates over the period was greatest among the lowest income groups, which helped with some of the country’s inequality issues.
A measure that has been particularly effective is the multi-buy discount ban, which has accounted for a 2.6% reduction in consumption, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran has pointed out. In December 2014 the drink-drive limit was reduced from 80 mg to 50 mg, bringing Scotland into line with the majority of European and Commonwealth countries. There is international evidence that lower limits are effective in preventing alcohol-related road accidents.
Controlling availability through licensing has also been a feature of the Scottish strategy. There is a presumption against granting 24-hour licences to on-trade premises, and off-sales are allowed only between 10 am and 10 pm. There are also strict controls for displays and marketing materials, which are limited to single designated areas in supermarkets and shops. I agree with the point made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill about sports advertising, and the UK Government should take that on board. We have seen the effectiveness of limiting marketing in supermarkets; cutting it out of people’s bedrooms would have a massive effect. Scottish licensing legislation puts the objective of protecting and improving public health into the mix, and licensing boards may consider that when making decisions. My understanding is that there is no such public health objective in England and Wales. That is something that UK Ministers might want to consider.
Several hon. Members have mentioned the fact that pricing to reduce affordability is a key component of tackling alcohol harm. I believe that taxation is a means of doing that, but it does not deal with the reality that the availability and relative affordability of the cheapest and strongest drinks is at the heart of the problem. Minimum unit pricing is a more effective tool in targeting those cheap, high-strength products that are excessively consumed by heavy drinkers.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran informed us, evidence from Canada suggests that there is a direct link between changes in minimum price and changes in consumption. It is estimated that a 10% increase in minimum price might be associated with a 32% reduction in wholly alcohol-attributable deaths. That is significant, and it is an approach worth taking. As we heard, using updated modelling from the University of Sheffield, it was estimated that a minimum unit price of 50p would result in 121 fewer deaths and a fall in hospital admissions of about 2,000 per annum in Scotland. Significantly, 51% of off-sales are sold for less than 50p per unit—some for as little as 18p.
The Scottish Government will ensure that a minimum price policy is implemented as soon as possible. The policy had overwhelming support in the Scottish Parliament and it has twice been approved by the Scottish courts. The Court of Session’s Inner House granted the Scotch Whisky Association and its partners permission to appeal to the United Kingdom Supreme Court in December 2016. The appeal will be heard in 2017.
In conclusion, our nations have a long history with alcohol, and somewhere along the way things have got out of hand for many in our society—often those from the most disadvantaged areas. There is much that can be done, and we must all take responsibility. There are many reasons why we need to take action, including the impact on police workloads and the weekend A&E admissions, all fuelled by alcohol. Perhaps the most important reason is premature death—20 years earlier than the average for a heavy drinker—and its impact on families and communities. Tackling that issue alone would greatly help reduce inequality in society.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I congratulate everyone who has contributed to a well-informed and powerful debate. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who opened the debate with a comprehensive overview of the issues related to alcohol harm. I cannot do her speech justice—she was superb—but a couple of points struck me. Her point about attacks on emergency services workers was well made. I do not know whether she is aware, but there is currently a campaign to make such attacks a specific criminal offence, which I would support. I believe that other nations in the UK currently have, or are looking at, such measures. Perhaps the Minister would reflect on that. It was a superb speech, and I congratulate the hon. Lady on the way she made her remarks.
Other right hon. and hon. Members also gave impressive speeches. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) for his personal speech about working with children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, including his own story about his adopted children. The detail he went into shows how deeply he has thought about it. He will campaign on alcohol harm for the weeks, months and years ahead.
I hope that through the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central and of other hon. Members, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), who raised similar issues, we can see a change of public policy on such matters. I hope that the Minister will respond to some of what has been said today. If she cannot give us reassurance today, perhaps she will take the subject away, put it through the various policy-making machines behind the scenes in Government and get back to us with some proposals, because the points that have been made today, in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central, were very powerful.
The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) brought us the Scottish perspective. I sensed that she might be suggesting or hinting that my colleagues in the Scottish Labour party are not entirely supportive of some of the policies that the Scottish Government are pursuing. Her argument, however, was well considered. As Labour’s shadow Health Secretary in Westminster, I will look into what she was talking about. I enjoy political argument as much as anyone else, but we must learn from best practice, even if it comes from our political rivals.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) delivered an incredible, powerful and staggering speech, for which I pay full tribute to him. The way in which he put his personal experiences on the record was incredibly courageous. For most of my speech I will focus on the children of alcoholics, but at the outset I want to say that his bravery and his work for the APPG inspired me to tell my story as well, which I did over Christmas. I will go into that in more detail. My right hon. Friend made a fantastic contribution—I think your father would be proud today. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
I will now run through some of the figures—they have been rehearsed already, so I will not go into great detail. We know that the effects of alcohol have a huge impact on society and a huge financial cost, whatever the figure—some have suggested £21 billion, while others say it could be as high as £50 billion. The cost to our society is not only to our health, to the emergency services and through crime and antisocial behaviour; there is also the drag on our economy and economic growth, because of the drag on workplace productivity.
Alcohol abuse and harm is the third biggest health problem after smoking and obesity. Ultimately, it can have devastating consequences. About 307,000 admissions are attributed to alcohol and 65% of those are male. It is estimated that about 35% of all A&E attendances at peak times at weekends are alcohol-related. The number of hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis for alcohol-related diseases has increased about 100% in the past 13 years. Alcoholic liver disease is the most common cause of death, according to recent statistics. The number of deaths related to alcohol has fallen since a peak in 2008, but it remains considerably higher than it was in the mid-1990s. I therefore join the call that others have made for the Government to come forward with a renewed alcohol strategy. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether that is in the offing.
In recent weeks in my own Leicester constituency I have had the privilege of seeing specialist GP services supporting people with alcohol and other dependency issues, and to visit and learn about the Anchor Centre, which is dedicated to supporting people with alcohol problems. However, they tell me that they are worried about the future commissioning of those services, because decisions are made locally and they might not be able to be made in future because of tight budgets. Will the Minister therefore assure us that adequate resources will be put in place to ensure that such specialised alcohol treatment services are at least maintained, or even built on in future? We also heard about the Scottish experience of minimum unit pricing, so will the Minister update us on the Government’s position on that at the moment?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill made a powerful point about football team posters in people’s bedrooms—people obviously want a poster of the Leicester City side, although perhaps not this season, but they might have done last season. His argument was about marketing, and we ought to reflect on that. The previous Prime Minister was prepared to take radical action on the marketing and advertising of sugary foods. If we are to believe the rumours in the newspapers—I do not always believe them—this Prime Minister has crossed all of that out of the obesity strategy. I am interested to know what the Government’s position is on the advertising and marketing of alcohol, particularly as it affects an audience of children. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us a little about that.
I said that I wanted to focus on the children of alcoholics. As the shadow Secretary of State, I have chosen to speak in today’s debate, although the usual practice is for another member of the team to speak, because I, too, am the child of an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was about seven or eight years old. To be frank and candid, they divorced because of the strain that my father’s alcoholism placed on the marriage. I am an only child and I lived during the week with my mum and at weekends with my dad. My dad would spend the whole weekend drunk. In fact, from the age of eight I was in effect the carer at the weekend. It was typical for my dad to pick me up from school, but literally to fall over because he was so drunk. This was before the days of mobile phones, and I recall going to a phone box to call a taxi to take us home. The walk was not far, to be fair, but he could not walk up the street and I was a child.
On a Friday I would go back to my dad’s and open the fridge, as people do when they get home from school and want some yoghurt, chocolate biscuits or whatever, only to find it completely empty apart from the huge bottles of white wine—four or five 1.5-litre bottles lined up; the supplies for the weekend. My job as a 10, 11, 12 and 13-year-old was to go down to the shops to get the food in for the weekend and to sort things out. There were loads of such occasions and similar stories. My dad was not bothered about Christmas or with having a Christmas tree, so I would have to go to the shop to get some decorations to make the house look a bit Christmassy, as my friends’ houses were.
On another occasion, my dad played in goal at a works football match—I do not know why, because he was quite short, like me, so not a natural goalkeeper. I was about eight or nine and quite excited to be watching a football game, thinking I was going to a stadium, which it was not—it was an astroturf in Salford. It was the first time I had been to a football game and I was quite excited to watch my dad. I remember vividly his mates in the crowd shouting, “Jon Ash is in goal. All you have to do is throw a can of Stella in that direction, and he will go for that rather than the ball.” That was a joke, just workplace laughing, but I remember thinking, “That’s my dad.”
Dealing with my dad’s alcoholism coloured my upbringing and my life. As I was sitting here listening to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, I remember all those feelings that he was talking about: the shame, the embarrassment, particularly as a teenager, and the anger. But I always loved my dad, and he always loved me. We were lucky; he was never violent or abusive. Millions of children—or perhaps hundreds of thousands—are not in that lucky situation.
To be frank, it was only when my right hon. Friend and other Members started speaking out about this matter that I began to realise that I was not unusual, that I was not alone and that other children were going through this. When he started publishing his reports and doing his newspaper articles, I began to look into the subject, too. That was when I learned that 2.6 million children—perhaps more, according to some estimates—are in these circumstances.
I attended this debate because I wanted to speak out, as my right hon. Friend has, and ask the Government to consider putting in place a strategy for children of alcoholics as well as an alcohol strategy. Like him, when I spoke out in the media over Christmas—entirely by accident, by the way; I was asked a question and sort of blurted it out—I was inundated by people getting in touch with similar stories and saying that they remembered leaving their parent in the morning to go to school, never knowing whether they would be the same person when they got home that night. People have also told me that they spent their childhood ensuring that they did not say something off-hand and just wanting to disappear into the background, because their parent had not only an alcohol problem but a problem with violence, and anything that they said or did might cause their parent to turn because of alcohol.
When we read all those stories and study the research, it is clear that something has to be done. My right hon. Friend used a brilliant phrase. He said that children of alcoholics sit at a junction, where it is not obvious which public service should step in to support them, and too often they fall between the cracks. Is it the school’s responsibility? Is it the local GP’s responsibility? Is it the responsibility of children’s social services? That is why I agree that we need a national strategy, and I ask the Minister to consider including in that strategy a statutory duty on local authorities to put in place local strategies, both to deal with alcoholism and to support children of alcoholics.
The arguments that have been made about collecting data are so important. We have heard that an estimated 2.5 million children are affected, but we are not entirely sure—some suggest it is 3.5 million—so please will the Government look at putting in place a way of collecting statistics so that we know the scale of the problem across the country?
I do not want to be partisan—this is not the place for that—but in a lot of communities across the country school nurses are being cut back. It strikes me that if we want to put in place an effective strategy to help children of alcoholics, school nurses would be a good place to start. I appreciate that such services are now commissioned locally, but will the Minister consider whether the Government can offer any more support to our school nurse and community health visitor networks? I also entirely endorse the comments that were made about labelling and support for mothers in pregnancy.
I am perhaps going off my portfolio as the shadow Health Secretary, but when the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran mentioned the high density of shops and so on in more deprived areas, I wondered whether a community’s health needs should be taken into account in local authorities’ licensing decisions. Perhaps the Minister could reflect on that, although I appreciate that she is not a local government Minister.
My biggest regret in life is that my dad moved away to Thailand when he was about 59. He literally said to me one day, at Christmas, “I’m going to Thailand.” I said, “What?” He said, “I’m going.” I did not believe him, but he went, and that was that. He just went. Six months later, I got married. He promised me that he would come to the wedding. The day before, he phoned me and said he was not coming. I was so angry I could hardly speak to him. I wanted him to meet my new wife. To be fair, he had met her once, very briefly, but I wanted him to meet the new family. I was so angry that I could not talk to him, as you would expect. A few months later, he was dead. I had to go to Thailand to get the body and deal with the funeral. The friends he had made over there told me he was drinking a bottle of whisky a day. They told me he could not come to the wedding because he did not want to embarrass me. We were from a working-class family in Salford. I had gone to university and become a politician, and posh people would be at the wedding, and he felt that he would embarrass me by being there. I will always regret that.
I am the shadow Health Secretary, so I will do a lot of criticising the Tories, because that is my job, but I say to the Minister that I will work with the Government on a cross-party basis to put in place a proper strategy for supporting children of alcoholics because, quite simply, 2 million children are suffering. Let us send them a message that they should no longer suffer in silence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) on securing this hugely important and deeply moving debate on tackling alcohol harm. I pay tribute to each of them for the work that they have done in leading their APPGs, raising awareness, holding the Government to account and developing policy. We have heard incredibly eloquent testimony from several Members about the harms that alcohol misuse can cause to individuals themselves, but just as much to their friends, family and children. We have also heard about the cost to wider society, and in particular to vital public services such as the NHS.
The majority of people who consume alcohol do so at low-risk levels and as a pleasurable part of their social lives. Pubs and restaurants play an important part in our communities, both as venues for gatherings and, as employers and businesses, as significant contributors to local economies. We should not forget that, but as we have heard, there are very serious harms associated with alcohol misuse that we must not forget either. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss those harms while noting that some progress has been made. I will outline some of the steps that the Government are taking to ensure that consumers have the information that they need to make good choices about their drinking, to equip frontline professionals with the training they need to intervene effectively and to invest in evidence-based services to help people cut back. Of course, that must all be underpinned by the right data and the expertise and advice of Public Health England.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, who gave an outstanding opening speech, rightly pointed to the recent PHE evidence review, which tells us that alcohol is now the leading risk factor for ill health, early mortality and disability among 15 to 49-year-olds in England. It causes 169,000 years of working life to be lost, which is more than the 10 most common types of cancer combined. It is also a significant contributor to some 60 health conditions, including circulatory and digestive diseases, liver disease, several cancers and depression. As many colleagues have said, alcohol-related deaths have increased—particularly deaths due to liver disease, which rose by 400% between 1970 and 2008. That is in contrast with the trends in much of western Europe. More than 10 million people drink at levels that increase the risks to their health, and there are more than 1 million alcohol-related hospital admissions annually, half of which occur in the most deprived communities. It is important for us to face up to that as a nation.
As we have heard, the public health burden of alcohol, including its health, social and economic harms, is wide-ranging. There are direct and tangible costs to the health, criminal justice and welfare systems. According to PHE’s evidence review, the economic burden of alcohol is substantial; estimates place its annual cost at between 1.3% and 2.7% of GDP, and the estimated annual cost to the NHS is around £3.5 billion. Harms can also be indirect, including the loss of productivity due to absenteeism or unemployment, and they can be intangible and difficult to cost, such as the poor quality of life or emotional distress caused by living with a heavy drinker.
Much of that burden of disease and deaths is preventable, so it is right that the matter is given our full attention. Of particular interest to the Government is the strong inequalities profile of alcohol harms, which fall disproportionately on more deprived communities. We estimate that if all local authorities had a mortality rate that matched the most affluent areas, about 4,000 alcohol-related deaths would be avoided each year.
Though I note my hon. Friend’s calls for caution, there are some promising trends that give us cause for optimism. People under 18 are drinking less, attitudes are beginning to change and there has been a steady reduction in alcohol-related road traffic accidents. We have also seen real progress in Government working in partnership with industry. The industry removed 1.3 billion units of alcohol from the market through improving consumer choice of lower-alcohol products, and nearly 80% of bottles and cans now display unit content and pregnancy warnings on their labels.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton—and my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), who is no longer in his place—rightly said, partnership continues to play an important role in tackling alcohol misuse, and the Government are committed to that principle. In the report produced by the APPG that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, recommendation 9 is to educate the public about the harms of alcohol and do a better job in prevention. We are taking a number of actions to try to help people manage their alcohol consumption, because we believe that the most sustainable long-term solution to alcohol misuse is informed and empowered citizens and consumers. To ensure that that is possible, we have a responsibility to provide the most up-to-date and clear information to enable people to make informed choices about their drinking. That includes publishing the low-risk drinking guidelines, as we did last year, which a number of colleagues mentioned. Those guidelines provide the public with the latest information from the four UK chief medical officers about the health risks of different levels and patterns of drinking.
Officials are now working with partners in industry to update the advice provided on packaging and labelling to reflect the latest evidence. That is to ensure, as the hon. Member for Sefton Central mentioned, that awareness is raised and people understand exactly what those low-risk drinking guidelines mean.
Fiona Bruce
The Minister talks about increasing knowledge and awareness, but her Department’s own report says:
“Although playing an important role in increasing knowledge and awareness, there is little evidence to suggest that providing information, education…is sufficient to lead to substantial and lasting reductions in alcohol-related harm.”
I support that action, but, without the type of policies I addressed in my speech, I do not believe we will see the difference we need to make.
Nicola Blackwood
My hon. Friend is right that that is not enough in and of itself, but it was an important step, because we did need to review the latest evidence and provide updated risk guidelines. That is also why we remain committed to high-impact public education campaigns. Last year, PHE launched its “One You” campaign, which she may be aware of, which aims to motivate people to take steps to improve their health through action on the main risk factors, including alcohol consumption. “One You” has been used by more than 1.6 million people so far. It includes a drinks tracker app, which helps drinkers to identify risky behaviour and lower their alcohol consumption. PHE will launch a new “Days Off” app on 7 February to encourage people not to drink alcohol for a number of days a week, which is in line with the CMO’s guidelines. Evidence supports that as an effective way to reduce drinking and a good, effective and manageable way in which to use the guidelines.
Bill Esterson
I am pleased that the Minister is making practical suggestions to address some of the problems that have been raised. I hope that she will take up the shadow Health Secretary’s offer to work together on this. As an initial step, perhaps she could sit down individually with the three of us who initiated the debate to take things further, because we have said a lot today but there is a lot more to the debate that may be of assistance to her.
Nicola Blackwood
The hon. Gentleman put his finger on it when he said that a huge number of issues have been raised. I am trying to get through as many as I can. It is likely that I will not get through every point, so, if I do not, I will try to write. I will certainly try to give as much detail as I can. I think I noted everything down, but, if I did not, I am sure hon. Members will remind me with interventions. If they will let me make a bit of progress, I shall do my best.
In the report produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, recommendations 3 and 4 were to increase awareness and training for health professionals. A number of colleagues raised that as an important issue for identifying earlier and intervening on those who are misusing alcohol. We recognise that as important. All health professionals have a public health role, and we need to ensure that our frontline workforce are properly trained to tackle such challenges, especially alcohol misuse and drinking in pregnancy. I will come on to the points made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central in a minute.
Kelvin Hopkins
To be specific, will the Minister look carefully at what I suggested in my speech? We should have notices in all medical establishments and all areas where alcohol is consumed or purchased with the wording used in America about birth defects, and we should ensure that all medical professionals know about that problem and tell all women about it.
Nicola Blackwood
I will come in a moment to how we are dealing with the issues of foetal alcohol syndrome and foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, but I want to talk first about training for professionals, if that is okay.
By 2018, about 60,000 doctors will have been trained to recognise, assess and understand the management of alcohol use and its associated health and social problems. We think that is important so that future doctors can better advise on the health impact and effects of substance misuse. One of the key areas for that must be primary care. Since April 2015, the standard GP contract has included the delivery of an alcohol risk assessment to all patients registering with a new GP, which offers the opportunity to raise awareness of alcohol as a risk factor. In addition, the inclusion of an alcohol assessment in the NHS health check is a good opportunity for healthcare professionals to offer advice. That check is offered to all adults between 40 and 74 in England.
That large-scale intervention has the potential to make a real difference, because we know that one of every eight people who receive the intervention moderate their behaviour. Put simply, evidence shows that that is one of the most effective interventions available to us. Since we mandated the alcohol assessment and advice component in 2013, more than 10 million people have been offered a check, and nearly 5 million people have taken up the opportunity, which is a take-up rate of about 48%. That is progress, but we want to go further.
Recent research has shown that referrals to alcohol services following an NHS health check are about three times higher than among those receiving standard care. We therefore think that the health check is a good way to prompt an adjustment in behaviour. We will continue to deliver it, although we will be happy to hear recommendations on how we can improve it.
Another thing we are doing to support frontline professionals to identify those who might need more significant intervention is that Public Health England is currently leading a review of the higher-risk drinking advice. That is being undertaken in partnership with the devolved Administrations, and the updated advice will be published once the evidence has been considered.
The hon. Members for Sefton Central and for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) gave important speeches on the risks of FAS and FASD. They were concerned about the availability and understanding of the CMO’s guidelines. As I mentioned, we are working with partners in industry to update the advice provided on labels, which should disseminate those guidelines. I will certainly consider the comments made about putting that information on labels, in GP surgeries and in other appropriate locations. One of the other ways in which we are trying to get that information out is through the “One You” campaign and the drinks tracker, which I have just mentioned.
We are also trying to disseminate that information through health professionals in a more targeted way. Health professionals are supposed to discuss it with pregnant women as part of their routine work, but women who are heavy drinkers are much less likely to engage with antenatal care, so identifying them can be challenging. Over the past year, PHE has therefore been undertaking a piece of work to identify those at risk and provide advice. It has piloted in three regions of England a training programme developed in Wales called “Have a Word”, which sounds much like what the hon. Member for Sefton Central proposed. PHE is considering the findings from the pilots with a view to rolling the programme out across England if it is effective. We are particularly looking at the findings on how pregnant women can be targeted. I am happy to share those findings with the hon. Gentleman, as I suspect they will address his concerns on raising awareness and targeting pregnant women.
The hon. Gentleman raised the problem of professionals dismissing foetal alcohol spectrum, which sounds familiar. One problem I have been made aware of is the lack of research in this particular field and the need to increase it. Although the World Health Organisation has started a global prevalence study, which he called for, it recognises that information is lacking in many countries, including the United Kingdom. That creates a number of challenges, because the feasibility of estimating prevalence is difficult given the ethical challenges associated with research in that area.
Public Health England recently published the most comprehensive and up-to-date review of current harms of alcohols and the evidence on the effectiveness of alcohol control policies. We are currently engaged in further work to understand the impact of parental drinking on children; we discovered during the initial work that we did not have sufficient evidence on that, so we are going forward with that work. Public Health England is also developing prevalence figures at local authority level, as well a toolkit to support local authorities to respond to the issue of parental drinking. That is due to be published later next year, and I hope it will be of assistance to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill in the work of his all-party parliamentary group as well.
One challenge we face is insufficient evidence, which is why we are trying to build the evidence base up so that we can assist medical professionals and local authorities as they try to make decisions; if they do not have the evidence, it is very difficult to make proper policy decisions in this area. I hope that reassures the hon. Member for Sefton Central, and I am happy to come back to him on any of the other points that he made.
We have also put several measures in place to ensure that children are provided with the information and tools they need, including through the Frank drug information and advice service. Family nurse partnerships help parents in vulnerable families to develop their parenting capacity, while tailored and co-ordinated support is offered via the troubled families programme. A lot of that needs to be delivered through local authorities; one of the recommendations in the report by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton was to promote increased partnership through local communities. We believe it is right that local authorities should lead on that work as they are best placed to understand the different challenges in their areas; what is perhaps a challenge in Birmingham may be slightly differently represented in Bournemouth. However, we must make sure that local authorities are properly held to account when they lead on that, which is why we are keeping a close eye on whether they are delivering on these investments in the first place.
Our data show an increase in local authority spending on alcohol services for adults—from approximately £200 million in 2014-15 to £230 million in 2015-16—which we think demonstrates their understanding of the need for a commitment to invest in those treatment services. Our data also show that 85,000 individuals were treated in 2015, of whom 39% successfully completed treatment. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill quoted different figures. I have not seen his freedom of information request or the response, so I am not sure why that is, but I am happy to investigate the variation between our figures and to discuss it with him to try to get to the bottom of exactly what is going on.
I am also happy to discuss the issues the right hon. Gentleman and the shadow Health Secretary raised regarding children of alcoholics; both made important and moving speeches about that. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his leadership on this issue. I know it is not easy to speak out in this place about personal trauma and loss, and I know that we too often feel it will weaken us and expose us to personal attacks. I hope that by his standing up in that way, more people—not only in this building but across the country—will feel that they can be open about their personal experiences of addiction and of being in families with those with addiction, and will be able to seek help.
This is an incredibly important step in tackling addiction and the stigma that still exists around it. I thank both Members for the steps they have taken in progressing what is a very challenging cultural area in the UK, and I hope they will accept my commitment to working with them to trying to progress it as well. I want to put it on the record that we are trying to take steps, through the troubled families programme, to improve the situation for children of alcoholics. The troubled families programme has a responsibility to tackle problem drinking and to commission appropriate prevention and treatment services —including to support the children of those families.
Liam Byrne
I pay tribute to the Minister and welcome her commitment to working together across the aisle, so to speak, to put a new strategy in place. The troubled families programme is very important, not least because there is a lot of money in it. That money is often focused on families in the most chaotic of circumstances, but our evidence shows that many families with alcoholic parents do not look troubled or chaotic to the outside eye—they are often functioning alcoholics. Our definition of what constitutes a troubled family may therefore need to be stretched a little in order to help those children.
Nicola Blackwood
The right hon. Gentleman is obviously an expert on the issue, but understanding how to identify those at risk is not specific to this area of public health; it occurs in other areas and is familiar to me from my mental health brief as well. This will be something that we need to sit down and discuss to understand more accurately.
It may be that we need to look at the troubled families programme to see how that could be addressed in order to work more effectively to target those in need of assistance. The key message today is that children of alcoholics in the United Kingdom should not feel as though they are alone—they should feel as though support is there, and they should know that they will find help when they seek it. I must go on to talk about some of the other issues that were raised; I hope I am not taking too much time.
The NHS remains critical to the prevention of alcohol harms. We must incentivise NHS providers to invest in interventions to reduce risky behaviours and prevent ill health from alcohol consumption. NHS England and Public Health England have worked together to develop a national commissioning for quality and innovation—CQUIN—payments framework, which is an important intervention. For those less familiar with the CQUIN payments framework, it was set up to encourage service providers to continually improve the quality of care provided to patients. CQUIN payments enable commissioners to reward innovation by linking a proportion of service providers’ income to the achievement of national and local quality improvement goals. In this case, it means that every in-patient in community, mental health and acute hospitals will be asked about their alcohol consumption. Where appropriate, they will receive an evidence-based brief intervention or a referral to specialist services, which should improve the treatment of children in the care of alcoholics, as in cases like those raised by the shadow Health Secretary. That is something we should be pleased about.
More than 80% of hospitals offer some form of specialist alcohol service, and investment in similar alcohol care teams in every hospital would potentially provide the NHS with an opportunity to maximise its delivery of identification and brief advice interventions to patients. As I said, that has been identified as one of the most important interventions to change behaviours.
Hon. Members will be aware that the NHS and local authorities have been developing sustainability and transformation plans—STPs. Those are now published on NHS England’s website, and the vast majority include actions to reduce the harms from alcohol, including through investment in brief advice, which was one of the recommendations from my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, and expanding the approaches for those with more problematic alcohol use. That is an encouraging sign. Underpinning all of our work is the expertise of Public Health England, as we have seen from its report. PHE staff work closely with local authorities and the NHS to try to tackle alcohol harms. Building on its recent review, we must ensure that it gives the right data analysis, so that local authorities know how to effectively target their policies.
One issue raised by a number of colleagues is the call for a review of the licensing legislation to include a health objective, as in Scotland. I have some questions about how effective that would be. Although it is easy to link a criminal justice problem to a specific location, it is much more difficult to link a health challenge to an individual establishment. It is quite hard to prove that buying a drink in an individual establishment has caused someone’s liver disease.
PHE is leading our engagement with the Home Office’s second phase of the local alcohol action areas programme and offering support and advice to participating areas that have identified improving the public health response to alcohol-related harms as a key focus of their approach. Successful applicants were announced by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), on 27 January, with 18 of the 33 successful areas looking at how they can improve the health of their residents. That is one way in which this is being done.
The House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003 is looking at that Act and is due to publish its report in March. We will, of course, carefully consider its recommendations. I gave evidence to the Committee, which is looking at health as part of that issue.
Fiona Bruce
On the issue of availability, the Minister’s Department’s own report indicates that reducing the number of hours during which alcohol is available and looking at density—the number of outlets where alcohol is sold—can help to reduce alcohol harm. I hope she will look at that as she proceeds. The local licensing objective could have real teeth if those issues were introduced into it.
Nicola Blackwood
My hon. Friend is passionate about this issue. I understand the argument for introducing the health objective. The problem is proving the risk posed by the individual establishment. However, we will consider the evidence that comes forward.
I will briefly turn to taxation, which was raised by a number of colleagues, including Scottish National party Members. I have to say at the outset that making changes to taxation is a matter for the Chancellor and slightly above my pay grade. We also have to note that the UK currently has the fourth highest duty on spirits compared with other EU member states, and higher strength beer and cider are already taxed more than equivalent lower strength products. We are considering the introduction of minimum unit pricing in England and Wales but are waiting for the outcome of the court case in Scotland. Until we hear the Supreme Court’s decision, which is still unknown—we are supporting the process of that case—we cannot proceed with any policy decision in the United Kingdom. It is a little unfair to berate us for not introducing a policy that cannot yet be enforced in Scotland.
On targeted changes in taxation, I am advised that current legislation on alcohol duties requires that duty on wines and ciders is paid at a flat rate within defined bands of alcoholic strength. I understand that my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Ribble Valley have advice that it is possible to do something else, which I would be pleased to see, although that is a Treasury matter. At the moment, my understanding is that the EU directive sets bands for alcohol products in relation to strength and that while we have some flexibility to set rates within the structure of those bands, we are not able to link a duty absolutely to alcohol strength. Obviously, with our vote just yesterday, there is an opportunity with Brexit to consider these issues more specifically going forward, but that is my understanding of EU legislation as it stands and the advice I have received on this specific point.
Fiona Bruce
The information I have received is that the Government could just split the general rate into two separate brackets, therefore achieving their goal without the need to go through the EU. If the Minister will permit me, I will pass to her the opinion we have received on that.
Nicola Blackwood
My hon. Friend is very kind; I would be happy to see it.
I will close now, as I have cantered through a large number of issues and am sure hon. Members are tired of hearing my voice. I thank colleagues from both sides of the House for taking part. This has been an important debate. There have been very moving speeches, especially from the hon. Members for Sefton Central and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and the shadow Minister. They all illustrated powerfully the devastating impact that addiction and alcohol misuse have on not only people’s own health but, as we heard so eloquently, their families, children and local communities, not to mention the health and social care systems and wider society.
We have to give credit where it is due. We have to thank the many NHS workers, local authority staff, charities such as Childline and Aquarius and volunteers who are making such a difference in this area already. They are saving lives. We must recognise progress where it is being made, especially in the changing attitudes among young people. We must not despair.
However, as we have heard from today’s debate, stories and statistics, we cannot be satisfied with this. There is much more we can and must do, and I hope I have reassured colleagues today of my personal commitment to ensure we strengthen the information, support and, if necessary, treatment we give people to reduce the harms of alcohol misuse. With a health challenge as culturally entrenched as this, it can sometimes feel as though it is a mountain we will never successfully climb, but I take courage from today’s debate. Great social change requires three things: long-term political will, non-partisan partnership and bravery. I have heard all three of those today. I hope that each Member who has spoken here today will continue to work with me as we fight on to tackle this social injustice.
Fiona Bruce
I would like to thank the Minister for her response, which showed that she has been as moved as everyone in the Chamber by the speeches we have heard. I not only welcome but deeply thank her for the commitment she has given to continue to work with colleagues who are concerned about the impact of alcohol harm.
I remember a debate in the main Chamber a few years ago about mental health, when many Members spoke for the first time of their personal experiences of mental health issues. That debate was something of a tipping point. Since then, the issue has been discussed again and again in the House, and the Government have taken action to address it. I hope that today will prove something of a tipping point with regard to the impact of alcohol harm.
I thank the hon. Members for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), for their well informed and, in all cases, deeply moving speeches. Although it is probably not normal procedure, I would also like to thank the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), for his equally moving and eloquent speech.
In my speech, I used many statistics on the wide-ranging harm caused by alcohol and its health, social and economic consequences, but I believe that what will really have stirred hearts and minds today—and, I hope, stirred the Minister and her officials into action—are the deeply moving personal accounts from Members of how alcohol has in many cases touched their lives and those of their families devastatingly.
This is not a minor issue. The harm can not only be devastatingly deep for the individuals but touches many more people right across the country than has been acknowledged to date. I have heard it said that there is barely a family in the land not affected by alcohol harm today. Having heard today’s speeches, I doubt anyone could argue against that. I certainly believe it. I have just four members of staff working for me as a Member of Parliament, and of those four, tragically, one lost her husband to alcohol while she was in her 50s, just a short time ago, and another lost her father to alcohol when she was not yet one year old. I thank them for allowing me to relate that. The impact of alcohol harm on our nation is far wider and deeper than we have acknowledged in the House to date.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting a three-hour debate—I believe that was justified. I also thank the Minister not only for her reply but for her willingness to meet us in the future. I look forward to working with her, and across parties, on this issue. If there is any point that she did not manage to address in her very detailed response, we would appreciate it if she were good enough to write to colleagues.
As the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said, there is no one silver bullet that will solve this issue. But one thing is for sure: we need the Government to take a lead on tackling alcohol harm, which is one of the most serious health challenges of our time, and to do so urgently. We need action—enough reviews have taken place. Public Health England’s report clearly says that there are policies that have significant potential to curb alcohol-related harm, but we need action to be taken urgently. Successive Governments have completely underestimated the challenge. I appreciate what the Government are doing now, but we need more to be done.
As I have said, this is not some moral crusade, it is a matter of social justice. Taking effective action will help literally all of our society, but disproportionately the poorest, the most vulnerable and the youngest. We have heard today about the financial costs of excessive alcohol consumption, but the cost in the loss of life chances and potential, for children in particular, and the sheer heartache that people have suffered and continue to suffer are incalculable. I am pleased that the Minister is determined to look particularly at how we can help the children of alcoholics who are suffering now—how we can help to protect them and prevent that from happening in the future—and, I hope, unborn children, too. Those are real priorities, and I am delighted that she has committed to emphasising that work in particular.
I will close with the following quotes, which are all from David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, in the Government’s own 2012 strategy. He said that
“the responsibility of being in government isn’t always about doing the popular thing. It’s about doing the right thing.”
He also said:
“My message is simple. We can’t go on like this…fast, immediate action…is needed”
and
“we have to do it now.”
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered tackling alcohol harm.
Written Statements
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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State of the Estate 2015-16
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Ben Gummer)
I have today laid before Parliament, pursuant to Section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008, the “State of the Estate in 2015-16”. This report describes the efficiency and sustainability of this Government’s Civil Estate. The report is published on an annual basis.
[HCWS449]
Local Growth
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)
In the last Parliament, £7.3 billion of the Local Growth Fund was awarded to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) through the first two rounds of Growth Deals. In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced the regional breakdown of a further £1.8 billion of the Local Growth Fund. Today I am pleased to announce the individual awards that LEPs in the East of England and in London and the South East will receive. LEP Funding Award (£m) Buckinghamshire Thames Valley 20.48 Coast to Capital 66.06 Enterprise M3 71.12 Greater Cambridgeshire, Greater Peterborough 37.62 Hertfordshire 43.95 London 141.28 New Anglia 69.06 Oxfordshire 24.16 Solent LEP 31.02 South East LEP 102.65 Thames Valley Berkshire 35.56
This flexible funding sits alongside £475 million for Local Transport Majors and £2 billion long- term funding for housing transactions through the Home Building Fund. This was the most competitive round yet, and allocations were made based on a bidding round that took place last year. This honours our manifesto pledge to agree an expanded set of deals to empower the towns, cities and counties across the country to fulfil their potential and create an economy that works for all. The expanded deals will provide LEPs in the East of England and in London and the South East with the power and funding to support local businesses, unlock housing where it is most needed and develop vital infrastructure to allow places to thrive. The funding will also be used to create jobs, equip a new generation with the skills they need for the future and attract billions of pounds of private sector investment. This investment is Government stepping up, not stepping back, building on our strengths to boost national productivity and growth.
This adds to the £2.2 billion we have already invested in Growth Deals in the East of England and in London and the South East in previous rounds, providing targeted financial support to locally-determined projects in order to unlock growth.
The Government announces the award of £556 million to LEPs in the northern powerhouse on 23 January. We will announce the awards for LEPs in other regions over the coming weeks.
[HCWS454]
War Pension Scheme Uprating 2017
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
The new rates of war pensions and allowances proposed from April 2017 are set out in the tables below. The annual uprating of war pensions and allowances for 2017 will take place from the week beginning 10 April 2017. Rates for 2017 are increasing by 1% in line with the September 2016 consumer price index. Rates Rates (Weekly rates unless otherwise shown) 2016 2017 WAR PENSIONS Disablement Pension (100% rates) officer (£ per annum) 9,298.00 9,392.00 other ranks (weekly amount) 178.20 180.00 Age allowances payable from age 65 40%-50% 11.95 12.05 Over 50% but not over 70% 18.35 18.55 Over 70% but not over 90% 26.10 26.35 Over 90% 36.70 37.10 Disablement gratuity (one-off payment) Specific minor injury (min.) 1,136.00 1.147.00 Specified minor injury (max.) 8,474.00 8,559.00 1-5% gratuity 2,834.00 2,862.00 6-14% gratuity 6,300.00 6,363.00 15-19% gratuity 10,018.00 11,128.00 SUPPLEMENTARY ALLOWANCES (WEEKLY) Unemployability Allowance Personal 110.10 111.20 adult dependency increase 61.20 61.80 increase for first child 14.20 14.35 increase for subsequent children 16.75 16.90 Invalidity Allowance higher rate 21.80 22.00 middle rate 14.20 14.30 lower rate 7.10 7.15 Constant Attendance Allowance exceptional rate 134.40 135.80 intermediate rate 100.80 101.85 full day rate 67.20 67.90 part-day rate 33.60 33.95 Comforts Allowance higher rate 28.90 29.20 lower rate 14.45 14.60 Mobility supplement 64.15 64.80 Allowance for lowered standard of occupation (maximum) 67.20 67.88 Therapeutic earnings limit (annual rate) 5,590.00 6,240.00 Exceptionally severe disablement allowance 67.20 67.90 Severe disablement occupational allowance 33.60 33.95 Clothing allowance (£ per annum) 230.00 232.00 Education allowance (£ per annum) (max) 120.00 120.00 WIDOW(ER)S BENEFITS Widow(er)s’—other ranks (basic with children) (weekly amount) 135.15 136.50 Widow(er)—Officer higher rate both wars (basic with children) (£ per annum) 7,187.00 7,259.00 Childless widow(er)s’ u-40 (other ranks) (weekly amount) 32.37 32.69 Widow(er)—Officer lower rate both wars (£ per annum) 2,496.00 2,521.00 Supplementary Pension 90.41 91.31 Age Allowance (a) age 65 to 69 15.40 15.55 (b) age 70 to 79 29.60 29.90 (c) age 80 and over 43.90 44.35 Children’s Allowance Increase for first child 21.20 21.40 Increase for subsequent children 23.75 24.00 Orphan’s pension Increase for first child 24.25 24.50 Increase for subsequent children 26.55 26.80 Unmarried dependant living as spouse (max) 132.80 134.15 Rent Allowance (maximum) 50.90 51.40 Adult orphan’s pension (maximum) 103.85 104.90
[HCWS450]
Foreign Affairs Council: 6 February
(7 years, 2 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 6 February. 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 Ukraine, Egypt, Libya and the middle east peace process.
Ukraine
Ministers will focus on the importance of sustained international support for Ukraine’s reform process. The UK strongly supports Ukraine’s reform agenda which is crucial to build a modern, stable state. We expect discussion will also cover developments in relation to the Minsk agreements.
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 help strengthen Egypt’s internal security, co-operate on regional stability 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 Libyan political process.
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 recent settlement expansion.
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Justice and Home Affairs Post-Council Statement
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The first (informal) meeting of EU Interior and Justice Ministers during the Maltese presidency took place on 26 and 27 January in Valletta. The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), and I represented the UK.
Interior day began on 26 January with a discussion on reform of the common European asylum system. I intervened to reiterate the benefits of separating the proposed relocation mechanism for redistributing asylum seekers between member states from the draft revised Dublin regulation—which the Government have not opted into—and to support activity, including engagement with third countries, aimed at controlling inward migration flows. Ministers agreed to take forward further work to define “solidarity mechanisms”, and on upstream engagement with third countries.
In the afternoon Ministers discussed IT systems for borders and security. There was broad support for the use of biometric data for law enforcement and border security purposes. I reiterated the Government’s call for more proactive sharing of criminal records and to encourage practical solutions, but warned that proposals for a single EU repository/system for fingerprint and DNA data may infringe on member state competence.
In the margins of the meeting, the Policing Minister and I held a number of discussions with other member states on issues including the extension of passenger name records (PNR) exchanges to high-speed rail links, and on the impact of the recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJE) in the Watson/TELE 2 case. Member states agreed to work together to make progress in addressing both issues.
On Justice day, Ministers held an exchange of views on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and moved towards agreeing in principle a text that can subsequently be taken forward by member states under enhanced co-operation. The UK did not intervene in this discussion as we will not participate in the EPPO. The next General Affairs Council (7 Feb) will be asked to agree to ask the European Council whether this measure can be pursued under enhanced co-operation.
This was followed by discussion on a proposed insolvency directive to harmonise insolvency standards. The Policing Minister intervened to support the broad objectives of the measure, which reflect many existing principles of insolvency law in the United Kingdom, but highlighted that we still needed to analyse the detail of the measure. Most member states who spoke cautioned against over-harmonisation as this is an area where national laws and practices diverge.
Over lunch, the Commission presented its new draft legislation aimed at tackling money laundering and terrorist financing. The Policing Minister expressed support of the aims of the legislation as our criminal law is already in line with the proposal harmonising criminal offences and penalties. However, he reminded member states that the UK’s general position on refusing to be limited by EU common rules in relation to criminal law means we may not choose to opt in.
[HCWS452]
Avon Fire and Rescue Authority: Statutory Inspection
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
There have been long standing allegations made against Avon fire and rescue authority in respect of its governance.
In June 2016, the chairman of Avon fire and rescue authority approached the Department requesting assistance with launching an inquiry into concerns raised by members of the authority. That request was subsequently withdrawn by the chairman. In August 2016, and again in October 2016, I asked the fire and rescue authority to commission a full investigation, independent of the authority, into the allegations but the chair and vice-chairs of the authority have made clear to me that they do not intend to commission such an investigation.
In light of this response, I have today commissioned a statutory inspection under section 10 of the Local Government Act 1999 into Avon fire and rescue authority’s compliance with its duty to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions in respect of governance are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. The inspection will focus on the authority’s functions in respect of governance, including, but not limited to, the authority’s duties of accountability and assurance under the fire and rescue national framework.
I consider that the extent, seriousness and persistence of the allegations made against the authority, together with the alleged failures to properly deal with complaints, if well founded, would indicate that the authority is failing to comply with its duty to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement. Such allegations would suggest that the authority is unable to deliver economically, efficiently and effectively now or in the future. As a result, I consider that a statutory inspection is appropriate in this instance and is in the public interest. I should make it clear that I express no view about whether or not the allegations are well founded, as that is a matter which will now be considered by the inspection.
It is in the public interest to ensure that allegations of this seriousness are carefully considered by a suitably qualified person of impeccable standing. Dr Craig Baker will be appointed as the inspector. Dr Baker is an independent consultant who has advised public sector organisations for over 30 years in the UK and overseas.
[HCWS451]
Airport Capacity and Airspace Policy
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
Today I will be laying before Parliament a draft airports national policy statement and beginning a period of extensive public consultation on the policy proposals it contains. National policy statements were introduced under the Planning Act 2008 and are used to set out Government policy on nationally significant infrastructure projects. This draft airports national policy statement sets out the need for additional airport capacity, as well as the reasons why the Government believe that need is best met by a north-west runway at Heathrow.
The draft airports national policy statement, appraisal of sustainability of the draft airports national policy statement, incorporating a strategic environmental assessment, an assessment of the policy under the habitats and wild birds directive, a health impact analysis, and an equality impact assessment will be made available online.
The airports national policy statement, if designated, will provide the primary basis for making decisions on any development consent application for a new north-west runway at Heathrow Airport.
For a scheme to be compliant with the airports national policy statement, the Secretary of State would expect Heathrow Airport Ltd. to:
demonstrate it has worked constructively with airlines on domestic connectivity—the Government expect Heathrow to add six more domestic routes across the UK by 2030, bringing the total to 14, strengthening existing links to nations and regions, and also developing new connections;
provide compensation to communities who are affected by the expansion including noise insulation for homes and schools, improvements to public facilities and other measures. This includes establishing a community compensation fund and a community engagement board;
honour its commitment of payments for those people whose homes need to be compulsorily purchased to make way for the new runway or for those who take up the voluntary scheme of 25% above the full market value of their home and cover all costs including stamp duty, reasonable moving costs and legal fees;
put in place a number of measures to mitigate the impacts of noise, including legally binding noise targets and periods of predictable respite. The Government also expect a ban of six and a half hours on scheduled night flights;
set specific mode share targets to get more than half of airport users onto public transport, aimed at meeting its pledge of no more airport-related road traffic with expansion compared to today;
implement a package of industry-leading measures to limit carbon and air quality impacts both during construction and operation; and
demonstrate that the scheme can be delivered in compliance with legal requirements on air quality.
I have appointed Sir Jeremy Sullivan, the former Senior President of Tribunals, to provide independent oversight of the draft airports national policy statement consultation process and ensure best practice is upheld.
Consultation on airspace
We need to think about how we manage the rising number of aircraft in an efficient and effective manner. By taking steps now to future-proof this vital infrastructure, we can harness the latest technology to make airspace more efficient as well as making journeys faster and more environmentally friendly.
I am therefore also publishing proposals to modernise the way UK airspace is managed, which will be consulted on in parallel. The policy principles set out in this airspace consultation influence decisions taken later in the planning process for a north-west runway at Heathrow, if the airports national policy statement were to be designated, including how local communities can have their say on airspace matters and how impacts on them are taken into account.
It is an important issue and one that will define the principles for shaping our airspace for years to come. It is therefore sensible to allow members of the public to consider both matters at the same time.
The proposals being published for consultation today include the functions, structure and governance of an Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise, which we will establish. The Commission would build relationships between industry and communities, embed a culture of best practice, and ensure an even fairer process for making changes to airspace.
The proposed new call-in function for a Secretary of State on airspace changes, similar to that used by the Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government for planning applications, create a democratic back-stop in the most significant decisions, much called for by communities.
The consultation on airspace policy, new air navigation guidance and the strategic rationale for upgrading the UK’s airspace will be made available online.
Aviation strategy
The aviation sector is a great British success story, contributing around £20 billion per year and directly supporting approximately 230,000 jobs across the United Kingdom. It also supports an estimated 260,000 jobs across the wider economy.
I want to build on this success. My Department is currently progressing work to develop a new strategy for UK aviation.
This strategy will champion the success story of the UK’s aviation sector. It will put the consumer back at the heart of our thinking. The strategy will also explore how we can maximise the positive role that our world class aviation sector plays in developing global trade links, providing vital connections to both the world’s growing economies and more established trading partners. Connections that will only grow in importance as our trading network expands.
I will come back to the House to update you on our plans for the strategy as they develop over the coming weeks.
Consultation and parliamentary scrutiny
These two consultations will last for 16 weeks and close on 25/05/2017. At the same time, and as required by the Planning Act 2008, a period of parliamentary scrutiny (the “relevant period”) now begins for the airports national policy statement, ending by summer recess 2017.
I will be placing copies of all relevant documents in the Libraries of both Houses. Following consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, and assuming that in the light of these processes the decision is made to proceed, we expect to lay a final airports national policy statement before Parliament for debate and an expected vote in the House of Commons by winter 2017-18.
[HCWS447]
“Fuller Working Lives: A Partnership Approach”
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Damian Green)
Today, we are publishing “Fuller Working Lives: A Partnership Approach”, a new employer-led strategy which outlines the demographic change facing the UK and the opportunities and challenges an ageing workforce present for employers, individuals, Government and for wider society.
We are living on average almost a decade longer than our grandparents. While this is good news, it also has implications for employers and the economy, as well as people’s own personal financial security, health and wellbeing.
In 2010, one in four of the working age population was aged 50 and over; and this is projected to increase to one in three by 2022. By 2035, people aged 50 and over will comprise half of the UK adult population (source: ONS (2014) population estimates and 2014-based population projections). Fuller working lives are important for individuals, employers and the economy.
For individuals, analysis shows that by delaying retirement until 65 instead of 55, a male average earner could have £280,000 extra income and might increase his pension pot by 60%. By retiring at 63 instead of 55, a female average earner who took a 10-year career break, could have £180,000 extra income and might increase her pension pot by 50% (source: DWP modelling, “Fuller Working Lives Evidence Base 2017”). Moreover, being in appropriate work is good for an individual’s health, both physical and mental.
For employers, in order to meet future demand it will be increasingly important to recruit, retain and retrain older workers. Over the next five years to 2022, there will be just under 2 million more people aged 50 years and over and 300,000 fewer people aged 16-49 (source: ONS (2014) population estimates and 2014-based population projections). We particularly want to support older workers to remain in and return to the labour market; one in four men and one in three women reaching state pension age have not worked for five years or more.
For the economy, adding just one year to people’s working lives could add 1% to GDP per year; that would be equivalent to £18 billion in 2015, according to ONS data (2015).
Leading employers have worked with us to identify the steps needed to ensure the retention, retraining and recruitment of older workers. The new strategy sets out the case for action business to business, as well as the importance of fuller working lives for individuals and the key actions that Government are taking. It is underpinned by analysis of the attitudes, behaviours and experiences of individuals and employers which are integral to the achievement of the fuller working lives ambition. To support individuals aged 50 years and over to remain in and return to the labour market and tackle the barriers to doing so.
I will place a copy of this strategy document and supporting evidence base 2017 in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS448]
Grand Committee
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Neighbourhood Planning Bill
Thursday 2nd February 2017
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 View all Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 86-III Third marshalled list for Grand Committee (PDF, 125KB) - (2 Feb 2017)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Amendment 14
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
“Permitted development: change of use to residential
Where the Secretary of State, in exercising the powers conferred by the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, makes a general permitted development in respect of change of use to residential use as dwelling-houses, the developer must apply to the local planning authority for a determination as to whether the prior approval of the authority will be required as to—(a) transport and highway impacts of the development;(b) contamination risks on the site;(c) flooding risks on the site;(d) noise impacts of the development;(e) minimum space standards for the dwelling-houses;(f) in cases where the authority considers the building to which the development relates is located in an area that is important for provision of particular services (for example, offices), whether the introduction of, or an increase in, a residential use of premises in the area would have an adverse impact on the sustainability of the provision of those services;(g) whether the location or siting of the building makes it otherwise impractical or undesirable for the building to change use to a use falling within Class C3 (dwelling houses) of the Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987;(h) impacts of air quality and noise on the intended occupiers of the development; and(i) the impact of neighbouring buildings and their uses on the intended occupiers of the development.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my usual interests as this is the first time I have spoken in Grand Committee today. I refer the Committee to my registered interests and specifically declare that I am a local councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and one of the many, many vice-presidents of the Local Government Association who will declare their interest in the course of our proceedings today.
Amendment 14 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, seeks to provide the local community and planning authority with a degree of influence in developments that have been approved by way of permitted development rights in respect of a change to residential use. The amendment sets out those matters for which the developer has to apply to the local planning authority for a determination as to whether they require prior approval. If not dealt with properly, all the matters listed in the amendment could lead to inappropriate development or development that is not sustainable and does not enhance the area, potentially causing significant problems for the local community.
On subsections (a) to (e) in the proposed new clause, I hope the Government will agree that issues such as contamination risks on the site are matters that should be considered by a competent authority. We can all think of former industrial areas that may now be desirable, having been converted from working buildings to offices. However, before development proceeds, there should be a requirement to look at the operations that have taken place there to ensure that there are no consequences for health and other matters. Equally, matters such as space standards are important. Subsections (h) and (i) raise matters for consideration including the level of air quality and noise on the intended occupiers. We have all seen reports in the media on poor air quality, its effect on people’s health and the number of premature deaths that it can lead to.
Locating dwelling houses in an industrial area may not be the best thing for the occupiers. Subsection (f) raises the important issue of the area being a place where businesses operate. Such an area could have considerably more vehicle movement and have services operating early in the morning or late at night. It has been desirable to keep these areas well away from residential areas, and the introduction of homes can lead to complaints and pressure around the matters that we have highlighted. It can also put into question the viability of businesses in the area.
I grew up in Southwark. At one time, it had a very busy and extensive economy around the docks. Look at Jacob’s Island, Canada dock, Greenham dock and Surrey dock. Today, these places are residential, but at one time they were home to big industries—at the time of Dickens or the two world wars. When they were industrial sites, there was very little housing in the area because the work that went on would not have combined with people living there. The industries have now moved away and those areas have become quite desirable. It is important to understand, however, that you cannot have a wharf building with people living on one floor and, on the floor below, all sorts of activities taking place, such as the trading of goods and services. That would not have worked at all due to all the issues I have talked about—vehicle movement, health issues and all the other problems. The amendment seeks to give the authority the opportunity to consider whether a conversion to residential use would have an adverse impact.
Amendment 44, also in my name and that of other noble Lords, seeks to give the power to a local planning authority to publish a cumulative impact assessment. This assessment would look at the impact on the environment and the sustainability of particular services that results from the incremental impact of the action which is taking place under permitted development. By doing that, it would bring in an element of scrutiny. This gives the authority the power to produce the report, look at the evidence and publish it, and see whether it needs to suspend those permitted development rights because they are causing problems. The report is available to the public and the authority retains the right to review it and change its decision at a future point. Both these amendments give local planning authorities many important rights that they need in order to look at these developments. I beg to move.
Baroness Cumberlege (Con)
My Lords, I also declare an interest. I have interests listed in the register and I have a pending legal case concerning a planning application. I have taken advice from the Clerk of the Parliaments and have been told that the sub judice rule does not apply here. I support Amendment 14 and I have been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Porter, to introduce his Amendment 44.
On Amendment 14, I am not opposed to imaginative reuse of buildings: it is sometimes a very good way of preserving or conserving them. In my area a huge mental asylum has been turned into housing. It is of modest architectural merit but it provides homes for people, and those people, fortunately, do not know its distressing and disturbing past.
I can also think of redundant churches, some of real architectural distinction, that have been preserved by being transformed into homes. I am sure noble Lords know lots of other examples. However, I share the caution of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and other noble Lords, that changes of use should not be given without careful consideration of the consequences. There should be a requirement for a community impact assessment.
There are many short-term financial gains to be made by turning employment sites into housing, especially if it is, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said, large-scale development. That can, however, have a detrimental effect on a whole area, and very long-term implications. I think back to the multi-storey office blocks, built for another purpose: it is appropriate for them to be occupied by staff during the day, but they may not be suitable places in which to live.
We have learned from the mistakes of the past, such as the badly designed tower blocks with broken lifts—places of misery and centres of crime. Now they are loudly cheered as they are demolished and come tumbling down. They were recognised as unsuitable places to live in and proved not to be socially beneficial. New tower blocks, however, appear almost daily, crowding the skyline. Presumably, considering the stringency of building regulations, they are good places to live in.
I wonder, however, whether converting office tower blocks of concrete and glass is an appropriate thing to do. We are in the middle of a housing boom right now. Booms do not last for ever, which is why the rush for numbers may be expedient now but not necessarily a solution for future housing needs. We have to be very careful, therefore, to get the balance right between homes that are desperately needed now and the long-standing impact on a local area. I think of my own business. I certainly could not run it on the hoof: my staff and I need a base. We are technologically pretty able but we still need a base. So we must look at the employment opportunities in an area before giving them up.
I move on to Amendment 44. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, has asked me to speak to this amendment on his behalf because unfortunately he cannot be here today; he is speaking at the District Councils’ Network conference in Warwick. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, would have told the Committee that permitted development can be a useful way of speeding up building the homes, infrastructure and communities that are needed. Councils should, however, have powers to consider the impact that new developments are having across an area. Many areas, particularly in London and the south-east, are concerned about the rate at which office space is being converted to residential sites. This could have a very negative impact on local employment and economic growth. The British Council for Offices has estimated that between 3 million and 9 million square feet of office space were converted in England in one year. From April 2014 to September 2016, there were nearly 9,000 applications for prior approvals for office-to-residential permitted development; nearly 3,000 of those did not require prior approval and an additional 4,000 were granted.
The Local Government Association and local councils have expressed their concerns about this issue, so in an attempt to address the problem a number of councils have introduced Article 4 directions to remove the permitted development rights for office-to-residential conversions. However, there have been limitations to the scope of the Article 4 directions in places and they will in many cases be restricted to certain areas within the local authority boundary. There are 17 local authorities that have individual buildings, roads or zones within their local area that are exempt from the rights until May 2019, including the City of London and Manchester city centre.
I share the concern of my noble friend Lord Porter and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Tope, that local planning authorities and their communities should have a greater say on the cumulative impact of new development falling within existing permitted development rights that affects their local area. I am saying this rather than my noble friend Lord Porter, but local authorities should have the right to ask: “Is this desirable housing or are we providing the slums of the future, with all the social problems and attendant costs that poor-quality housing brings?”.
Lord Tope (LD)
My Lords, my name is to Amendment 44 and I would certainly have been happy to add it to Amendment 14 as well, which I support. I first declare my interest as yet another vice-president of the Local Government Association. An interest in many ways more relevant to this debate which I no longer have to declare is that until May 2014, I was for 40 years the local councillor for a town centre ward in a south-west London borough. We debated the effect of permitted development rights, particularly the conversion of offices to residential development, during the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill less than a year ago. In Committee and on Report, we had some spirited debates led by the even more spirited noble Lord, Lord True. I think that he was speaking more in his capacity as leader of Richmond Council, another south-west London borough. Sadly, both debates were very late at night and inevitably therefore curtailed.
I will not repeat all that I said a year ago but this issue has had, and continues to have, a devastating effect on the town centre ward that I used to represent. It has particularly affected the town centre. I cited nine months ago the figures I had had from my local authority, showing that in the 18 months between the coming into effect of the prior approval permissions and being able to obtain an Article 4 direction to cover that area, the town centre lost 28% of its office space. This was just in that 18-month period. Many people assumed that those were vacant offices but they were not. Sixty-two per cent of those offices were then currently occupied and the businesses occupying them were, politely or impolitely, asked to leave. Employment was directly lost from the town centre, with an inevitable effect on its economy—not just the work that goes on in the offices, but all the commerce that is brought by the people working in them. Some businesses were able to move elsewhere; others, sadly, have gone out of business, with a consequent loss of jobs.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendments and thank noble Lords for what they have said because, although I thought this was a serious issue, I was unable to take part in debates on the then Housing and Planning Bill. It is clearly very important. Permitted development is a useful tool when used proportionately. It has been able to free extra capacity to build housing, in many cases, very appropriately. When the National Policy for the Built Environment Select Committee was doing its Building Better Places report, this came up as a formidable problem. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, has described it. It is to do with the scale and the concentration in particular areas. I will be very grateful if the Minister has any figures that show how much conversion of office space to residential there has been and a geographical breakdown that shows some notion of the scale. We are getting housing development outside the normal planning provisions. Once that happens, essentially none of the planning rules applies. One of the things that exercised the committee was that the casual conversion of office space to residential space was compromised because of the absence of space standards and, I think, normal building regulations. I would be grateful if the Minister will state the official position on the lack of acceptable agreed building standards in buildings that are being converted.
There are two social impacts of casual conversion. One is on the nature of the living accommodation that is being created in this era of desperate demand for housing. What sorts of lives are people living? The other impact is that with 28% more housing instead of office space, the demand on services is quite different. Therefore paragraphs (a) to (c) of the proposed new clause are extremely important. Does the department have any assessment of this? Has it done any work on the impacts that can be measured? What is the Minister’s judgment about that? We need more information and to know more about what the department and local authorities know about the way this is working.
Amendment 44 raises an important principle. The point about planning changes is that single changes are manageable and have a useful, and often positive, effect, but cumulative change can be very different. Cumulative change is what the noble Lord, Lord Porter, raises in his amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, represented him very well and spoke about development rights and the impact on sustainability overall. The only analogy I can make—and I hope it would be contained in Amendment 44—is with conservation areas. In conservation areas, you have permitted development rights. You may be able to advise individual householders to put in wooden windows rather than plastic windows or not to put a porch over the front door, but after a while control and discipline slip and the character of the conservation area can be completely compromised. One has to be extremely careful about the nature of the slope when one embarks on permitted development rights. The notion of cumulative impact is very important.
I do not know whether there is anywhere in planning law the concept of a cumulative impact which could inform the way this amendment could be very usefully attached. If there is, there is something to be gained from thinking intelligently about how Amendment 44 might be pursued. It is obvious that local authorities ought to have more control over what happens in the exercise of permitted development rights, and this is very timely because we have now had five or six years of accelerated deregulation, of which permitted development rights are probably the most conspicuous aspect. It is time that we step back and look at the impact of that in relation to local authority competence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on the amendments in this group. Before I respond to some of the specific points that have been made on the two amendments, let me say a little about permitted development generally.
Permitted development rights have long been a part of the planning system and have been recognised as a beneficial way of simplifying the need to secure planning permission. The current permitted development rights for England are set out in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 and provide flexibility, certainty and reduce planning bureaucracy. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, asked about the number of additional homes that have been delivered by permitted development rights. I am particularly proud that development rights in the latest year for which we have figures, 2015-16, delivered an additional 13,800 homes. We are looking to see if we have a geographic breakdown of that, and I will certainly pick up on it.
Baroness Andrews
Are those 13,000 homes generated by the conversion of offices?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I believe that this is all permitted development rights conversion to residential.
Baroness Andrews
It would be useful to have a breakdown of the number generated by the conversion of offices.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I suspect that that forms the bulk of them but I shall endeavour to get that information.
Permitted development rights are making a real difference in providing homes in town centres, rural areas and brownfield sites, supporting our housing delivery ambition. We should welcome that permitted development rights provide that opportunity.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and my noble friend Lady Cumberlege for Amendment 14, which seeks to prescribe those matters which must be considered by the local authority as part of the prior approval process in any future permitted development rights that allow change of use to residential. When new permitted development rights are designed we work to ensure that any matters that we think require the consideration of the local planning authority are included in the prior approval contained within that right. Certain criteria have to be considered in this prior approval process for the change from office to residential, and these include some of the matters contained in the proposed amendment.
Four matters that have to be considered on office-to-residential prior approvals are: transport and highways impacts of the development; contamination on the site; flooding risks on the site; and the impact of noise from commercial premises on the intended occupiers of the development when it shifts, as is proposed, to residential. So they are tailored to consider those specific points. We recognise that in all cases of change of use to residential, the prior approvals that are set out are important. However, this is not necessarily true of all the other proposed prior approvals in the amendment.
The current approach to permitted development certainly simplifies matters—it cuts out some of the bureaucracy and helps in relation to costs for the applicant and the local authority. Amendment 44 covers some of the same territory but is wider. It was tabled initially by the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding, who is not in his place, but was ably spoken to by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and supported by other noble Lords. In the Government’s view the proposal is far too wide. There will be exceptional circumstances where a national permitted development right is not appropriate in a particular location. This is why an effective process to allow local planning authorities to remove permitted development rights already exists. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, referred to this and said that it had made a difference. To be fair, he said that he had hoped it would have gone further but that it has made a difference. As noble Lords will acknowledge, this is true in some of the areas that are hardest hit.
I have been listening carefully. There are issues relating to change from office to residential which have had an impact in some communities on the availability of commercial premises. That is undoubtedly true. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, spoke of his personal experience and made reference to the experience of my noble friend Lord True, who is not in his place, who raised this issue in relation to Richmond.
Article 4 provides part of the answer but obviously fairness demands that those affected are given an opportunity to be heard, that they are given notice and that they are compensated where necessary. However, I am pleased to offer the reassurance that the Article 4 process gives planning authorities the flexibility to withdraw rights in exceptional circumstances, while ensuring the fair treatment of those affected if they are not able to pursue the development. I accept that there is a concern more generally about these issues, and although I believe that these amendments—in particular Amendment 44—go far too far in requiring consideration across the board without being properly targeted, I acknowledge that there is an issue that should be looked at. That point was well made. However, as I said, these amendments go far too far.
I am not sure about the point that was raised concerning cumulative impact, and I suspect that that will be very difficult to define. I do not think it is recognised in planning law but I will investigate that. I think that challenges of cumulative impact would arise depending on how large the area was and so on, but I do not think that it would be easy to tackle.
I would like to reflect on what has been said in Committee today and, without prejudice to the outcome, to go away and perhaps speak to other noble Lords who cannot be here, such as my noble friends Lord Porter and Lord True, as well as others. I shall be very happy to have an open door to discuss this matter but, in the meantime, and with the reassurance that I have given, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the Minister. Before withdrawing the amendment, I would like to raise one or two points with him. The Article 4 direction is not widely used and is not that easy for local authorities to use. The Minister said that Amendment 44 goes far too wide. I thought that it was for the Government to set the broad parameters of policy and then for local authorities to apply it locally. I would not expect the Government to be very specific but I do not see why they would not want to give a wider power, with an authority then looking at how it applies locally and impacts locally. I would welcome further comment on that.
On Amendment 14, I am very pleased that the Minister was able to respond in respect of the first four items in paragraphs (a) to (d) and I thank him for that. However, there are the other items listed in paragraphs (e) to (i), and I do not know whether he can comment on those. I draw his attention, in particular, to paragraph (h), which refers to air quality. Deaths from poor air quality are now regularly reported on in the media, and that is a particular problem in London and elsewhere. If development were to take place on a former industrial area, that could be an issue.
Paragraph (e) refers to minimum space standards. One development that I know of is Lewisham House in Lewisham—the old Citibank tower. It is not the most attractive building in the world—I do not know whether the Minister knows Lewisham town centre. Apparently, at some point in the future it is going to be converted into largely one-bedroomed properties but I do not know what the minimum standards will be. I suspect that the plan will be to have something like 230 one and two-bedroomed properties there, and they will not be particularly big. The whole question of space should be of concern to the noble Lord and to the Government in general. I hope that the days of rabbit-hutch developments are long behind us, but that is something that the noble Lord should certainly look at. There are a number of other places that I know of where I do not know whether the developments have taken place. Lewisham House has not been developed yet—it is sitting there waiting for that to happen. However, we would not want rabbit-hutch developments if we could possibly avoid them.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank the noble Lord for that. In answer to the question, “Do I know Lewisham?”, I have certainly visited it on occasion but, through the noble Lord, I feel I know it better than just from the two visits I have made there fairly recently.
In relation to the points he is making, there has to be a balance in what we do here, and I think that noble Lords would accept that Amendment 44, talking as it does of giving the power, seemingly unchallenged, to local authorities to suspend permitted development rights indefinitely, goes too far. I have offered to go away and reflect on this but I have made it absolutely clear that we cannot accept that amendment as it stands.
Article 4 directions are open to boroughs and other areas to use. In fairness, this is one area where they try to look at the cumulative impact. So, contrary to what I have just said, there are areas where we try to assess cumulative impacts, which is part of the Article 4 consideration. But, as I say, I accept that there is an issue to look at here. I want to go away and reflect on this, so I do not want to get down into too much detail on the position of the different London boroughs or elsewhere. However, I am happy to go away and have a look at it, without prejudice. I hope that noble Lords will take up that offer.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Lord, and of course he is very welcome to visit my ward in Lewisham any time he likes. I can show him one or two places that I have mentioned in our debates as well as other problems I have. I am quite happy to show him. It might actually help us in our debates over the next few weeks. I thank him for his response and am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
“Land use following lapse of planning permission
If planning permission lapses, the local authority may direct the use of that land for purposes relating to priorities in the local development plan or neighbourhood plan.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, this amendment, which is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, seeks to find a way of dealing with the problem when land is just not being used—where planning permission has been agreed but nothing happens and the planning permission then expires. The amendment would give power to the local authority to direct the use of the land for the priorities as detailed in the local development or neighbourhood plan and in line with the priorities set out in the local process we discussed in our previous sitting, and in keeping with the NPPF.
We have a serious problem with land not being used, especially in London where there is a particularly high demand for homes. Again, I can give many examples from my own ward where there are small sites with signs saying “planning permission for X number of houses”, but not much is happening and people are waiting for the land value to increase. Communities and local authorities already have some powers to get things moving, such as the community right to reclaim land, which has been on the statute book for many years. That power enables public bodies to dispose of land. There is also the community right to build so that communities can propose site developments in their area, and which also gives local authorities additional power to get things moving locally.
I hope we will receive a positive response from the Government today. Maybe these matters will be dealt with in the White Paper, I do not know; but we need to get these sites built on. They are an eyesore. Leaving things as they are, with permissions but nothing ever happening, is a problem. We have often talked about the number of permissions already agreed in London but with nothing ever seeming to happen. We need to get things moving. I beg to move.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken in Committee I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the register of interests.
I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in this amendment. The problems he has listed are those relating to London and other urban areas. However, they are not isolated to just those areas. Those of us in rural areas suffer significant frustration when planning permission has been applied for and given but nothing happens. Land is often left untouched for many years when it could have been productively used for key priorities in local development or neighbourhood plans.
Occasionally, spoiling tactics are employed. A local authority can identify a particular use for a parcel of land which does not meet with the approval of either the owner or those living in close proximity. As we all know, anyone may apply for planning permission on any piece of land; they do not have to own it. It certainly helps the process if the applicant is the owner, but this is not a requirement. Spoiling applications are submitted, appear to be in accordance with the local plan and gain approval. Thereafter, nothing is done to the site and those objecting feel their mission has been accomplished.
In such cases, and those listed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I support the local authority having the right to direct the use of the land in order to fulfil the priorities in the local plan or neighbourhood plan. After all, both plans will have taken a great deal of time and effort to be completed; they will have gone out to extensive consultation and been thoroughly examined before being adopted. It is therefore only correct that the aims of those plans should be implemented as far as is possible. I believe this clause would help achieve that aim, which is in the general public’s interest. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for moving and speaking to Amendment 15, which is in group 9. This amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, would allow local planning authorities to direct the use of land upon which planning permission has expired for the purposes of its priorities, as set out in a local development plan.
Authorities should normally take decisions on development proposals within their area in line with the priorities set out in the development plan, together with the other policies of the plan. That principle is already enshrined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and set out clearly in the National Planning Policy Framework. Both the Act and the framework are clear that applications for planning permission must be determined in accordance with the development plan, where its policies are material to an application unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Thus where planning permission has lapsed, any new proposals for development which require planning permission must be determined on that basis.
The planning history of a site, including any recently expired planning permissions, may be a material consideration when considering any fresh proposals. The weight to be attached to any earlier permissions will be a matter for the local planning authority but the importance of the plan remains unchanged. I appreciate and support the intention of the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. However, I do not believe it is necessary at the moment. The noble Lord mentioned the forthcoming White Paper, which we hope will be forthcoming very soon. It will cover this issue, as I have mentioned many times before in the Chamber and elsewhere. This is an issue that we must confront and not just for London and urban areas. I fully accept what the noble Baroness alluded to there.
Perhaps I may bring the Committee back to this legislation, which is designed to streamline processes and deliver more houses. We should not lose sight of that. We all say that we are wedded to it but we must be careful to ensure that it remains a central feature of the thrust of the debate, and of the legislation. If that much land is held by developers, they have fewer excuses for land-banking. I say gently that if that land were developed more quickly, although it would not crack the problem in its entirety, it would go some way to doing so.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, very much for the invitation to Lewisham, which I look forward to fulfilling—not necessarily on a day when Millwall is playing at home but on some other day. With the knowledge that this issue will come forward in the White Paper and that we will have a longer process of having a crack at it in a deeper dive—along with that friendly reciprocation of his invitation—I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I want to speak briefly to Amendment 15, which my noble friend Lady Bakewell has spoken to. I know that Lewisham is closer to this place than some places are, but if the noble Lord is issuing a general offer to visit wards that some of us sitting here represent on local authorities, he might have a few letters in the post. But he would be welcome indeed to come to Colne any time he wishes and I would be happy to show him some of the problems we have that are different from those in Lewisham and other parts of the south-east.
Having cheekily said that, there is something behind this amendment about what happens when a planning permission which has been given, perhaps in detail, then lapses and that permission is no longer in line with a local plan. For example, if there has been a local plan and the permission has been given, a neighbourhood plan may then be adopted which does not have to accord exactly, as I understand it, with the local plan on site allocations but has to be in general conformity with it. If a neighbourhood plan for a village says that a piece of land which has planning permission for housing is not the most suitable while a different piece of land can be allocated—one which local people would prefer to be allocated under the neighbourhood plan—and if that keeps the same number of new houses built in that area, or even more, what then happens?
There is a wider issue: developers and planning committees—planning officers—tend to assume that if a planning permission has previously been given, for example for a change of use, and has not been taken up, and the same application is put in again after four or five years, it ought to be granted, on the precedent that it has been granted previously, and yet circumstances may have changed. There is a very important issue here relating to detailed applications which, at the moment, do not always result in the most satisfactory outcomes because of the assumption that although planning permission has lapsed, it is really still there and all you have to do is fill in the forms, pay the fee and everything will be okay.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I will seek to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on both points.
First, if the planning permission has lapsed, a fresh application has to be put in for the use of the land, and it must conform to the local plan at the time, including any neighbourhood plan that has become part of the local plan in the meantime. Secondly, in planning law there is no presumption that permission should be given in relation to an application with a lapsed permission. That would not be the case. The committee might want to take into consideration the fact that a lot of work has been done and look at it, but there is no presumption in law that it should be adhered to. I do not think that planning authorities are under that misapprehension but if they are we need to make it clear that that is not the case.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I am pleased by his comments and am looking forward to the White Paper and these issues, hopefully, being addressed. I have put Questions down in the House before, and there is an issue with getting houses built in certain areas. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right: there may not be a case for granting permission in certain areas. I accept that entirely. However, in certain areas there is pressure for building and the frustrating thing is that you have given permission to build on the site, then you drive past every day and nothing has happened. It is very frustrating.
I hope that the White Paper will address that. I hope also that the Minister will visit my ward; his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, visited my noble friend’s ward while she was in his job. He may consider that too. If the noble Lord ever comes to Millwall I can assure him of a very warm welcome. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, knows, planning permission and compulsory purchase are big issues down there at the moment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Greaves
“Reviews of neighbourhood areas
After section 61I of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 insert—
“61IA Duty of local planning authority to review neighbourhood areas(1) A local planning authority must from time to time review the neighbourhood areas within its area with regard to—(a) the number and distribution of such areas in the authority,(b) the proportion of the authority covered by such areas,(c) the progress made in the creation of neighbourhood development plans in those areas,(d) the proportion of such areas in which the qualifying authority is a parish council or a neighbourhood forum respectively, and(e) the extent and effectiveness of the promotion of neighbourhood planning within the authority.(2) A local planning authority must consider the review undertaken under subsection (1) and in doing so consider—(a) how it may become more effective in promoting neighbourhood planning and adopting neighbourhood development plans,(b) whether to review its statement of community involvement in relation to its policies on advice and assistance in relation to neighbourhood plans in its area, and(c) whether to carry out a local governance review in any part of its area that is unparished.””
Lord Greaves
My Lords, Amendment 16 is about a review of neighbourhood areas and is particularly focused on the importance of existing parish and town councils as a basis for neighbourhood planning. It is a very important amendment and I am grateful, in promoting it, to the National Association of Local Councils for finding a way of getting it onto the agenda of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. I should declare an interest as vice-chair—I think—of the APPG on Local Democracy.
One-fifth of the population of England is parished, according to the NALC. I was looking for the statistic—I have it somewhere but did not find it—on exactly how many neighbourhood plans are in parished areas. Perhaps the Minister can help me there. It is certainly over four-fifths. The great majority of neighbourhood plans have been promoted by the town or parish council, which is the qualifying authority in those areas. We know that 1,800 neighbourhood plans have been started, are under way or have been finished. In all of them, there is a clear relationship between the neighbourhood planning process and the town or parish council, but only a fifth of the population is covered by parish and town councils. The fundamental question behind the amendment is: what are the Government doing to set up more parish councils? Clearly, that must be with the agreement of local people, not imposed, but a lot of principal local authorities do not want any more town councils around the place and are not being very helpful.
I do not know what proportion of the population of the country is covered by neighbourhood plans, but it might be something like 5%. If that is the case, everything that we are talking about in earnest is very much a minority interest out in the country. If only one in 20 people in England is covered by a neighbourhood planning process of any kind, either neighbourhood planning is not for most people or, as I would suggest, it is not being sufficiently promoted to get more people involved.
Some planning authorities not only do not like parish councils, they are not very enthusiastic about neighbourhood plans. Clearly, if you are working on a local plan, you may not want to devote additional resources to neighbourhood plans. Although the responsibility for drawing them up lies with the neighbourhood planning group—either the forum or the parish council—it requires time and effort from local planning officers to ensure that it fits with the local development plan, planning law generally, and will work.
Most big urban areas have not got on with neighbourhood planning yet. Most neighbourhood plans are in rural villages or suburban villages. Some areas are pioneering—the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, will tell us about his—but there are not many in the big urban areas. However, it is not just the big urban areas that are a problem. If my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market were here—I think she is occupied in the Chamber—she would be talking about a town in her area that wants to get on with having a parish council and neighbourhood planning, but is being blocked by the local authority. So it is not just the big urban areas: unparished areas are missing out on neighbourhood planning.
I come back to the reasons why parished areas are taking the lead on this. First, the fact that there is a parish or town council means that there is a focus in that community to discuss and promote such a plan. There is an existing body of local councillors who are used to considering and acting on local issues and problems and giving their view on planning applications. Some of them turn up at planning committees for the principal authority to give oral evidence on behalf of their parishes, but send in their views in writing. Parish councillors are used to considering proposals and schemes by principal councils and government legislation. People ask them whether they want to take part, and they discuss it. In many parts of the country, including mine, they are taking part in community transfers, taking over land, property, facilities and services from district councils at parish council level, so they are used to this kind of thing.
Secondly, as well as being focused, they are a source of resources. They are not huge resources, but they have a clerk, to start off with, and perhaps some other staff who can do the initial things that need doing to get a neighbourhood plan steering group going and are used to dealing with correspondence, reports and all the rest of it in legislation. The other resource that parish councils have is money. They can use some of their precept money to supplement grants from the Government towards the neighbourhood planning process. On our previous day in Committee, we discussed how much the grants are and whether they vary, and I do not have any further information on that. Whether or not they are the same for all parishes, whether big or small, in most cases government grants for a neighbourhood plan will not be enough to carry out that plan. In some cases, the grant will be nowhere near enough. Parish councils are one source of local funding. They are not the only one, but they can do it.
On the other hand, forums are ad hoc and random, and they depend on somebody turning up and taking the initiative or a local group learning about it. There is no one in the community who will automatically consider whether to have a neighbourhood plan. This amendment states that local planning authorities must review their neighbourhood areas and look at how many there are, where they are, what proportion are parished, the progress that is being made and, in particular, the unparished areas that are missing out on neighbourhood planning and must consider how to promote neighbourhood planning better. The amendment puts the onus on planning authorities that are not terribly keen on neighbourhood planning to get keener on promoting it in their area. Finally, if places which are not parished ought to have neighbourhood planning, the amendment requires local authorities to consider undertaking a local government review to consider, with the local population, whether to start the process by setting up a parish council or a town council which would have the ability and resources to produce a neighbourhood plan. It would also be able to do everything else that parishes and towns do. I live in a borough which was mostly not parished when it was formed 40 years ago but is now wholly parished and the process has been almost entirely beneficial. I beg to move.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)
I apologise for arriving a little late. Trains from the West Country are operating rather badly because of bad weather and the London Tube is operating really badly just because it is the London Tube, but it is a delight to be here now. Before I speak, I should draw attention to one of my interests which I have previously declared. I am the president of the National Association of Local Councils, and I will be speaking on an issue that it has raised. It is reflected in some of my noble friend’s comments.
It is clear that the great majority of neighbourhood plans that have been brought forward are in parished areas. I have represented a local community for many years, and I continue to live in one, and I have chaired a neighbourhood plan process initiated by a parish council. It is very obvious that parish councils, in communities where they exist, are very successful in moving things forward in representing community interests. In the context of neighbourhood planning, they provide an essential vehicle for initiating a plan, ensuring there is proper accountability to the wider community and, in the absence of sufficient funding for some of what happens, providing funding. In the case of our own neighbourhood plan, we initiated at a point where there was no government funding at all for the interregnum because the old fund had run out and the new one had not been established. The parish council, although a very small and poor one, was able to step into that breach.
Lord Horam (Con)
What the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said strikes a chord with me. I always represented very urban areas in the House of Commons. I remember rather similar problems, particularly from my time as the Member for Orpington, which was in the middle of the borough of Bromley in south London, not too far from Sutton. The idea of neighbourhood planning is, frankly, a serious joke. It simply does not exist. In fact, it is worse than the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, described it. He said that there was a vacuum and that essentially only a very small number of people, largely in rural areas, had neighbourhood councils, and that is true.
Planning for a neighbourhood in an urban area such as Bromley simply does not exist. In fact, it is worse than that. Orpington was historically a district council and had all the appurtenances of a district council. Indeed, the late Lord Avebury, who was the MP for Orpington, was a district councillor when there was a district council for Orpington, and the council was used to making plans for Orpington. Under the Heath local government changes, it then became part of the London Borough of Bromley. When councillors for Orpington put forward schemes for Orpington high street or whatever for the benefit of the local residents, inevitably when they went to the planning council in Bromley they were promptly overruled by the councillors for Bickley or Chislehurst, who had no knowledge whatever of the Orpington situation. That was to the fury of people in Orpington, who thus became convinced that Bromley was fundamentally an anti-Orpington organisation, and the sooner they got rid of it the better. They went back to Kent, where they had some power as a district council, but they had no power inside the London Borough of Bromley. Their fury was evident to me on many occasions.
It will please the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, to know that when briefly it was under Liberal Democrat/Labour control during the early part of the noughties, as they are called, when the Liberal Democrats were more of a power in the land than they are today, it attempted to meet this problem by forming ward committees—putting wards together and having committees which would consider planning issues on a level more local than the council level. It was a sensible initiative. Sadly, it did not attract much support from the local population. They thought it was another piece of bureaucracy which did not work, cost money and so on. It fizzled out but it was a brave idea, which I supported at the time. It would have given large boroughs such as Bromley—the largest borough in London, with areas such as Biggin Hill on the one hand and Orpington on the other, each with distinct personalities—some kind of local say in a way which the amorphous Bromley council, as such, has difficulty in giving it.
There is a real problem here. When one thinks of neighbourhood councils, one attaches to them an almost merry England kind of picture of lovely little parishes such as Grimsargh in Lancashire. I take my title of Lord Horam, of Grimsargh, because that is where I was born. It has a beautiful set-up, with a parish council and local church, and it works wonderfully. However, such a set-up has no meaning whatever in most urban areas, and yet it is in urban areas that we need it. I now live in Fulham close to the old Imperial Gas site, an area of pollution with a great deal of bad land, gasometers, gas works and miscellaneous offices. It is now Imperial Wharf, with Berkeley-built homes sold mainly to foreigners for a lot of money. You walk down there and find that there is no one on the electoral register because they are all foreigners and that all the languages are not English. It is a great tragedy that it has happened in that way. Obviously I am pleased that it has ceased to be a polluted site and is no longer used for the supply of gas—that is delivered by other means—but the way in which it has been developed has been of no benefit to the people of London or the people of Fulham. There was a need to look at that development from the local area point of view as well that of the overall Fulham and Hammersmith Council.
There is a problem here which I do not know how to solve. It is certainly the case that neighbourhood planning is lacking in most of our major urban areas, and I do not know how to deal with that problem.
Lord Tope
My Lords, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Horam, I should perhaps start by reassuring him that the London Borough of Sutton is still under Liberal Democrat control after 32 years and still has six area committees—and area committees are not the same as neighbourhood forums, let alone parish councils.
Lord Horam
I was referring to Bromley, which has no Liberal Democrat presence at all.
Lord Tope
I know there is a temporary cessation, but give it another year or two.
I strongly support what my noble friends have said in proposing the amendment. However, there is a particular problem, as my noble friend Lord Greaves said, in all larger urban areas—and Greater London is the largest urban area of them all. The problem is exacerbated because until comparatively recently Greater London was not allowed by law to have any parish councils. Since that became permissible under law—I think a little less than 10 years ago; I cannot remember exactly—there has been only one parish council formed in the whole of Greater London and no others. I do not know how many neighbourhood forums there are in London, and I do not suppose the Minister has this information at his fingertips, but, if it is available, I would be interested to know how many neighbourhood plans have been formed, or are in the course of being formed, in Greater London. Perhaps that will serve to illustrate—or, praise be, to deny—the point that the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and I are making. It is a difficult problem, and while I agree with my noble friends that parishing and parish councils are particularly useful and beneficial to neighbourhood plans, if we are to wait for the whole of Greater London to be parished then neighbourhood plans will be a very long time coming. Clearly, that is not the answer. It is a problem in other places too, but particularly in London.
In London, neighbourhoods are often named after former villages. So we know what a neighbourhood is, but it is a heck of a sight more difficult to decide where the boundaries of those neighbourhoods are. They are most certainly not the ward boundaries, because the wards, particularly in London, are based on arithmetic and not on community at all. For administrative convenience, a neighbourhood forum is likely to adopt ward boundaries, at least in part, but they are not necessarily the historic neighbourhoods. That is a particular problem in London.
I have supported parishing and parish councils all my political life, but while it may be desirable, it will not happen quickly enough for the purposes that we are debating today. Therefore, I would be very interested if the Minister is able to say something about the particular issues and problems in London, to which the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and I have referred.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I hope the Minister will understand that this is a very important issue. The reasons for that have been extremely well explained in the speeches that have been made so far. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, made an extremely helpful and important point, as did others, about the problems that exist. In a nutshell, those problems can be explained as follows. On the first day of Committee, my noble friend Lord Stunell pointed out that emerging neighbourhood plans are showing a greater appetite for more housing, precisely because they have more say in the way in which they build their community. In other words, it is in all our interests to promote neighbourhood planning. However, the second problem is that only around one fifth of the country is engaged in neighbourhood planning. As we know, in those places that do not have parish councils, it is a slower process. But as we also know, you do not have to have a parish council to undertake the neighbourhood planning process.
I hope the Minister will be willing to look at this issue between Committee and Report, because we will be coming back to this on Report. The Bill says that neighbourhood planning is important and must become more important. But as a consequence of that, local planning authorities must do more to promote neighbourhood planning. It is for them to decide whether that is through the creation of more parish councils under the review procedures that exist or through the other means that exist. This is a very important issue. It is not going to help the Bill if we simply end up with not many more people engaged with the process.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I have only a few brief remarks to make on this amendment. To go back again to my own ward, in Crofton Park, we have a neighbourhood forum and are tempted to set up a neighbourhood plan. We are one of the places in London that is trying to do this. It is a difficult process, but I certainly see the value of it. My fellow councillors and I, along with community members, are working towards that. We hope to get it approved and to put it to a referendum among local residents.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, is right: there is only one parish council in London, and it is the Queen’s Park parish council in Westminster. It was set up in 2014 after a referendum, and it is based on the Queen’s Park ward of Westminster City Council, which is a Labour-held ward—there are not that many Labour-held wards in Westminster—but it is non-political. I do not think that parties contested the election there, so it very non-political, and by all accounts it works very well and is a very good thing.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was right in what he said about parish councils and neighbourhood plans. They are largely in more rural areas. I know the east Midlands well, and I have come across the Deeping St James Parish Council in Lincolnshire very close to Peterborough. I have many colleagues and friends who are involved in that parish council, and it works very well. They certainly look at their rural area and are very conscious of the planning that takes place there. I accept that in many cases it is as the noble Lord described.
The only issue I have with the amendment is that this is a new duty for local government and perhaps funding should be addressed as well. Perhaps the Minister will address that when he replies.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the many noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this amendment. Before I turn to the specific amendment, I shall make some introductory remarks which I hope will set the matter in its context.
Community members have said that a local planning authority’s input and attitude can make a significant difference to neighbourhood planning progress. We have also heard during our discussion of the importance of neighbourhood planning groups being able to access technical advice and support and financial support. All parts of the committee have spoken of the importance of ensuring that we promote neighbourhood planning, which is something to which all parties are committed. I am sure that that will make a difference. It is clearly beginning to make a difference, although I accept there is much ground still to cover.
I shall say a little about the advice available through the Government’s support programme for communities preparing a neighbourhood plan before we turn to the specific role of local planning authorities. The Government’s £22.5 million support programme has been accessed by communities across the country and has made more than 1,800 payments since it was launched in March 2015. The support available now is very different from that which may have been available to some of the early pioneers of neighbourhood planning. All those wanting to prepare a neighbourhood plan can apply for grant of up to £9,000 to help them do so. Those that fall into certain priority groups can apply for up to a further £6,000. I am not sure that that is widely known. I think there is work to be done to make sure that it is more widely known.
We have reflected on the experiences of early pioneers and responded to new challenges that groups have faced. For instance, specific toolkits and technical support are now available to help groups establish neighbourhood forums in unparished areas, which are usually urban areas, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, to assist with assessing local housing needs and to support those wishing to allocate sites for development. Any group wishing to modify its existing neighbourhood plan can also apply for support in the same way as any other group can on initially setting up. I applaud the work being done by those who are setting up neighbourhood forums or parish councils. Although there is only one parish council in London, there are neighbourhood forums in London and many work across boroughs, such as the Kilburn Neighbourhood Plan Forum which works across the boroughs of Brent and Camden on specific projects.
The Government have also established a national network of 132 neighbourhood planning champions. These volunteers are drawn from local planning authorities and neighbourhood groups and provide advocacy and peer-to-peer support. We are continuing to support them across England through further training and local networking events. Last year, the Government launched a national advertising campaign to promote take-up of neighbourhood planning, targeting 81 local authority areas through adverts in local press, local radio, online and on-street posters. I shall endeavour to provide more information on that. Perhaps it can be disseminated to particular councils that noble Lords will be familiar with so that we can share some of this information more widely because that would be appropriate.
If I have not said this already, and I do not think I have, I will write again. The letter regarding the first day of Committee is in the process of being finalised, and I would like to write another one to pick up points that I do not cover or fully cover in the course of today’s debate. So once again there will be a write-round.
I turn specifically to Amendment 16. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and others who have contributed to the debate. This is an important area. Already, communities in over 70% of local planning authority areas have taken up the opportunities offered by neighbourhood planning, but I fully acknowledge that that does not capture the fact that there are massive gaps. In other words, there are groups throughout the country but it needs to permeate much more widely. There is much more to do, as noble Lords have rightly said.
Local planning authorities have a legal duty to give such advice or assistance as they consider appropriate to facilitate neighbourhood planning. As set out on Tuesday in response to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, these duties are funded by my department under the new burdens doctrine. I can confirm that that funding will continue into the next financial year, and the amount of that will be released ahead of the new financial year so details of it will follow.
Planning guidance sets out the Government’s expectation for local planning authorities to take a proactive and positive approach, working collaboratively with those preparing a neighbourhood plan to ensure that neighbourhood plan proposals have the greatest chance of success. Building on this, Clause 5 requires authorities to set out in their statements of community involvement their policies for providing support to their communities. That requirement applies irrespective of whether there is any existing neighbourhood planning activity in the area and will bring transparency to the support that authorities provide, leading to more informed and equitable discussions.
The Government have set out, in the document entitled Further Information on How the Government Intends to use the Bill’s Delegated Powers, our intention to require statements to be reviewed at least every five years. While it will be for authorities themselves to decide whether the document should be revised, should an authority consider change unnecessary then it must publish its reasons why they are not updating the statement. The Government have also tabled an amendment to the Bill that would allow the Secretary of State to specify by regulations the content of those statements, and I think we are coming to those later.
Local planning authorities are also required to publish a map setting the designated neighbourhood areas in their authority area. Regulations also require authorities to publicise on their website, and by other means, when they designate a neighbourhood area or a forum, together with the progress of individual neighbourhood plans or neighbourhood development orders.
I turn to the part of the noble Lord’s amendment concerning community governance reviews, which are the reviews undertaken to decide whether new parish councils should be established. The Government have already taken steps to make it simpler for neighbourhood forums to request that new parish councils are created for their communities, and have supported communities up and down the country to set up new parishes through a £1 million investment over the past three years.
I can therefore reassure noble Lords that current requirements alongside measures in the Bill, together with government amendments that we have tabled, proactively promote neighbourhood planning and, as I have said, that we are seeking to publicise the benefits of neighbourhood planning.
I would like to cover some of the points that were made by noble Lords, if I can pick up those that I am in a position to answer. Those that I cannot, I will identify and write on later. We understand that around 90% of neighbourhood plans are in parish areas, a point that I think was made.
I was asked about the number of communities that have neighbourhood planning. I can say that over 2,000 communities in England have at least started the process of neighbourhood planning. If I am able to give a more detailed breakdown on that, I will do so when I write.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, raised the specific issue of the need occasionally, or perhaps more than occasionally, to change the boundaries of parishes that may be quite historic, and it may therefore be appropriate if that is revisited at times. At the heart of the neighbourhood planning process is the principle that it is for communities to decide what they plan for. Therefore the boundary of a neighbourhood area does not need to comply with administrative boundaries, and neighbourhoods can bring plans forward.
Specifically on changes to neighbourhood areas, I direct the noble Lord to Clause 4, which sets out some of the procedure. I appreciate that he was aiming more widely—in the sense of how to tackle the problem—but the procedure is covered by Clause 4. If there is anything else I can pick up on that in the write-round, I will do so.
The noble Lords, Lord Tope, Lord Horam and—I think—Lord Shipley, also raised the issue of how we tackle London specifically, and perhaps it relates to a wider area. I will consider that. There are quite a few neighbourhood forums in London, but no parish councils. I accept that, and I will see whether there is anything that we can usefully contribute on that.
I think that those are the main issues that were raised. If I have missed anything I will pick it up in correspondence. We take this issue seriously, and I will seek to address in correspondence some of the specific points raised in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in introducing this valuable amendment. With that reassurance, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the positive and constructive way in which he responded to this amendment. It gives some hope that the Government might, in addition to letting us know what they are doing, put a bit more oomph behind this process. Before I comment on the Minister’s response, I have one or two comments for other noble Lords—and I thank all noble Lords who took part.
My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor talked about changing parish boundaries. Since responsibility for local governance review passed to the local authority and no longer requires the heavy-handed involvement of the Boundary Commission—I am not sure when it was—the process has been quite easy. If a local authority wants to review parish boundaries it can do so through the local governance review, which sets out exactly how it should take place. It can do it for the whole authority area or for just one or two parishes—to tackle a particular problem, such as the one my noble friend mentioned. It does not, therefore, need a new process, just for the local authority—in this case presumably Cornwall unitary council—to agree to do it.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, reminded me of the only time I have been to Orpington. It was an extremely long time ago, and the first time I ever knocked on a door was on behalf of a Liberal candidate: Eric Lubbock, in the by-election of 1962. Before his sad death last year he was, of course, for many years, Lord Avebury. I remember it well. I would not claim to be an expert on Orpington but I would have thought that Orpington and perhaps some other communities there, such as Biggin Hill—where I remember traipsing around on unmade roads—would be an ideal place for a parish council. It ought to happen.
I am a member of an authority and was heavily involved in setting up area committees about 20 years ago. It is important for area committees on a local authority to be given real powers and not just be talking shops. We have had area committees with real powers. In fact the political job I most enjoyed in my life was chairing the Colne and District area committee for a number of years—again, quite a long time ago.
My noble friend Lord Tope said that we knew what neighbourhoods were but drawing boundaries was always extremely difficult. I think people bring that up as an excuse for not doing it. Drawing boundaries is not difficult if you know what community you want to define, and its core. Then you have to find a way to draw the boundaries with the consent of the people who live on and around them. It is usually quite possible. People know the part of the borough, or whatever, that they live in and, if they do not, a sensible decision has to be made. However, in most cases, drawing boundaries is not difficult.
The important, and more difficult, job is deciding what the core community is to start off with. Sometimes it is the local authority ward. If the local authority ward has been long established—I was about to say “and has been there a long time”, which would be tautologous—because of the activity that has taken place on a ward boundary basis and because that is what the councillors represent, then those boundaries, which initially were pretty arbitrary, take on meaning over the years. That is the case with some of the new authorities that were set up in 1974. In some cases, wards are perfectly reasonable places but, again, it is a question of judgment. In other places where the wards have recently been redrawn, that has resulted in complete nonsense for neighbourhood and community purposes, and things have to be done differently.
Lord Beecham
“(1CA) The development plan documents must contain references to—(a) a threshold for social and affordable housing in the area;(b) the impact of the proposals in the documents on energy efficiency in dwellings and infrastructure in the local area;(c) flood protection for the local area;(d) the impact of the proposals in the documents on air quality in the area; and(e) the provision of green spaces and public leisure areas.”
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I refer again to my interests as a Newcastle city councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. My noble friend Lord Kennedy referred to Queens Park. Perhaps I should declare an interest, given what their Rangers did to my team last night. However, I do so not to wish Queens Park Rangers well.
Turning to this group, Amendment 17 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Kennedy and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege; Amendment 18 is in my name and that of my noble friend; and Amendment 17A is in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Watkins, who do not seem to be in their places, although I assume that somebody will speak on their behalf.
The amendments in this group flesh out the Bill’s prescription of matters that must be included in development plan documents. Amendment 17 includes five substantive issues that ought to be addressed, and on which current government policy is either non-existent or inadequate. The first relates to the provision of social and affordable housing. As noble Lords are aware, affordability appears to be a pretty elastic concept for the present Administration, exemplified by the definition of affordability in relation to rented housing, as 80% of private sector levels, and the definition of starter homes for purchase, as up to more than £500,000 in London. A much more realistic approach is required, but the principle should at least be explicitly acknowledged in development plans, which should, as exemplified in the other areas covered in the amendment, be designed to provide not just “development” but communities.
Despite President Trump’s refusals to acknowledge them, energy efficiency and flood protection issues are increasingly important areas of concern given the growing evidence of the damage that climate change engenders. So is air quality, as underlined by the recent appalling revelations of schoolchildren suffering from the effects of vehicle emissions while they are at school, just a couple of miles away from where we are today—my noble friend Lord Kennedy referred to that issue. Clearly, the provision of green spaces and public leisure spaces should help in this context, as well as being an obvious requirement for any development, new or old.
Noble Lords will no doubt recall the famous picture of David Cameron and the husky in his green days, proclaiming that a Conservative Government would be the greenest Government ever. Well, he shot the husky—metaphorically speaking—and the green agenda became, in his less than elegant phrase, “green crap”. Now is the opportunity for the Government to return to that agenda and, in particular, to ensure that it is embodied in this Bill.
Amendment 18 seeks to ensure the provision of a minimum number of dwellings in any development plan, after consultation locally. In that context, it will be important for locality not to be confined to the area where development might take place, and to ensure that the need for housing in the wider local area is taken into account. The experience of Stevenage, hemmed in by its surrounding county and district areas and without developable land of its own, should not be repeated.
The amendments do not include reference to an issue that I have repeatedly raised; namely space standards, which my noble friend touched on. As noble Lords will recall, in recent years, space standards have fallen substantially below those in Europe. Perhaps when moving his amendment concerning guidance on the housing needs of the elderly and the disabled, which we very much welcome, the Minister could indicate whether this too could be included alongside those matters.
Clearly, we endorse the suggestion in Amendment 17A that the education, health and well-being needs of the population are also reflected in the development plans. I beg to move.
Amendment 17A (to Amendment 17)
Baroness Andrews
“(f) the education, health and well-being needs of the population.”
Baroness Andrews
My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baronesses, perhaps I can speak to the amendment. This is completely spontaneous, but I feel quite strongly about it. The issue is one that surfaced very conspicuously in the Select Committee on the Built Environment; that is, the absolute necessity of planning places that essentially support and nurture the health and well-being of the whole community. Plans must explicitly include designs for such spaces, rather than spaces that, at their very worst, encourage criminal activity because they are small and narrow and do not allow for sufficient activity. It is very interesting that Milton Keynes, in its 50th year, has been praised for the quality of its environment and its particular ability to promote well-being through its green spaces. We can all agree that education and health are part of the fundamental infrastructure of our communities. Good schools, good health services and good health opportunities are part of what makes a community successful. I will leave it at that. The amendment deserves a longer debate, but in the absence of the noble Baronesses, I want to put my comments on the record.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling Amendment 19, which lies in this group and derives from a lengthy debate in the other place. It seems extremely important to address specifically the housing needs that result from old age or disability, so I hope that the amendment will secure support. Regarding the other amendments in this group, a number of these issues are very important and will be debated elsewhere in our consideration of the Bill in Committee. But some of them will also depend on what is actually said in the housing White Paper, which will be published at the beginning of next week. In that sense, we have to reserve our positions with a view to waiting for Report.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, my name is attached to that of the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, on Amendment 17. It is quite right that we should set our priorities in these documents so that the community knows exactly what is in our minds. Its provisions as set out in paragraphs (a) to (e) are really important.
First, Amendment 17 refers to affordable housing. In an earlier debate I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Tope, who said something quite true: that very often the conversion to offices does not allow for affordable housing. Some of the units being built really do not accommodate family-sized residences for people who want to live there, so affordable housing is critical.
Secondly, the amendment refers to,
“energy efficiency in dwellings and infrastructure”,
and we certainly want warm homes. Since I first got involved in planning, the building regulations have become very interesting. We built an office near to us and found the other day that the amount of insulation and everything that we have to put into it because of building regulations was really encouraging. We need to ensure that that continues.
Thirdly, the amendment refers to,
“flood protection for the local area”.
We sit between two towns. They were both seriously flooded and that caused anguish to those involved, so that is really important. More than that, when we design the sites and think about where housing will go, flooding really must be a consideration because to build on the flood plain is a disaster, as we have seen in these two towns. We should avoid it.
Lastly, the amendment refers to,
“green spaces and public leisure areas”.
In towns and cities, the green spaces are very often described as the lungs within an area. They allow people to breathe. I think of children desperate to get out of their houses and kick a football around or play, or do whatever they want. That also applies to young people and people of a certain age. It seems important that they also have that opportunity, so I strongly support this amendment.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Bourne, who really has listened carefully to what people have said to him. I very much welcome his Amendment 19. I also thank very much the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for coming in on the spur of the moment to move Amendment 17A for the two noble Baronesses who are unable to be here. She is absolutely right that we need to ensure that what we build is healthy and will improve the quality of life for the people in those areas. It is important that we see the thing in the whole, not just bricks and mortar. I very much support these amendments.
Baroness Andrews
I would quite like to speak to the other amendments, if I may, and welcome the Minister in the name of my noble friend. What we are looking at in these amendments is something rather more radical than somebody tacking on to the development plans some fundamental issues such as housing affordability and so on. It invites us to revisit the local development plans. The point about the elements that have been identified, including flood protection, which is more and more of an issue, is that they are exactly the elements that should inform and drive the shape of the local development plan. They are not accidental outcomes—they should be shaping the quality and priorities and the relationship between the local development plan and the local economic plan, led by the LEP. So those additions, as identified, would give us a better opportunity to imagine the sort of communities that we want and give us proper inputs to create a more robust as well as more creative local development plan, which at the moment is very remote from most people. So the only people who tend to get involved in this protracted and complicated process tend to be those who already know the process and have something specific that they want to say.
I turn to Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, to say how much I welcome it and say a few more things, if the Committee will bear with me. This is a really important step forward, but I have some concerns about it, which I want to raise with the Minister. I may be wrong, and I would be happy to be corrected, but this is the first time when the challenges of ageing in terms of housing needs for elderly and disabled people have been recognised in primary legislation. Many of us have been working to that end for quite some years, and seeing it in this Bill is extremely welcome. I look forward very much to following it through with the noble Lord. I would be interested to know why it is felt to be the right move at this time.
My concern is whether it will meet the challenges of an ageing society. I am anticipating much of what the Minister may say, I suspect, but my caveats start here. One of the most predictable things in policy-making is demography; we have known about the demography of the ageing society for 30 or 40 years and known about the impacts. What we have done essentially is to fail to plan for it, because it is in the “too difficult” box—and now it has caught up with us and it is pretty monstrous. We were told in evidence to our Select Committee on the National Policy for the Built Environment that in 20 years’ time, by 2037,
“the number aged between 70 and 80 will grow from 4.5 million to 7.5 million”.
That is another 3 million elderly people. This winter we have seen just in the past three or four months the impact of winter on A&E and the health service in general, and it is clear to me and to many others that we have a model for funding and organisation of the health service that is unsustainable.
The resources that we have, and the conversations that must lead to action, are the ones for housing. What we are debating here is essentially not about housing but about the front line of the health service, and how and where and under what conditions elderly and disabled people live is becoming a prime order question for healthcare and social care policy and not just about finding a housing solution. In another context, we know that 60% of total household growth in England up to 2033 is expected to come from households headed by someone aged 65 or over, and many of them will have disabilities that come with age. Most people want to age in place and live and die at home—and that is part of the responsibility of government. Only 2% of the country’s housing stock is in retirement housing.
In addition, the amendment reflects the responsibility that the Government feel that they have to provide for children, as well as adults with disability; it recognises those needs. But it is really beyond time. We were told in our Select Committee—I keep quoting it; I am conscious of that—that,
“only 4% of the current housing stock met basic accessibility criteria”.
That is a shockingly low figure.
In the context of the amendment and what I have just said, does the guidance recognise that changes are required not only in the amount of specific and specialised accommodation across the range of healthcare and housing needs for elderly people, but also in relation to the need to plan for the housing of elderly people as a whole in housing supply policy? I would argue that we are not providing niche market housing. We should be planning as a whole for an elderly and ageing society. That is the only way to build in foresight and anticipate the needs of the future, and it is the only way to create a national housing policy.
Can the Minister therefore ensure that the guidance that he is planning will make explicit the economic and social argument across health and social care? Local authorities have to know that this is an urgent need, but that it would also help them to hit their other policy objectives. They need to know that it is not only economically efficient but also socially efficient, in terms of health and social care. Frankly, if I were in charge of all this, I would prioritise the handyman services, so that you could get the adaptations—in the homes that need them—that keep people out of hospital or get them home more safely and quickly.
Will he also recommend—and this is in the guidance—that all new homes are built to lifetime home standards, so that everyone has the chance to stay where they are? We were working, in 2008, towards a mandatory standard. I understand the political changes that have driven a more deregulatory agenda, but we now have optional standards. However, since 2004 places such as London have adopted a universal lifetime home standard that has been extremely successful. It is compulsory and has led to a significant increase in provision, and there seems to be no evidence that it is a deterrent because of extra costs.
My second set of questions—I will try to be brief—is also about the context of this amendment. In relation to the NPPF and local development and neighbourhood plans, I feel that this is putting the cart before the horse. Although the cart is very welcome, I would like to see the horse involved. My fundamental question is whether we can count on this planning guidance to achieve the changes that we need in what local authorities are going to plan for and secure. Current planning policy requires authorities to plan for housing for older people. McCarthy and Stone—with which the Minister will be familiar, and one of the biggest builders of retirement housing in the country—told a CLG Select Committee on housing in 2014 that 65% of planning applications for buildings for older people are rejected first time round by councils, and went on to say that measures around the need for local authorities to plan for demographic change were neither clear enough nor likely to be powerfully enforced in their current form.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Best, is not in his place because he has been a great inspiration behind this. We put forward a recommendation by the All-Party Group on Housing and Care some time ago—I think it would be welcomed by local authorities and providers—that the NPPF itself be strengthened and made clearer in relation to planning for an ageing society. That would be wise, because the references in the NPPF are rather vague and insubstantial. It says, in paragraphs 50 and 159, that local planning authorities should,
“plan for a mix of housing based on current and future demographic trends, market trends and the needs of different groups in the community (such as, but not limited to, families with children, older people, people with disabilities, service families and people wishing to build their own homes)”.
I do not think that that is enough in the light of what we are facing and need to do. The Minister has an opportunity to do it because the NPPF is under review. Can he tell us whether the issue has surfaced in the review and the consultations; whether the DCLG is looking at strengthening those sections of the NPPF; and, if not, whether he will commit to looking at how it might be done? There will be no better opportunity.
I have a final comment on the next stage, the local development plan. In relation to the earlier amendments and the identification of things that might go into local development plans, which I support, the point is that this is guidance. It would be entirely logical for it to be in the development plan, so that the guidance had some attachments to it: for example, to set ambitions for lifetime homes. Would the Minister be prepared to meet me, with his officials, to talk about whether this is a possibility and how it might be done?
Turning to the guidance, I have some specific questions. Can the Minister give me some examples of the tone and nature of the guidance, and the degree of detail that we might expect? For example, would he include guidance on how best local authorities might assess our present and future needs, and the range of those needs? Will there be a specific requirement to plan within the housing supply targets at local and neighbourhood level? Will there be specific guidance on how to assess the financial viability of, and benefits from, investments in lifetime homes standards? Where will local authorities go to get the best advice? Will there be advice on how best to link planning with social care and health, and achieve genuine collaboration on setting targets? What provision will there be for consultation with older people about getting a home that they say is the right size for them—usually a smaller home—since “right sizing” is a better term than “downsizing”? Will the Minister ensure that the guidance goes to those dealing with both local and neighbourhood planning? And how will he ensure that this guidance is followed and implemented, which is the only question that really counts? Will he take advice from agencies such as Age Concern, as well as from Habinteg, FirstStop, Berkeley homes and McCarthy & Stone? There are lots of people who know about how to deliver this properly.
I have gone on quite long enough and I think that the Minister will get the message. I look forward very much to seeing the guidance, and I wonder when we will have it. I presume that in the housing White Paper, which we are looking forward to so much and on which the Minister has already given many hostages to fortune, we will have something on this as well.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I too want to speak in support of Amendment 19, which I welcome enthusiastically for two reasons. First, I believe that it signals important progress for the Government to propose their own amendment specifying that the Secretary of State must issue guidance which requires local planning authorities to,
“address housing needs that result from old age or disability”.
This is surely common sense. On the one hand, as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has already argued very persuasively, demographics show that we are an increasingly ageing society. On the other hand, thanks to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and subsequent disability rights legislation passed by your Lordships’ House, disabled people increasingly, and rightly, want and expect to be able to live independently. The supply of more accessible housing is essential to them realising that goal.
Therefore, it makes sense to plan for the future now, in the present. This amendment simply reflects that reality. However, in my view, it does more than that, which is my second reason for welcoming it. It also has real symbolic—even radical, as the noble Baroness said—significance because it underlines the importance of inclusion not just on paper but in practice and, crucially, on an anticipatory basis.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this group of amendments. Before I turn to non-government Amendments 17 and 17A, perhaps I may highlight some important issues which deliver clear social and environmental benefits. They are important matters that should be addressed through a plan-led system.
Clause 6 puts beyond doubt the Government’s commitment to a plan-led system: a system where all local planning authorities have development plan documents in place to ensure that sufficient land is allocated for housing in the right places to meet needs, with roads and other vital amenities required by communities. At Second Reading, several Peers raised the frustration that many communities face when their local planning authority has not put its own local plan in place, or the policies in the plan are out of date. The Bill makes clear the Government’s expectation that all local planning authorities must have up-to-date plans to deal with those issues.
However, as my honourable friend Gavin Barwell, the Minister for Housing and Planning, outlined during discussion in the other place, as long as authorities have policies to address their strategic housing and other priorities, we want them to have more freedom in the type of plan that is most appropriate for their area. The Government have put local and neighbourhood plans at the heart of the planning system. We put local authorities and communities at the forefront of shaping a vision for their areas and deciding how to meet their development needs. The existing regime reflects the understanding that local planning authorities, together with local communities, are best placed to set out future development for their local area.
I turn to non-government Amendments 17 and 17A. As the Minister for Housing and Planning stated in the other place, we need to guard against attempts to duplicate matters which are already addressed in national planning policy. Perhaps I may also address a couple of slightly extraneous points made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I assure him that we are certainly not following any of President Trump’s policies. On climate change, which was specifically raised, although it is not central to this legislation, I reassure him that there is a very strong bipartisan approach which I pursued with the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. We fulfilled our international commitments by signing the climate change treaty—I know because I was there—and very much follow the policy set out in the Climate Change Act 2008, passed by the then Labour Government, of setting carbon budgets.
I move now to the specific points addressed in these amendments. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for moving Amendment 17A on behalf of the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Watkins, who I know feel strongly about these issues, and enabling it to be part of the debate.
The matters addressed in these amendments relate to affordable and social housing, energy, flooding, air quality, green spaces, education, health and well-being. All are clearly addressed through the National Planning Policy Framework. I do not propose to read out all the parts of the framework that cover each issue. However, for example, paragraphs 99 to 104 of the framework require local authorities to shape and direct development to protect people and property from flooding, including through strategic flood risk assessments. Furthermore, paragraphs 120 to 124 require local authorities to safeguard people from unacceptable pollution risks; paragraphs 73 to 74 and 76 to 77 deal with the need for local authorities to provide green spaces and public leisure areas; and paragraphs 69 to 78 set out how local authorities should use the planning system to create healthy, inclusive communities. Noble Lords will be aware that legislation already protects land registered as common land areas.
Local authorities are already required by law to have regard to national planning policy and guidance when preparing their local plans. At examination, the extent to which a draft plan accords with national planning policy is one of the matters that the examining planning inspector will check. The planning regime is already set up to ensure that local authorities have regard to such important matters as those raised in this amendment.
There is no doubt about the importance of the issues raised, all of which help to create attractive and sustainable places. However, specifying them afresh in the Bill would lead to unnecessary duplication and prescription. I therefore do not believe that Amendments 17 and 17A are necessary. They would also limit the freedom for local authorities to choose the type of plan that is appropriate for their area, contrary to the intention of Clause 6.
I turn to Amendment 18, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I fully recognise the importance of ensuring not only that housing is delivered but that the appropriate number of dwellings for an area is agreed at a local level. As noble Lords will be aware, housing is a key priority of the Government and we are clear that we must build more of the right homes, in the right places. To achieve this, it is essential that local planning authorities have an up-to-date plan in place which identifies, as far as possible, the housing needs of their local area. This provides the certainty communities deserve as to the number and location of new homes that will be built.
The very same concerns I expressed on the previous amendments apply here. This issue is addressed more than adequately in paragraph 47 of the National Planning Policy Framework. Local planning authorities must identify and plan to meet, as far as possible, the market and affordable housing needs of their area. Failure to include this information in a local plan may lead to the plan being found to be unsound at inspection stage. We are clear that local communities must be consulted during the plan-making process, in accordance with both legislative requirements and the local authority’s statement of community involvement. Additionally, neighbourhood plans offer a further opportunity for local communities to become involved in planning for the development needs of their area. Alongside this, the Bill includes further measures to ensure that communities are involved from the outset in wider plan-making activity in their area.
In short, I understand the concern that some local planning authorities currently have no local plan, while others do not have up-to-date plans in place. This has a negative impact on the allocation of development sites. However, measures introduced in the Bill will ensure that, in the future, plans are put in place more quickly. Clause 6 will ensure that local planning authorities set out their strategic priorities, including housing.
On government Amendment 19, I thank noble Lords for their warm welcome of this provision. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, I, too, believe that this is the first time that it has been recognised in this way in legislation. To echo what my noble friend Lord Shinkwin said, it is of great symbolic importance as well as practical effect. It sends out a powerful message, just as the Disability Discrimination Act did in 1995. I am proud of the role of my party and other parties in securing that legislation.
The important issue of the housing needs of older and disabled people was raised in the other place, particularly through my honourable friend Heidi Allen. I appreciate that the devil will be in some of the detail and we would not expect all the detail to be in the legislation, but I am certainly happy to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross—she is not in her place, but she has been very interested in this legislation and has vast experience through Age Concern—and other noble Lords to see how we can take this forward in a meaningful way. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, will also have a valuable contribution to make. It is important that we secure sensible legislation and sensible policy moving forward, as I am sure we can.
I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, that there is provision for this in the National Planning Policy Framework, which we will look at. Also—another hostage to fortune—I think that there will be something in the White Paper to enable us to discuss it more fully. I am keen to ensure that, having made this commitment, we get it right. We have to deal with many challenges. Indeed, it is part of the wider issue across government of health and social care. The impact of an ageing population affects probably every government department that you can think of—it applies to DCMS, the Department for Education and other areas—so there is something to be done across government, which I hope we can take on board as well. As a bonus, the aim is to do something for this part of the community. It is important that we do that but it should have the effect of freeing up some housing that this group is in. That, too, is to be welcomed. As I say, I thank noble Lords for their welcome of the amendment.
More specifically, there is already a structure in place that recognises these needs. We have mechanisms through local authorities, the National Planning Policy Framework and building regulations. We need to build on those. The Government have listened carefully to the concerns that have been expressed by many Members in the Commons and the Lords, across parties, about these issues.
Understandably, specific questions were raised. I will try to pick up some of those details in responding by letter. I hope that I have given a broad view of where we are going, but I am, as I say, happy to engage with noble Lords on the more detailed approach as we take the policy forward. With that, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, my noble friend Lady Andrews and the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. My noble friend Lady Andrews touched on the issue of the necessary provision of suitable accommodation for the elderly. That resonated strongly with me. Just in these last few days, I have been contacted by a tearful lady whose elderly mother is living in two-bedroom accommodation—a house rather than a bungalow—where she is effectively confined to the ground floor. Alas, the poor lady is incontinent and is finding it almost impossible to manage in that accommodation. She is applying to be rehoused, but we have very few alternatives to her present accommodation. Over time, we have not provided nationally for this kind of problem, which unfortunately will grow, as she has made clear.
The Minister, in reply, suggested that everything we have discussed today is already included in legislation covering different aspects of planning and development, but Clause 6 specifically concerns the content of development plan documents, and it seems sensible to bring together the various strands in one place. He is gilding the lily somewhat when he speaks as though everything is being done to secure proper guidance in relation to the matters raised in the amendments and our discussion, notably energy efficiency and climate change. To be fair, I am not sure whether it was the present Government or the coalition Government who reduced the standards. Whatever the standards are, they ought to be part of a development plan so that everybody can grasp what is required of such a plan, be they developers or those in the community anxious to see proper development in their area.
I do not want to sound unnecessarily critical of the Government in this matter, because they are moving broadly in the right direction, but I regret that we cannot have the whole picture reflected in what should be an important development in planning policy. However, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Young of Cookham
“( ) In section 34 of that Act (guidance)—(a) the existing words become subsection (1), and(b) after that subsection insert—“(2) The Secretary of State must issue guidance for local planning authorities on how their local development documents (taken as a whole) should address housing needs that result from old age or disability.””
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I gave notice of my intention to oppose Clause 7 standing part of the Bill, which is grouped with my intention to oppose Clause 8, and I will speak to them both fairly briefly.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for signing up to my opposition to Clause 7 standing part of the Bill. When you read the clause, it is extraordinary to find it in a Bill entitled the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. There is nothing localist about it: nothing for local communities or planning authorities to decide, it just assumes powers for the Secretary of State to give directions. Perhaps it should not be here, or perhaps the Bill’s title is incorrect, but it is odd that it is in a Bill called the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. On the one hand, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, says that the Government support localism and neighbourhood planning and they want local people and local councils to decide. On the other, we have the Government taking all sorts of new powers to instruct local authorities, councils and councillors.
Having said that, the most outrageous thing in the Bill is Clause 38, which we shall get to next week. That is something else. The first sentence of Clause 38 reads:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make such provision as the Secretary of State considers appropriate in consequence of any provision of this Act”.
That is localism in one sentence, is it not? But we will deal with that next week and, I am sure, again at Report.
I move on to Clause 8, which I again oppose, and am grateful to the noble Lords who have signed up against it. Again, it is bizarre. Where we have two-tier areas—a county council and a series of district councils—I do not think that there is any detailed planning expertise at county level, so it is odd to take a power to allow counties to take on those powers. Will the county then have to buy in those services, set up its own planning departments or commission the district council to do the work? That seems bizarre. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Baroness Cumberlege
My Lords, very often when we discuss a clause not standing part of a Bill, it is an opportunity to discuss broader matters and the whole of the clause. I am concerned about this clause because it gives me vibes that the Secretary of State wants to micromanage some local planning issues. I would like to understand the intentions behind this lengthy clause and the Minister to explain whether it furthers the cause of devolution of planning powers.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy: this is the Neighbourhood Planning Bill and yet that is not mentioned in all these clauses. Having been a Minister, I know that it is often extremely hard to get some policies that you feel keen about in the department into a Bill. I wonder whether this clause contains all kinds of policies that the department really wants to get legislated and that this is a hook to hang it on. I hope that that suspicion will be negated by my noble friend.
I am worried that the words “direction” and “direct” run through nearly every sentence and clause of the Bill. That says a lot to me. I have been trying throughout the Bill to separate the powers of the Secretary of State—the overall policy—from the local. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, this is not about localism but about the Secretary of State having power to intervene in local issues.
I am also suspicious about whether this is a first step towards getting local authorities to merge. I know that we are talking about planning documents, but I wonder whether this is a first step towards merging local planning authorities. In my area, two planning authorities have willingly combined their back office services. That is fine: it works great, saves money and so on, and we, the inhabitants of those areas, are quite content with that. However, we would resist very strongly if two local authorities were forced to merge because the Secretary of State at that time felt that it would be a good thing to do. That should be resisted, and we would resist very strongly.
I wonder about the content of the clause. Even if it is only about getting authorities to prepare joint planning documents if they do not want to do so, is that a good thing to do or is it a first step? To me, bringing about mergers is about diplomacy, not autocracy. I fear that this has elements of autocracy, but I hope my noble friend will put me right. I am very concerned about this.
As to Clause 8—again I may be mistaken because it is a long time since I was involved as a county or district councillor—in my area of East Sussex, the county council has devolved all the local planning it can to district and borough councils. The county council makes decisions on mineral extraction, waste management, schools, libraries and roads but it does not do detailed planning. It seems slightly odd to make it the default authority for local planning if district or borough planners fail to live up to expectations.
The Bill deals in detail with housing, sites, employment and things of that sort which towns and parishes know a lot about. I thought about what police authorities do when they have problems in their local areas. Of course we get problems in local authority areas. The police get another police force from outside the area to look at the problem, as it knows about policing. If we want a system whereby we can bring together authorities and unpack some of the difficulties that they are facing, would it not be better to get a well-regarded local planning authority to come to help? That seems a better choice. I may have misread both these clauses, so I hope the Minister will put me right.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I was a county councillor for 20 years and have been a district councillor for eight years, so noble Lords will not be surprised that I shall speak against Clause 8 standing part of the Bill. All local authorities are under extreme pressure following many years of budget cuts, and services are being squeezed. In county councils and unitary authorities, children’s services and adult social care are demanding more and more of their budgets. Are the Government seriously proposing, at this critical time, that county councils should take over the preparation and execution of districts’ local plans?
In Somerset, all districts have local plans in place that followed due process and were adopted. There are, of course, other areas of the country where this is not the case, but beating them over the head with a stick hardly seems the way to bring them into line. Paragraph (b) of new Clause 7B inserted by Schedule 2 refers to upper-tier county councils being invited to prepare or revise the development plan. This gives the impression that if a district council has drawn up a plan with which the county council has some disagreement, it can blithely take it over and amend it to its own ends, regardless of how pertinent and important the plan may be to the inhabitants of the district.
The District Councils’ Network opposes Clause 8 because: county councils do not have the local planning expertise required to discharge this proposed function, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, which could lead to further delay; the expenditure incurred by county councils in discharging this function could lead to further additional costs, which would adversely impact on the existing planning capacity of district councils; and there is a lack of clarity about who will be legally responsible in the event of a challenge to an adopted local plan if it is approved through this route.
Surely the Government are not looking to burden county councils with this additional work to replicate that which has already been undertaken by district councils. Neither level of local authority is looking for extra work at a time when one is desperately trying to find the money to care for the vulnerable and the other is desperately trying to facilitate the building of much-needed homes in accordance with the Government’s agenda. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Lord Beecham
I have some doubts and concerns about these provisions. How does Clause 7 relate to combined authorities? How does it fit with the devolution proposals if:
“The Secretary of State may direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document”?
A number of areas are about to elect a mayor and become a combined authority. Within that combined authority, however, there will still be constituent local authorities. How does the provision in Clause 7(2) apply to those areas? Can the Secretary of State direct two or more of the authorities within that area to prepare a joint development plan document, when there is an elected mayor and a whole new structure is being created?
Clause 8, on the county councils’ default powers, states:
“Schedule 2 makes provision for the exercise of”,
those powers,
“in relation to development plan documents”.
That assumes a straightforward situation of a county and districts, but in at least one controversial area, I think I am correct in saying that a court case is proceeding about the proposals which affect some parts of Nottinghamshire County Council and the Sheffield-led new combined authority. That may not quite be its name but the Minister will understand what I am talking about: the mayoral authority that will encompass Sheffield and adjoining authorities, to which I think two Nottinghamshire districts wish to affiliate for some purposes. They will, however, remain part of the county council for other purposes—unless of course this is seen, as the noble Baroness implies, as a step towards a back-door reorganisation of local government. Some of us have concerns about that.
How would these default powers affect that area, assuming that the mayoral authority is created with these two district councils? I think I may have said Nottinghamshire, but Derbyshire is in fact involved in this, rather than Nottinghamshire. There may be a similar problem in Nottinghamshire. How would those arrangements be affected by the provisions of Clause 8? I quite understand that the Minister may not be able to answer that immediately but, if that is the case, he will no doubt write to me.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I shall be very brief but want to ask the Minister four specific questions about Clause 8, which will help us when we come to Report. Clause 8 was a late addition to the Bill; it was not in the initial draft that went to the House of Commons. It would help if the Minister could explain why it was felt necessary to include it.
My first specific question is: can a county refuse to undertake the work and, in that case, what would happen? Secondly, can a county subcontract the work to somebody else, which would presumably include the use of consultants? Thirdly, if it does, how is local knowledge about the district in question going to be guaranteed in constructing the plan? Fourthly, with reference to Schedule 2, it looks to me as though a county can charge a district whatever it likes, so what action do the Government plan to ensure that cost recovery is reasonable?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Before the Minister responds, on the point raised by my noble friend Lord Beecham about difficulties with the Sheffield city region, my understanding is that it is North East Derbyshire District Council and Chesterfield Borough Council in Derbyshire which wish to join. I think that Bassetlaw District Council in Nottinghamshire may also want to join. The legal action is being taken by Derbyshire County Council, which of course partly comprises the north-east Derbyshire and Chesterfield areas. The problem is with three districts in two counties, but one county council has raised the legal action on the points that my noble friend outlined.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank noble Lords for the debate on this part of the Bill. I will try to take Clauses 7 and 8 in that order. There were certainly some questions on which I will need to write with fuller answers, but let me first turn in general to Clauses 7 and 8.
These measures contribute to the Government’s objective of ensuring that all local planning authorities across the country have up-to-date development plan documents—the documents that collectively form the local plan. In particular, Clause 8 ensures that there is not a void and that we have a local plan. We would have been heavily criticised if we had left an obvious hole in the system where no one was preparing a development plan, but I will come to that.
The Government are committed to a plan-led system in England. We have put communities at the heart of that system, and I hope that I can leave no doubt in your Lordships’ minds that we want communities to have confidence in a system that takes account of their views, while delivering the growth that the country needs.
I also want to kill one hare that was set running, which I had not heard before. There is no agenda, let alone a secret agenda, for mergers of councils. This legislation is about neighbourhood planning. Until today, nobody had raised with me that this is about a secret agenda to merge authorities. It is not, it is to try to ensure that we have a full pattern of what is needed for the planning of the country. It is important, therefore, that where local planning authorities do not have an up-to-date plan in place, the Government should take action to resolve this situation. We would have been roundly and correctly criticised if we did not have such plans.
I turn first to Clause 7, spoken to ably by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—I apologise for my short absence during his speech—and my noble friend Lady Cumberlege. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and other noble Lords spoke more widely about this.
We want to encourage collaboration between local planning authorities so that strategic priorities, particularly for housing, across local boundaries are properly co-ordinated and clearly reflected in individual plans. The Local Plans Expert Group which was asked by the Government to examine what measures or reforms might help to ensure the efficient and effective production of plans recommended that more could be done to encourage local planning authorities to work on joint plans. The Government agree with this recommendation, and it forms the basis for the clause.
The idea of joint planning and working collaboratively with neighbours is not new. We know of more than 40 local planning authorities, right across England, that are working on joint plans. There is no agenda about encouraging or, even less, forcing them to merge. My honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning referred during debates in the other place to representatives of Norwich City Council who told him about how they were working with South Norfolk Council and Broadland District Council districts to produce a combined plan across the three districts. We are also seeing joint plans being developed as a result of devolution deals, such as the Greater Manchester spatial framework.
Authorities working jointly with their neighbouring authorities can see that there are benefits to be had. For example, there may be cost reductions to individual authorities through working collaboratively on evidence or through shared examination and legal costs. A joined-up plan-making process, where key decisions are taken together, can also assist local planning authorities to plan for housing.
We know that some areas across the country are having real difficulties in addressing issues that require solutions across geographic boundaries, such as planning for housing need in areas with significant constraints, and collaboration with neighbouring authorities may help to resolve some of those issues.
Clause 7 inserts new Sections 28A to 28C into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and makes consequential amendments. I wish to emphasise that this power can be exercised only where the Secretary of State considers that it will facilitate more effective planning of the development and use of land in the areas of one or more authorities. During the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, I wrote down a reference that he gave to Clause 7(2)(a), I think. I do not think that there is a Clause 7(2)(a), but if we could discuss it afterwards, I am happy to get a full read-out on it and write to him.
New subsection 28A(5) provides that:
“The Secretary of State must, when giving a direction under this section, notify the local planning authorities to which it applies of the reasons for giving it”.
That is a clear provision which ensures that it can only be used appropriately. Presumably, like other provisions of statute, it will be subject to judicial review which, while it is not something that we want to encourage, is a backstop if people feel that any Secretary of State has got it wrong, as may happen on occasion under any Government.
New subsection 28A(3) states:
“The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section only if the Secretary of State considers that to do so will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in the area of one or more of the local planning authorities in question”.
So it is to be used sparingly.
The noble Lord asked five questions about Clause 8. The first question was about why it is needed. It is because we need a plan if there is a gap. His second question was about whether the county council is required to do it. No, it is absolutely clear in Schedule 2 that it is an invitation to the county council. The county council does not have to take up the invitation. He raised several other questions including whether county councils can subcontract this. I suspect not, but I will correct that in the letter if I am wrong. He asked how local knowledge is to be guaranteed. That is specifically the reason this is needed. The Government would look to intervene in this way if we believed it was the only remaining lever to ensure that there is a local plan. The alternative would be the Secretary of State intervening directly, which would not be very local. This is an attempt to get the vacuum filled by the most local appropriate authority, otherwise it will not be done. The most desirable outcome is that the district council does it. The whole procedure can be prevented by the district council doing it, and that is exactly what will happen in the vast majority of cases. We would be roundly criticised if we did not have such a provision.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised some fair points about the impact of this on combined authorities. Clause 8 supplements existing powers to invite the Mayor of London or a combined authority to prepare a development plan, so it is already in existing legislation for an authority in its area. Again, I will take up that point in more detail, but I think that is the provision.
The essence of this is that it is within the power of district councils to ensure that the powers introduced by the clause are never used. That is what we hope will happen. I am of the view that it would be only in the rarest of circumstances, where there is not a plan in place, that this provision would be needed.
Questions have been fairly raised about the skills and capacities of county councils and whether they can turn down this role. We anticipate that there will be discussions with them about what happens if there is no plan. They are the next nearest directly accountable authorities and have knowledge and understanding of the development needs of the area. They are familiar with the planning process and are already involved as statutory consultees in the local plan’s process, and many work with their district councils on cross-boundary issues.
As I said, we would be rightly and roundly criticised if we did not have these provisions. They are needed in order that we can cover the whole country. They are long-stop provisions which I anticipate will not be much needed. They are only on the basis—particularly in regard to Clause 8—that if there were not such provisions it would mean direct intervention by the Secretary of State and the department, which is not what we want in a neighbourhood planning process.
Baroness Cumberlege
I am comforted that there are no secret agendas for mergers, and I thank the Minister for his assurance. As to collaboration between authorities, my noble friend told us that 40 authorities have agreed to provide joint plans. Presumably that has been done without the clause in the Bill. Are the plans likely to be more sustainable because the authorities are working willingly together rather than having joint plans imposed on them by the Secretary of State? I take my noble friend’s point that the power will be used sparingly. That sounds wonderful in debates in this House, but when it comes to the actuality, if it is not written in this document, people will have no recourse to come back.
I am disconcerted by the way in which the clause is framed, its extent and the words threaded through it about the Secretary of State making directions and so on. It is not a light touch but a huge amount of interference from the Secretary of State in local matters, and that I resent.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
On that specific point, perhaps when the Minister responds he can tell the Committee how the policy has arisen. Where are the examples of the councils that do not have these plans? Why do the Government think it so necessary to take such a wide-ranging power, as the noble Baroness asked? Clearly, there must be some very serious problems that the Government want to address for them to take such wide powers. I would love to be informed about what those are.
Lord Shipley
The Minister kindly answered three of my four questions. The missing answer was on the right of a county to charge whatever fee it wishes to. It is an important issue and, if he prefers, the Minister can write to me, but in Schedule 2, lines 31 to 40 rather suggest that a county can charge a district whatever it wishes.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I shall take up those points. In response to my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, this power will be used sparingly, and the Secretary of State will have to give reasons. In preparing their joint plan, the authorities concerned can, if they wish, reject the plan—they are not obliged to adopt it. I repeat that there is absolutely no hidden agenda here. As my noble friend correctly said, it is certainly better where joint plans emerge. That is very much the view of the Government and the Secretary of State. We anticipate that that will be the case in the vast majority of circumstances. We know that, occasionally, local authorities do not necessarily have the capacity. There will be cases—even if there are not, we still have to guard against the possibility that there could be—in which the Government will have to have a backstop power in relation to these matters. That is what this is. The Secretary of State has to give reasons. The authorities concerned can turn down those reasons.
In relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I am advised that there is cost recovery for the work done. I hope that answers his question. If I am wrong on that, I will correct it in a letter.
Lord Shipley
I am happy for the Minister to write to me. Clearly, we need to define what cost recovery is, because the definition of necessary costs currently lies with the county and not the district. There has to be a system that everybody understands.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That is an entirely fair point. As I said, there is a system to ensure that costs may be recovered, but I will elucidate that, if I may, in my letter.
I apologise, but I have forgotten the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I was asking for information on the councils that are failing in their duties and so require the Government to take on these powers. Perhaps there are no councils in that position and the Government are taking the power preventively— I do not know. If there are, which authorities are they?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I am sure the noble Lord was listening very carefully to what I said. I said that we need backstop powers in case that situation arises. I hope that I did not indicate that there is an existing list of authorities against which we thought we were going to use this measure. It is a backstop power. When the noble Lord’s party was in power, it was responsible. I am sure that he would expect any succeeding Government to be the same and to ensure that these powers exist in case they are needed because an authority is not stepping up to the plate.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
That makes it a bit clearer: at the moment, there are no councils against which the Government would need to think about using this power; it is a backstop power. It is good to have that clarified.
When the Minister responded to the debate on Clause 7, he also said that councils will have recourse to judicial review. I have never heard a Minister at the Dispatch Box suggest, in proposing legislation, that the backstop measure is that someone can seek judicial review. Ministers do not usually like that. I think it is an amazing thing to do and I hope it is available for people. However, I am slightly worried by the confidence the Government have in their legislation when their immediate defence is to say, “Don’t worry, you can go off and seek redress in the courts”.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I must correct that very serious accusation. I was not encouraging people to bring legal action. I was explaining, in case noble Lords were not aware of the fact, that this statute, just like any other, is justiciable on its interpretation and that people will have rights at law. That is the point I was making.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I was not suggesting that the Minister was encouraging people to bring legal action. But he certainly said that people would have redress through judicial review. It seemed odd to hear that from the Dispatch Box while we are discussing legislation.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, as a lawyer and somebody who sympathises when somebody has a legitimate compliant, which they may do, against any government department or local authority, I think it is absolutely right that that right is put on the record by the Government. That is all I sought to do. I do not think there is anything improper or extraordinary in that.
“( ) Section 18 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (statement of community involvement) is amended as follows.”
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, before I turn to government Amendments 21, 22, 23 and 130, I shall make some introductory remarks which I hope will set the context for our discussion. We have been clear that we want to see a more collaborative and effective planning system. We have discussed the energy and passion that many communities invest in the preparation of neighbourhood plans, and we are committed to seeing that number grow. We discussed that particularly in relation to the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. We also recognise that not all communities may wish to prepare a neighbourhood plan. Some communities and their local planning authorities are working collaboratively on the local plan for their area, and we want to encourage that. This is also a point we discussed during our first day in Committee.
Clause 11 will clarify how communities can be involved in decisions about the wider planning of their area. It extends the matters to be set out by a local planning authority in its statement of community involvement. This will ensure that authorities include in these statements their policies for involving their communities and others in the preliminary stages of plan-making. Specifically in relation to their functions under Sections 13 and 15 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, these include a local planning authority’s survey function and the preparation and maintenance of a local development scheme. The latter must set out the development plan documents that collectively make up the local plan for the authority’s area, their subject matter and geographic coverage and the timetable for their preparation and revision.
Including an authority’s policies for involving local people in the work an authority will do to survey its area will help local people understand and express views on the changes that may be taking place in the local population, which may influence the type of housing needed, for example, or in the local economy, which may influence the type of accommodation business may need. Changes such as these will drive the development needs of an area that any plan may need to address.
Requiring an authority to set out how it will involve local people when taking decisions on the development plan documents that it will prepare will encourage a discussion between the local planning authority and its community on whether communities may wish to prepare a neighbourhood plan as an alternative to one or more of the authority’s documents. The changes introduced by Clause 11 pave the way for more informed and equitable discussions between local planning authorities and their local communities about the future local growth and development of their area and the sorts of planning documents that will shape these changes.
Government Amendments 21, 22 and 23 will allow the Secretary of State to produce regulations which set out further matters which local planning authorities must address in their statements of community involvement. They will ensure that the Government can clarify further for communities, including neighbourhood planning groups and others, how they can play a role in the development of their area. For example, the amendments will enable the Secretary of State to require authorities to set out how they will provide advice to neighbourhood planning groups on the relationship between a neighbourhood plan and the plans that the authority has prepared or is preparing. This was an issue raised in the other place which my honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning committed to consider further. The amendment responds to that concern. It will also ensure that we can leave communities in no doubt that authorities will set out who they propose to involve and when and how they can get involved.
Government Amendment 130 amends the commencement provision in the Bill to ensure that the power to make regulations in Amendment 23 comes into force with the passing of the Act. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, these amendments are broadly welcome—I think. The devil will be in what the regulations say, of course, but if they are not as benevolent as the Minister is suggesting, we will have a row then. Otherwise I think they are all right.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for enlightening me, if not other members of the Committee, as to the otherwise completely incomprehensible terms of Amendments 21 and 22. Not having been given a crystal ball to look into, I could not really understand what they were about, but he has partially explained them, for which I am grateful.
However, on Amendment 23, we are again in the business of secondary legislation. I do not know whether the Government have yet consulted at all on the regulations and whether there is any chance of seeing any draft regulations before Report, but it would be interesting to know whether they had embarked on a consultation with the Local Government Association, for example, about the contents of any such regulations. Again, it looks like the Government imposing a particular way of proceeding on local government, possibly without any real exchange of views about how that might best be achieved. As we know, other Committees in your Lordships’ House have expressed great concern about the increasing reliance on secondary legislation that all too often emerges without any real evidence of effective consultation about what it should contain.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank noble Lords for their participation in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his almost wholesale welcome, and I hope to avoid the punch-up—
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The provisional punch-up, yes. I will certainly seek to avoid that.
I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, about the rather obscure, not to say Delphic, nature of the provisions; they took me quite a while to get through as well. With regard to more detailed information on policies and so on, we supplied some supplementary information to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I will ensure is circulated to noble Lords to provide more detail on the thinking behind this.
We certainly want to ensure that we discuss the way forward on the issue. This provision was widely welcomed in the Commons, and it is our intention that it should be a means of ensuring that communities are properly involved. I do not think there is anything sinister here, so I am happy to share what documents we have and use them as a way forward.
“( ) After subsection (3A) insert—“(3B) The Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe matters to be addressed by a statement of community involvement in addition to the matters mentioned in subsection (2).””
Lord Beecham
“Guidance on clustering of betting offices and pay day loan shops
(1) Before exercising his or her powers under section 41(1), the Secretary of State must issue guidance to local authorities on the granting of planning permission for change of use to betting offices and pay day loan shops.(2) This guidance must set out the manner in which policies in neighbourhood plans and local plans about the number, density and impact of betting offices and pay day loan shops are to be taken into account when determining applications for change of use, in a way which prevents a deleterious effect on the neighbourhood or local area.”
Lord Beecham
I am really disappointed: I thought we would have a long debate on the technical amendment replacing “and 10” with “10 and 11”, government Amendment 130, but perhaps we can defer that pleasure.
Some of your Lordships may recall the almost holy alliance that I entered into with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and—I cannot read my own writing, but two bishops—in connection with fixed-odds betting terminals and betting shops, and the damage they were inflicting on local communities. I referred to high levels of crime affecting local communities and involving a great deal of police manpower, exposure of staff to violence and the facts that a large proportion of commercial crime occurs in these premises, that they are generally aimed at relatively poor communities and that they are a social menace.
The object of this amendment is to require the Secretary of State to issue guidance to local authorities on planning permission having regard to concerns expressed nationally, not just in debate on the Policing and Crime Bill, when we discussed amendments and the Government assured us that consultation was taking place. Can the Minister tell us how that is progressing and, if it is making progress, whether the Government intend to use this Bill to provide measures in the planning system that might help to deal with what is a growing problem in many places?
A similar concern, although hopefully without any violence involved, relates to payday lenders. I seem to recall reading fairly recently in one newspaper that payday lenders had more than one outlet in an area and people go from one to another. The individual lender will have a limit, but someone can go to three, four or five of these places and take out loans. Obviously, they are usually people in high financial need and very vulnerable. There is potential to attack that problem, in part at least, through the planning system, which is what the amendment is intended to facilitate, without prescribing anything beyond the fact that guidance should be issued. We are not asking the Secretary of State to lay down and impose rigid rules, but to offer guidance to authorities, which I think are increasingly sensitive to this issue, especially, but not only, in more deprived areas. I hope that the Minister will undertake to see whether agreement can be reached or an alternative proposal made when we get to Report. I beg to move.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in his amendment. I simply ask for the Minister’s guidance, either now, in writing or at Report. I draw his attention to the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals All-Party Parliamentary Group, which launched a report earlier this week on the subject. It drew attention to the London Borough of Newham, which has succeeded in using cumulative impact assessments to curb the development of new bookmakers. Broadly speaking, the noble Lord’s amendment is about change of use and new betting offices and payday loan shops. The APPG report was about fixed-odds betting terminals, and I am not sure that it directly related to the location of payday loan shops. However, there is clearly a problem with cumulative impact. Newham Council has adopted policies to curb the development of new bookmakers. The APPG says that:
“While being a helpful mechanism to stop the expansion of future bookmakers, this would not, of course, provide a mechanism to deal with current bookmaker premises and clustering”.
There is, therefore, a very serious issue here and it would be helpful if the Minister could look at it before Report, with a view to having a further debate at that point.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I will make a couple of brief comments before the Minister responds, including one about payday loan shops. I should declare in this context that I am a director of a credit union—London Mutual Credit Union, which is based in London and covers four London boroughs: Southwark, Lambeth, Westminster and Camden. We are also the credit union to the Armed Forces: a number of our members are from the Armed Forces.
I was conscious that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, encouraged the Government to take action in the previous Parliament in respect of the interest rate, and that is very welcome. There is, however, an issue—we certainly get it because our main office is in Heaton Road in Peckham. About 10 doors along is The Money Shop. We often get 50 to 60 applications to join the credit union but also people walking in off the street. Often they have been to The Money Shop and, because of difficulties there, people have suggested that they go down to the credit union. They join, and the first thing that we do is try to find out what their problem is: how big their debt is—get it all out of them. Then, if we can, we will find them a loan. We want to pay that direct to The Money Shop, to end the problem there, not just give it to the people themselves.
There is, however, an issue with a number of these high street shops and how they operate. I would certainly like to see more action—more ability for a local authority to look carefully at its area and see whether there are enough such shops. Unfortunately, as we have all seen, the problem is not borrowing more money, it is getting a grip of your finances and controlling them. Credit unions are one type of organisation that can help with that, along with others such as money advice services.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his amendment, and other noble Lords who participated in the debate, including the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Kennedy. The amendment reflects the importance of planning at the local level to address local issues. I was particularly interested to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the all-party parliamentary group covering betting, the experience of Newham and the local action that it has taken on fixed-odds betting terminals in betting shops.
It may be helpful, first, to remind noble Lords of the important planning changes we made in April 2015 specifically to allow local planning authorities to consider the merits of any application for such uses, and to provide the community with an opportunity to comment. Prior to April 2015, the use classes order grouped betting shops and payday loan shops with other financial or professional services in the A2 use class. This meant that any financial or professional service could change use to a betting shop or payday loan shop without a planning application. Now they would need such an application. Additionally, under permitted development rights, new betting shops or payday loan shops could be opened in any property used as a restaurant, café, pub or other drinking establishment, or hot food takeaway. These changes could be made without local authority consideration.
Responding to concerns raised at that time about the clustering of such uses on the high street, the Government made changes to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order. We took betting shops and payday loan shops out of Class A2 and made them sui generis, or a class of their own. This change was made precisely so that a planning application would be required for any additional such shop. This would allow for local consideration of any issues that might arise due to the change to such a use in that area. Local planning authorities, therefore, already have the ability to manage any additional clustering through their local plan policies. It is not for national government to set out how many betting shops or payday loan shops there should be, and where they should be.
Where a local planning authority is concerned about the clustering of such uses, it should ensure that it has an up-to-date plan with robust policies in place. We know, as has been demonstrated, that some local authorities are already putting in place detailed policies in respect of betting shops and payday loan shops that reflect their individual local circumstances, and setting out the position in respect of the numbers and location of those shops.
The National Planning Policy Framework provides local planning authorities with the policy framework to plan for a mix of uses, promoting the viability and vitality of their town centres. Such policies should be based on sound local evidence and tested at examination. Policies contained in the local planning authority’s development plan must be taken into account when determining any application for a new betting shop or payday loan shop, unless any material considerations indicate otherwise.
Noble Lords will be pleased to know that, as he committed to do in the other place, Gavin Barwell, the Minister for Housing and Planning, met yesterday with the Minister for Sport, Tourism and Heritage, who has responsibility for gambling. They were able to discuss the issues emerging from the review of gaming machines and social responsibility measures undertaken by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As noble Lords would expect, there was a positive discussion to consider how we can continue to work together effectively to take forward any proposals arising from the review, which I understand is likely to report later in the spring. I have not as yet had the opportunity to have a detailed discussion with my honourable friend in the other place. If there is any additional information, once again I will include it in the write-round. There is, therefore, an agenda that will continue to have our attention, recognising the concerns that are widely expressed, and of course this goes much wider than planning.
Although we consider that local planning authorities have the tools they need, we will continue to work closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. However, it is not for national government to set out in guidance how many betting shops or payday loan shops there should be in an area. The tools are already with local authorities. These are local issues that should be dealt with through local planning policies. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Beecham
I am slightly disappointed with the Minister’s reply. The Government are not slow to offer guidance about a range of issues when it suits them, but on this occasion they seem to be something of a shrinking violet. If the Government are concerned about this, I do not understand why they will not take the opportunity to push for change—which is all they would be doing—by offering guidance. They would not be instructing local authorities as to how many such shops there should be; they would be offering guidance in a way that guidance is offered across a range of issues.
If the Government are taking this problem seriously—I am prepared to concede that that may well be the case—I encourage the Minister, in consultation with his colleagues, to recognise that this Bill provides a way of highlighting the issue and advising and supporting local authorities in dealing with what is a growing social problem. Otherwise, ultimately we may have to resort to primary legislation, but goodness knows when that might be. This could make a contribution at an earlier stage, and, after all, I do not think that the Government would be entering into a hugely complicated issue if they were to accept the amendment. However, in today’s circumstances, I am prepared to beg leave to withdraw it but I may wish to return to this on Report.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I did not want to say that this was not an issue—that certainly was not my intention. I wanted to say that we have engaged with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I await a detailed discussion with my honourable friend as to how that meeting went, because I think that there are broader issues. If there are specific planning issues where I think we can make a difference, I shall be very keen to look at those, but I think that the tools are already there for local authorities and perhaps we need to get that message across. However, it is a specific subset of a planning class. They already have the powers and we certainly do not want this to be an imposition. I am not suggesting that the noble Lord was saying that; indeed, he was saying the opposite—that it was directing them.
I shall be very happy to report back further on how the discussions went, perhaps involving the noble Lord’s ally, although I have some doubts about the security of an alliance where you cannot remember the name of your ally.
Lord Beecham
If I had an ally at all, it would be the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol.
“Right to reject a second development application
A local planning authority has the right to reject a planning application if the applicant, or any associated individual or body, already has planning permission to build 50 or more homes in the area.”
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, first, I should say that I tabled this very much as a probing amendment. We all agree that we desperately need more houses for the next generation, and the Bill attempts to loosen the planning system so that we get more permissions to build more homes via improved neighbourhood plans and curtailing the possibility of delays caused by overprotectionist pre-commencement conditions. So far so good, but improving the planning system will not necessarily result in more homes being built. We need some sort of incentive or leverage to make the builders build.
In this context, two bits in the early evidence sessions in the Commons interested me. One was a question from Kit Malthouse MP to Hugh Ellis of the TCPA. He asked:
“On that point, is it possible for a developer to obtain a large permission in an area, and then not develop it out, and then challenge a refusal on another site in that area on the basis that a five-year land supply has not been fulfilled?
Hugh Ellis replied, “yes” and Kit Malthouse went on to spell it out:
“Therefore, by being patient, they are able to blow a hole in the land supply and get a permission that they otherwise would not have done, and double up”.—[Official Report, Commons, Neighbourhood Planning Bill Committee, 18/10/16; col. 32.]
That merely confirmed what other people had been telling me for some years. It was that short conversation that led me to table this amendment as a possible solution. It is not necessarily the only solution. It is worded in such a way that the initiative remains firmly in the hands of the local planning authority. It does not have to refuse a second application from a developer or builder, but it is to be hoped that if there is any hint that the developer is playing speculative games, the local planning authority should have the incontestable right to refuse him or her permission, however suitable the second site may be. I use the word “incontestable” advisedly, the point being that local planning authorities have a duty to fulfil their five-year land supply, which is as it should be, but they need more tools in their toolbox than the current planning system gives them.
To take an alternative approach, a little later in that evidence session there was another conversation between Hugh Ellis and the Minister, Gavin Barwell. Hugh Ellis said:
“You have signalled, Minister, that you are interested in exploring how we can find new ways to challenge that”.
He is referring to the gap between planning permissions granted and houses being built.
“The critical issue is that from 2019-20 onwards, the private sector will probably go on building 150,000 homes a year, almost for ever”.
A little later, the Local Government Association representative added to the conversation:
“I will finish with an example from Croydon. If a planning permission has not been taken up within three years, perhaps a council building company … should be invited to step in and start building the homes that somebody promised they would build but did not”.—[Official Report, Commons, Neighbourhood Planning Bill Committee, 18/10/16; cols. 37-38.]
So there is another possible solution to the problem: giving local councils permission to build out an undeveloped site. An alternative could be for the local planning authority to divide the land up into smaller plots and sell them off to other builders who can guarantee to build them out within a given period of time. There was an article in the Times today which hinted at that as a solution.
Something has to be done. This amendment is entirely probing: to test the Government’s enthusiasm on this issue. There is no doubt in my mind that we cannot go on having national, local and neighbourhood plans for housing continually undermined by developers who do not develop. I expect that the Minister will tell me that all this will be in the housing White Paper, but I like to hope that he can give us some indication of government thinking in this area. I beg to move.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I am speaking on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, who is indisposed and has had to leave. I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register. I am another vice-president of the Local Government Association and a councillor in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees.
My noble friend wanted to say that, while some developers submit planning applications and build the homes for which they have been given permission, not all of them do so. It is not unusual for developers to gain permission but not to start work on site or, if they do, for the work to be at a low level and for the site then to be abandoned. This does not help the housing crisis that the country is currently undergoing. Local planning authorities and councillors believe that there are sufficient planning permissions to cover local housing needs, but they are thwarted when homes are not built in a timely fashion. There is currently little that they can do to encourage a developer to start and finish. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, would encourage tardier developers to take seriously the permissions they already hold and to build to meet the need. It is not intended to penalise the smaller developer who may be having problems financing his work but is aimed at those who have permissions for 50 homes or more, and who could make a real difference to the housing shortage by realising that these homes matter.
I turn now to Amendment 63. We have all seen sites around the country that have received full planning permission and where a digger has been on site and excavated a drainage ditch, then the driver has packed up and gone home. Often the digger is left on site. Perhaps metal barricades will be erected around the ditch, but nothing else happens. These sites can often be left for years before anything further is done. There is a notorious site in my area which was 40 years in development. As noble Lords can imagine, many things have changed in that time, such as the road network and all sorts of other things. It is a real issue that needs to be addressed. The country is suffering a housing crisis, and has been for many years. This will not improve unless we get developers moving to fulfil their obligations to build with the permissions they hold.
Encouragement does not appear to have worked in the past, so we must turn to sanctions. In my amendment I have not specified what “a reasonable time” for completion might be or what the financial penalties should be. I believe that these are best left to be determined by the size of the site and the number of homes not completed in an orderly fashion. The amendment appears to be all stick and no carrot, but I regret that the country has reached the stage where homes need to be built, and developers have to play their part in making that happen. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Duke of Somerset
My Lords, when I first saw the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Cameron, I was not sure that I would be able to support it. However, in his introduction to the amendment he certainly clarified some points, and I agreed with a lot of what he said. However, I see both good and bad points in this short amendment, and would like to offer two comments. First, I declare an interest as a landowner who has recently benefited from a housing development planning application.
On the one side, there are often planning circumstances in which a housebuilder will submit a new, revised planning application on a site where he already has planning permission. This could perhaps be to squeeze in more houses, to improve the layout or to take account of a potential Section 106 condition. The real aim, of course, is to increase profit on the scheme, which is often to the detriment of the vendor of the land.
The disadvantages of the amendment arise where it talks about the “area”. I am not sure whether there is a definition elsewhere of the word “area”, but I take it that it means the local authority area or the district council’s geographical area. Large national housebuilders may have various schemes on the go throughout an LPA, the aim of which is to provide more houses of the type that we really need, as we have already heard. The amendment could thwart these types of concurrent developments, to the detriment of aspiring occupiers. Therefore, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for missing the first part of his speech moving the amendment. Like other noble Lords, I strongly sympathise with the objectives but I am not sure that the amendment as drawn is viable. The noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset, has identified one or two issues with it, notably what is meant by “area”. We are not necessarily talking about a small area or even a city. There are now unitary authorities—for example, Durham and Northumberland in my part of the world—that are geographically large counties. For them, 50 homes is neither here nor there.
The objective that the noble Lord seeks to pursue is absolutely the right one, but the noble Baroness’s amendment is a better way of dealing with matters. She is looking amazed. I am always happy to congratulate the Liberal Democrats on getting something right; it usually happens in leap years, but not always. I think she has identified a better way of approaching the matter than the noble Lord, but what is important is that the noble Lord has raised the issue, which is something that has been in people’s minds for a long time.
I hope that this is an opportunity for the Minister to indicate what, if anything, the Government are considering doing to deal with what is something of a scandal. We apparently have something like 500,000 or 600,000 permissions not acted upon, at a time of huge shortage. The Government want to increase housing numbers, and there must be ways in which developers can be persuaded to get on with it or lose their permission. That could take a variety of forms, and the noble Baroness’s suggestion may more workable than the noble Lord’s. However, the main thing is that the Government should accept there is a problem and agree to do something about it in one form or another, in a way that will help to incentivise the implementation of planning permission and effectively remove the risk of permission being outstanding for long periods with nothing happening on the ground where it is most needed. I am looking forward to a sympathetic reply from the Minister on the issue, without his necessarily committing to either of the two projects.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in this part of the debate, and in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for so ably speaking to an amendment at short notice. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, well and I am sorry to hear about her indisposition. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said at Second Reading and reiterated here today, there is one thing on which we are all agreed: the fact that we need more houses. I thank him very much for stressing that this was a probing amendment; I appreciate that point.
Before us are two amendments that take separate approaches to achieving essentially the same important objective of ensuring that once planning permission is granted, the development of the site should be taken forward as quickly as possible. That is absolutely right. Of course there may be circumstances that affect it, but I appreciate that it can be taken care of in legislation. This is what local authorities and the communities that they represent expect. I therefore thank noble Lords and the noble Baroness for putting forward the amendments in this group, which allows us to have an important discussion on the question of developers making good on their permissions.
Amendment 25, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, would give local authorities the right to refuse to determine a planning application if a developer already had a live permission in that local authority’s area for 50 homes or more. The amendment targets an issue that the Government are determined to address: the gap between permissions granted and the number of new housing units that are completed. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that the amendment as drafted is not quite what is needed; to be fair the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said so too. It is a question of degree—the number of 50, for example, and some of the definitions that would be needed.
We have already taken important steps to tackle delays in the delivery of housing development once planning permission is granted. For example, a key point of concern and delay for many developers is the time taken to comply with planning conditions that can be discharged at a later stage in development, something that this legislation of course seeks to address. Issues with infrastructure can also delay or prevent housing development going ahead. To help tackle this problem, we have already launched the £3 billion Home Building Fund and a separate £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund. The Home Building Fund will provide loans to small and medium-sized enterprise builders, custom builders and off-site construction, and will unlock large sites throughout England. The Housing Infrastructure Fund will provide investment funding to local authorities to help support the development of necessary site infrastructure, such as water, energy and internet, to deliver up to 100,000 new homes.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As I said in opening, the amendment was seeking to provoke the Government on whether they were addressing the problem from our perspective. I am glad to hear the Minister say that the Government are working on the problem and that it will be looked at seriously within the housing White Paper. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I know this is not the right amendment. It is only a provocative amendment to get some form of response from the Government, so I am happy to withdraw it.
“Public consultations
A local planning authority must extend accordingly the length of any public consultations regarding a planning application if any public or bank holidays fall within the consultation period.”
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, this is a simple amendment. As I understand it, the position at the moment is that local authorities can decide to extend a consultation period but they are not obliged to do so. I believe that they should be obliged to do so because Christmas and August bank holidays are sacrosanct for families. It is a bit of a “slickie” if someone can slip in their application around such times —perhaps even by arrangement in less desirable cases—and it goes through, and then people come back from their few days away with their family to find that, suddenly, something they would have very much opposed has been passed. That is the reason for the amendment.
It is important that consultation should be carried out properly on every aspect of planning. It is not just a matter of time but also of the area where the application is for. In my experience, many planning authorities do not understand that in some streets in urban areas the houses are numbered 1, 3 and 5 on one side, and in other streets they are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Sometimes, they do not seem quite sure which houses they should serve the notice on. It is important that local people understand that something is being considered, so that they can decide whether it is good or bad for their area.
It is very useful in urban areas to put the notice on a local lamp-post or telegraph pole. However, it is not so useful when the next council officer who comes along sticks up a removal notice for someone who is moving house and obscures the previous notice. It is important that councils should be aware of what they need to do to enable people to understand local planning.
I went to a meeting in your Lordships’ House with Nick Boles, who had responsibility for this. One of the big discussions was about just who your neighbours are. If your house is on a corner, you can have four or five neighbours in different streets all around you. It really is important that the right people are notified. Even if it is not 100% right, at least a neighbour will say to you, “Have you seen the notice?”. However, if there is nothing there, you are at a terrible disadvantage. The first thing you know about it is when it has all gone through and it is too late. That is the reason for the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Judd (Lab)
I would like to say what a sensible amendment this is. It is impossible to overestimate the amount of cynicism that there is around the whole issue of consultation. There is too widespread a view that it does not make any difference because the planners will do what they want to do anyway, and that switches people off coming forward and participating. A lot of work has to be done to build public confidence in the consultation process. The very specific matter raised in this amendment is important because it is a real issue. I have come across it myself when people have said, “For God’s sake, it’s Christmas. We didn’t know that it was not exempt from the consultation period”. I hope that the Government and my noble friends on this side of the House will take the amendment seriously as a very practical and human suggestion.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor
I shall speak to Amendment 27A standing in my name but, before doing so, I want to say that it must be a relief to the Minister to have what I think are three sensible amendments all thrown at him at once at this late stage in the afternoon.
I do not think that there is anything to object to in the noble Baroness’s amendment. With the neighbourhood planning process that I led locally, we happened to have a consultation period over Christmas and new year, and I was slightly startled to find that I was not under an obligation to extend that period in view of the circumstances. In fact, we extended our consultation period well beyond what was required under the neighbourhood planning rules, and I think it is a common courtesy to do that in holiday periods. As that is not always a courtesy extended by those making applications, perhaps the Government should make sure that it happens.
In relation to Amendment 62, we had a similar need for statutory consultees to respond to what we were doing in a timely way, but they too are notorious for not always doing that. Therefore, I hope that that amendment, as well as mine, will get a positive response.
Turning to my amendment, in the previous planning Bill the Government accepted proposals that I made for modernising the process under the New Towns Act to make the way in which local authorities bring forward proposals for a new settlement—under what is now the garden villages programme that the Government have adopted—easier and more modern. There would still be proper scrutiny, but it would be a process that could work effectively, and the Government accepted that. Since then, they have had a response to the national garden villages and towns programme that I think has exceeded all expectations, as local authorities have seen the opportunity provided by taking low-value land to create really high-class settlements to meet housing needs and which does not involve building around the edges of historic communities in a way that often wrecks those communities. Although people can be very dismissive of nimbyism—the “not in my back yard” attitude—for a long time I have said that that argument is often the right one. The planning system was introduced precisely to stop urban sprawl. As well as protecting the green belt, it was associated with renewing our urban centres with brownfield redevelopment, which is very important, and with the establishment of new settlements. I am delighted that the Government have gone down that route and that there has been such a lot of interest in it right across the country. I know that there are many more schemes still to come forward, and they will mean that we can meet the housing needs of our children, as well as the need for employment facilities, in a way that we too rarely see with most estate housebuilding at the moment.
The New Towns Act was drawn up in a very different era, not an era of localism but one in which national government had huge powers. When a new town development corporation is established, although it is the local authority that brings it forward—we are talking about relatively small communities and garden villages meeting local needs—the current statute says that the board, when established, is appointed entirely by the Secretary of State, not by the local authority that initiated it, and that all expenditure has to be approved in detail, to the last penny, by the Secretary of State. Given that these organisations acquire all the planning powers for the area that is designated and will make a huge investment in the community when that happens, very few local authorities would wish to see the Secretary of State take all those powers. Very few communities would feel comfortable with that either. Most importantly, a Government committed to localism would not feel comfortable with it. To put it bluntly, the Secretary of State probably does not have time to decide the last few pennies of expenditure by a body developing a local garden village.
The amendment is very simple. It says that where a local authority requests the Secretary of State to delegate powers relating to appointing the board and the financial conduct of the organisation, and therefore in practice its work, the Secretary of State should delegate those powers. That opportunity is not currently in the hands of the Secretary of State. I hope the Government will agree that, given the support they have given this policy and given the take up, it would be useful to make that change. I hope we can get a positive response from the Minister on that today.
Baroness Pinnock
My Lords, I shall speak again on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. Amendment 62 is in her name. As my noble friend Lord Taylor said, it is an eminently sensible amendment.
For the past eight years, my noble friend Lady Bakewell has sat on a committee that considers planning applications. She is therefore painfully aware of the length of time that some statutory consultees take to respond. Whether it is the highways department or rights of way department of a county council, the Environment Agency, the Highways Agency, Historic England or the National Trust, some will be consulted on a regular basis and perhaps all will be consulted on some sensitive applications. Very often, their comments will be of a minor nature, but on larger applications their contributions will be critical to, for instance, traffic flow and pedestrian safety, as well as to ensuring that flooding considerations have been adequately catered for and to the protection of the built environment and flora and fauna.
My noble friend does not wish to name and shame those statutory consultees that are tardy in the extreme with their responses—she is very kind—but their silence, despite frequent reminders, causes planning officers a number of headaches. The applicant becomes irritated at being frustrated in their desire to proceed with their development and unjustly blames the planning authority for not getting on with it. Members of the local community, which may have been consulted by both the developer and the planning authority, wonder what is going on and when they might be able to attend the planning meeting and have their say. The ability to express their view in public is extremely important to neighbours and often to the wider community. It is an integral part of the democratic process. It can help protestors to see that there are viewpoints other than their own, even if they do not agree with them. It is not conducive to community cohesion for residents to have to wait, often for very long periods of time, before applications are considered in public as a result of the local planning department, in turn, having to wait for and chase consultees for their responses. The Government and local planning authorities are keen to speed up the planning process. This amendment would certainly be one step towards achieving that aim. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Judd in saying what a sensible amendment this is, as moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parks. The noble Baroness is very experienced in these matters: she is a former councillor in Westminster, she campaigns for leaseholders and she knows this area very well. She has come to the assistance of the House many times on these matters, and we are again grateful to her today. It is right that public holidays should be taken account of, particularly, as she mentioned, in August and at Christmas. They are not, and it is unfair that notices are slipped out when people are not around. I hope that the Government understand that and give a positive response to the issue raised by the noble Baroness.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, has had to leave the Grand Committee tonight. On her behalf, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, made the sensible and important point that statutory consultees should be made to respond in an appropriately reasonable time. I suspect we all know who we are talking about when we talk about those who do not respond—it is the same all over the place, and we should do something about it.
We support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor. It seems practical and sensible that the power to appoint members of boards on new town development corporations should be devolved to the local authority, along with matters of financial conduct. I hope that we can get that agreed.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I obviously support both the amendments from my noble friends, particularly the one from my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, which deals with a very important issue. The other two amendments in the group raise what some noble Lords might consider to be fairly trivial issues, but they are actually very important.
I make one further point about the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Pinnock. If you are taking a major planning application to committee towards the end of the 16-week period in which the Government say it has to be determined—for a new housing estate or industry or whatever—and you have not received a response from important statutory undertakers such as the Environment Agency or the highways authority, or if you are a county district and you are waiting for the county to wake up and submit a consultation response, you have a choice. You can either delay it beyond the deadline and take it to the next committee, which might be three or four weeks later, or you can determine the application without the specific expert advice that you need but have not got within your own authority. You will certainly not have the statutory advice in your own authority. If you do that, it adds to the delays in determinations. As we know, planning authorities are in danger of being sanctioned by the Government and having their ability to determine applications taken away if they do not meet the Government’s deadlines. It is out of their hands.
So what do we do? Do we pass an application that we think is dodgy but for which we do not have the evidence to turn down until we get the advice from the county or wherever, or do we risk being sanctioned and delay it? There is a serious issue here; it is not at all trivial.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parks, raised another issue. In all the years that I chaired committees with development control powers—what used to be the planning sub-committees, then the area committees—the greatest anger among members of the public came from their belief that they had not been consulted properly. They would be concerned and very worried about the planning application, but they would become angry because they had not been consulted. That is the way it is. They would say, “The notice you put up was too small”; “It was across the other side of the field”; “The bull came and removed it”; “Why did my neighbour get a letter and we did not get a letter?”; “The article in the local newspaper came after the deadline for sending in objections”, and so on. I used to say to them, “For heaven’s sake, you have got five minutes to tell us why you are against this—use your five minutes. You are here. You knew it happened. The consultation worked”. They would say, “No—you did not do this and you did not do that”.
This is a very sensible proposal because one of the things that people get most upset about is when a consultation happens over Christmas or Easter. They sometimes even say, “It happened in June when I was away on holiday and I couldn’t do anything about it”. As an authority, we are flexible. If objections come in after the deadline but before the committee, they all get reported to the committee anyway—we are not stupid like that—and people can come to the committee. Even so, people get upset about this issue. I do not think it needs primary legislation, it just needs a change to either the development order or the advice and guidance to planning authorities. The Government ought to say to authorities “Do not include bank holidays or holiday periods”.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has reminded me, as a member of the planning committee in Lewisham, that we rarely refuse applications —we always get advice on what we can or cannot do—but on a couple of occasions we have deferred applications on the basis that people have not been consulted properly. Sometimes the worst offender can be the council itself, if the housing department has not consulted properly. Some people come to the meetings and they are very cross because, as the noble Baroness said, the notice has gone through the wrong doors. People find out by rumour but those who should have been told have not been told at all. If that is proved to our committee, we will certainly defer a decision and allow a proper period for public consultation on the application.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the discussion on these amendments. I shall deal first with Amendment 27 and then move to Amendment 62 as they relate to consultation, and then come back to Amendment 27A.
On the amendment so ably moved by my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, she has vast experience of planning so one listens particularly carefully to what she has to say. From what I can gather, the vast majority of planning authorities exercise discretion in going beyond the 21 days. Most would behave in an exemplary fashion, as Pendle and Lewisham clearly do, by being flexible where flexibility is needed. I have done a deep dive in the department to see whether there have been any complaints about this but I have not found any malefactors or authorities that are not coming up to scratch. This seems a sensible amendment, so I wonder whether my noble friend will meet with officials if she has evidence of bad practice—I am sure she does have—so that we can discuss what we can do. It is important that people are properly consulted and that there is some flexibility during the periods of bank holidays. I would not wish to prescribe a period and then find that all local authorities are saying, “We do not have to exercise any discretion now”. The discretion that is exercised is important.
In response to some contributions from noble Lords, it is inevitable that some people will come along to a planning hearing and be aggrieved that it is not going the way they want. They therefore seize upon whether the procedure has been correctly followed. I agree with the noble Baroness about proper service of notice. I recall some years ago getting a proper notice delivered to me in the proper time, where the development was half a mile away and I was not sure why I was being consulted. That does not matter, but if the reverse happens clearly it does. That said, there are rules that should be adhered to. So, in the write-round, I will ensure that I draw attention to those rules, because clearly they are an integral part of the system as well.
I turn to the amendment so ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who is obviously on a roll now. Once again, this deals with statutory consultation but, on this occasion, in relation to statutory consultees. A couple of points cause me difficulty in responding positively to this amendment. The first is that the annual performance data for 2015-16 show that, on average, 98% of substantive responses were made by the key statutory consultees within the 21-day period or such other period as agreed. Part of the procedure is that the law provides for an extension on a case-by-case basis if the two parties agree to it. This performance appears to be consistent across small and large developments and we monitor that very closely through the annual performance returns that statutory consultees are required to provide by law.
Therefore, I am concerned that adopting the approach suggested in the amendment would lead to a worsening in the performance of statutory consultees. Extending the period to 28 days would mean that the good ones—the vast majority, I have to say—who respond within 21 days would then respond within the 28-day period, and this would slow down performance and affect housebuilding. That said, if the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bakewell, have evidence, I would be very keen to see it. However, so far as we can see, this area is working well and I would be loath to extend the 21-day period. It would be something of a kick in the teeth for those who are working hard to achieve the 21 days, and it would be seen as geared to those who do not perform as well, who appear to be a small minority.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I certainly accept the point that the noble Lord makes. However, as with all these things, the vast majority of people may act properly but there will always be one organisation that does not. Another example that I can think of is when you get your highway repaired and then along comes the water board the following week and digs it all up to put in a new water main. Those sorts of things drive you up the wall. Reminding these organisations how they should operate may be something that the Minister can look at. There will always be exceptions and it may well be that it is one group of people that is always acting in that way in one particular area. I accept that the vast majority act perfectly properly, but it can be extremely annoying when things are not dealt with properly.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The noble Lord makes a very fair point. However, we do not want to flex the legislation and extend the period for the very small minority that fail to meet the deadline when, as I said, the vast majority perform very well. That would send out the wrong message.
I turn to Amendment 27A, spoken to very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor. He was at pains to tell us that, like all the other amendments in this group, this is a very good one. We tend to agree: this is a sensible amendment. It seeks to move responsibility for any town development corporation established under the New Towns Act 1981 from the Secretary of State to the relevant local authority.
I say at the outset that I support the broad thrust of the amendment. This Government are supporting 10 locally led garden cities and towns and 14 locally led garden villages—high-quality new settlements of between 1,500 and tens of thousands of new homes. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has been an influential and important voice in the creation of our garden villages programme, and I thank him for his engagement.
We have seen a strong response locally to our offer of support for locally led garden cities, towns and villages, and we want to do more to help the places that are currently in our programme, and others which may become part of it in future, deliver. The Government recognise that a statutory delivery vehicle, such as a new town development corporation, may in some circumstances be a helpful means of co-ordinating and driving forward the creation of a new garden city, town or village.
The Government also recognise that, in line with our locally led approach, this statutory delivery vehicle, while enjoying significant independence to get on with the business of delivering, should be accountable not to central but to local government. I stress that. That is an argument that has been made not only by the noble Lord but by the Local Government Association and the Town and Country Planning Association.
If there is sufficient local appetite, we will consider legislating to amend the New Towns Act to enable the creation of development corporations, for which responsibility rests locally, not with central government. I reassure noble Lords that the Government recognise and support a locally-led approach to the creation of new garden towns and villages. This fits also with our devolution agenda more generally. As I have indicated, the statutory delivery vehicle of the new town development corporation already enjoys significant independence. However, I believe it should be accountable to local government, not central government.
To that end, should there be sufficient appetite we will look into making local bodies accountable for the new town development corporations, with new legislation should local areas show that they would use it. Discussions stemming from the White Paper would be the first step in exploring local appetite. I hope that with this reassurance and the statement of policy going forward, the noble Lord feels able not to press his amendment. Following the indications I have given, I also ask my noble friend Lady Gardner to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thank all those who supported what I had to say. I do not think it is at all onerous for the good authorities that are already doing what the amendment suggests, and it is important to help those who are living somewhere where they are not getting the benefit of this. However, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
House of Lords
Brexit: Environmental Standards
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they will put in place following Brexit to safeguard environmental standards and biodiversity.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, we already have domestic law that safeguards the environment. The great repeal Bill to be introduced in the next parliamentary Session will incorporate EU law relating to environment and biodiversity into domestic UK law. The UK is also a party to around 30 international environmental agreements and treaties in its own right. We are bound by the obligations that they contain; this will not change on exit from the EU.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure that he appreciates how much the farming policies of this country have an influence on our environment—everything from the quality of water to the state of our wildlife and our soil fertility. At the worst, can he envisage a point where we have a trade deal with the US, with all its implications for food production, and a farming scenario where we would have a countryside of prairies interspersed with feed-lots? Will the Government therefore combine their 25-year farming strategy with their 25-year environmental strategy? We have only one land area, and it would make great sense for those two to be combined.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right that agriculture plays a crucial role in our environmental policy: 70% of our land is farmed, so it is very important. That is why the two forthcoming Green Papers for consultation, to which we look forward to many responses, are about enhancing and handing over a better environment than the one we have inherited, including a vibrant agricultural system. As I have said before to your Lordships, I believe that both are compatible.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I want to push the noble Lord on the Question that was just asked. Will he guarantee to the House that any future trade deal with the United States will be based on our existing high environmental standards, which will not be sacrificed in some sort of grubby trade deal further down the line? This is really important to the House, and we have debated it many times.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, obviously I am not privy to what will be in the forthcoming negotiations, but what we have said and will continue to say is that we are not prepared to see a diminution of our environmental standards. We are subject to obligations and treaties, and we wish to hand over a better environment than the one we have inherited.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, is our departure from Europe not also a great opportunity to support and encourage our very important horticultural industry?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I am taken with what my noble friend has said. Clearly, this provides an opportunity for a boost in domestic horticultural trade. I am very keen, for instance, on Grown in Britain, in terms of our trees. We have, unfortunately, imported many pests and diseases over the years, so I think that this provides us with a great opportunity, and I would encourage domestic tree production.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, we are all reassured that EU environmental legislation is going to be enshrined within UK law, but we will probably be coming out of the single market and entering into a series of trade negotiations with, for example, the United States. Trade negotiations are just that: we will have to make compromises. Will the Minister assure the House that we will not be producing our food to lower standards or consuming food that has been produced more cheaply by undercutting our industry—for example, chicken washed in chlorine and beef reared on growth hormones?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, as I said before, it is important to note that this country has had a very long history of being in advance even of EU law. In fact, our Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 was enacted a decade before the EU habitats directive. The whole direction of travel in this country has been to lead on these matters. We will be working hard in my department to ensure that there is no diminution in standards. We wish to encourage our farmers to produce the best food possible because brand Britain is about high animal welfare standards and high environmental standards.
Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that more than 1,100 individual pieces of European Union legislation affect Defra directly, so they are of enormous importance to the future of our agriculture and environment? It is clear that not all of this can be immediately transferred under the great Bill which we are promised by Ministers, but can the noble Lord guarantee that there will be no diminution or reduction in environmental and agricultural standards, to safeguard the environment in this country?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I want to be absolutely categoric that the whole direction of travel on this is to enhance our environment. All that we are seeking to do, in our negotiations and considerations on the future, is about the brand of Britain as one of high animal welfare standards in the production of livestock and environmental protections. We have a very long and positive history on this.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, we have not yet heard from the Cross Benches, so we shall hear from them.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, when we pass the primary legislation, if we do, on the great repeal Bill, how are we to know what effect that will have when we will not by then have agreed the terms of our trade and many other matters with the European Union?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
As I say, because of the construction of our environmental protections which are part through domestic law and part through our EU law requirements, all of it is coming back so that it will be exactly the same continuum of laws relating to environmental protection. That is the whole point of the great repeal Bill, so there is certainty for the consumer, the producer and business.
Baroness Parminter
My Lords, the Minister referred to an upcoming consultation on the 25-year environment plan. Some matters that are not open for consultation are matters of principle. One of the principles in Europe has been that environmental protection has been maintained by the precautionary principle. Will the Minister guarantee that this Government will uphold the precautionary principle?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, as I have said, we wish and intend to leave the environment in a better position than the one we have inherited. That surely means that we will want a situation where we are advancing our protections rather than not.
Iran: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking in relation to the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen detained in Iran.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, the Government were very disappointed to hear the outcome of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s appeal on 22 January. We continue to raise our strong concerns at the highest levels in both London and Tehran over the treatment and welfare of all British-Iranian dual nationals imprisoned in Iran. FCO officials are in regular contact with Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and we continue to do everything we can for the family.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. Unlike Mr Trump, we seek improved relations with Iran, but here we have a young mother, a British-Iranian citizen, imprisoned after visiting her family there with her daughter—her daughter is solely a British citizen. Surely the time has come for the UK to call for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release before she, her little daughter and her husband—who is here today with his own mother—suffer further.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the suffering of the family can barely be imagined and throughout all this, regardless of some of the extraordinary claims made on the internet, we should remember that this is a loving father who simply wants his family to be reunited. I wholly respect that, which is why we are urgently seeking information on what further legal avenues are available to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe. We undertake that the FCO will continue to offer support to the family, both here in London and in Tehran. We are working towards the positive resolution of this, because that is the right thing for us all to do.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, I first draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests, as chairman of the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce and as the Government’s trade envoy to Iran. Is the Minister aware that I have raised this issue with the Iranian Government? I associate myself wholly with the Question that has been asked. Has the Minister noticed the statement by the President of Iran, the moderate President Rouhani, who has said that if Iran is to attract more investment and commercial engagement with the wider world, it needs to make people who visit Iran both welcome and safe? Is it not the case that this treatment of Nazanin not only is a tragedy for her but is harming prospects for investment and the future of the Iranian people?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I entirely agree with every word that my noble friend has uttered.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in addition to the cruel and manipulative treatment of this family by the Iranian authorities, which were responsible for more than 1,000 executions in one recent year, including women and teenagers, is the Minister aware that predatory attempts have been made to extract money from Nazanin’s husband Richard by so-called intermediaries preying on their sense of desperation? Can the Minister add to what she told us a moment ago and say when our consular officials last saw Nazanin and also tell the House what she can about the other three British citizens who are being held in Iranian jails?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I have read newspaper reports of the appalling attempt to gain money from the family, which the noble Lord has just described, but they are newspaper reports—I personally do not have details of that. It is a fact that those who are dual nationals face significant problems if they are detained in Iran, because we do not have consular access to them. We can ask, but we cannot insist—although it does not stop us continuing to ask. As recently as this Tuesday, my honourable friend Tobias Ellwood met Mr Ratcliffe to update him on what happened when Tobias visited Tehran earlier in January. Officials met the family recently and Tobias also met the family when he was in Tehran. Those meetings will continue, because our only intent is to resolve this issue in a positive way for the family.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I appreciated what the Minister said in the Chamber last week in the debate that we had on this subject—I raised specific questions. I understand the Government’s commitment to do all they can in the circumstances, but the Minister said last week that we were awaiting the end of the judicial process before making any demands for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. Can she reassure the House that when they are satisfied that the process has been concluded, we will immediately demand her release?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, one of our problems is in having information about the process itself, and when it has been resolved within the court system—in the debate, as the noble Lord will remember, I carefully declined to call it a judicial system and referred to it as a court system. As I said earlier, we are urgently seeking information on what further legal avenues may be available to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and we will support the family through that process. The judiciary falls under the auspices of the Supreme Leader, and its shortcomings are evident: I choose my words very carefully, to be accurate. Those standing trial on political or politically-related charges are often denied proper access to a lawyer, which results in defendants lacking a proper defence during their trial. This is an appalling situation.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister understand the disappointment felt by those who supported the nuclear agreement and who have welcomed the improving relations between Iran and the United Kingdom? Would it not be unfortunate, to say the least, if the fact that this matter is not resolved should sully or undermine that emerging and improving relationship?
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, the child is, I understand, entirely a British subject. What are the Government doing about a British subject being held in Iran?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we—I at this Dispatch Box and also colleagues in another place—have made it clear that we stand ready to facilitate the return of Gabriella to this country. She is indeed solely a British citizen, and we stand ready to assist if the family asks us to do so.
Brexit: Article 50
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Spicer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government on what date Article 50 will be invoked.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister has set out the timetable for triggering Article 50 by 31 March, and we remain committed to that timetable.
Lord Spicer (Con)
My Lords, I realise that a much more interesting Question I could have asked would have been, “Where is it all going to end?”—but the Minister would have found that rather difficult to answer. May I instead ask him this question: given that the British people have voted to come out of the European Union, and that the elected House of Commons has voted to begin the process, is there very much left for this House to do, other than to give safe passage to the Bill when it comes before us?
Lord Bridges of Headley
Actually, I think there is a considerable amount for this House to do, so I beg to differ. I am very grateful for what this House continues to do and has already done, both on the Floor of the House and in the considerable work that has been undertaken by your Lordships’ committees, on subjects ranging from acquired rights to fisheries and financial services, which has in a short time made a considerable contribution not just to the debate but to thinking in government. I applaud the work that has been undertaken; long may it continue.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, the Government will have 24 months from the notification of departure under Article 50 in which they will have to negotiate that departure. They claim that simultaneously, in the same 24 months, they will secure, in their words, a comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union. Is it not clear that these tasks are not achievable simultaneously in that short time, and that the claim of securing a comprehensive free trade agreement is a complete fiction?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I know that the noble Lord has a considerable amount of experience of the European Union. I would just gently point out to him two things. The first is, obviously, what the Article 50 process itself refers to, which is the means by which a nation that is leaving the EU will be negotiating the exit deal with reference to the new framework. That is clear in Clause 2 of Article 50. The second point, which I made last week at this Dispatch Box, is that, unlike other nations, we wish to enter a new partnership that reflects the fact that we have been a member of the EU, and remain a member of the EU, and as such our regulations and our laws are deeply embedded in our way of life. Therefore, whereas with other treaties being negotiated with the EU by non-EU countries, people are wishing to bring down barriers, we are wishing to ensure that barriers do not go up. That is why I think we should be entering into this in a different spirit from those other negotiations.
I also draw your Lordships’ attention to what Karel de Gucht, the European Union’s former Trade Commissioner, said recently. Essentially, he said that it does not take as long as five, six or seven years, as some are suggesting, and it could, technically, take a much shorter time.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, given that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said on Tuesday, in moving the Bill, that the central question on Brexit and Article 50 is,
“do we trust the people”,—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/17; col. 818.]
and Liberal Democrats very much agree that that is the central question, can the Minister explain the Government’s refusal to trust the people with the final say on the Brexit deal in a referendum?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I am sorry but we come up against this immoveable object, which is the fact that the referendum took place, the people have decided that we wish to leave the European Union, and that is what we intend to do to honour the commitment in our manifesto. I hope only that the noble Baroness agrees with what her noble friend Lord Ashdown said so wisely on the night of the referendum: that when the British people have spoken, our task is to obey. It is only a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, cannot agree with what he said then as opposed to now.
Lord Dykes (CB)
On a recent visit to Berlin, a puzzled and upset very senior German politician asked me, “Can I ask you a psychological question?”, and I replied, “Please do”. The question was, “Why are the English Europhobes so childish?”. I undertook to give him a reply as quickly as possible. Could the Minister help me with an answer to that question?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I speak here on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government and therefore reflect the views of the Government. I believe that the approach that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister set out in her speech at Lancaster House was far from childish. It is a very mature approach to the challenge that lies before us, and that is what we will now embark upon.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, did my noble friend notice that 500 MPs voted to begin the process of our exit from the European Union, of whom 346 had supported and campaigned for remain, putting the supremacy of the democratic mandate ahead of their personal views. Are they not an example to us all?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I happen to entirely agree with my noble friend on this point. As I have said before, the people have spoken and it is now for us to deliver on the instruction they have given us.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Commission has said that it will consult the European Parliament on an ongoing basis when the Government finally start to negotiate with Europe over this matter. Will the British Government do the same with our Parliament?
Lord Bridges of Headley
As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made clear, and I have repeated many times, it would be completely unacceptable for the European Parliament to get more information than this House and the other place. That is an intention and a commitment that we absolutely intend to hold to.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Regarding parliamentary scrutiny, will the Minister confirm—it would be difficult not to, given what is on the Order Paper—that today alone there are two Oral Questions, one Statement and one debate on the European Union? Just to reassure anyone who may feel that there is insufficient parliamentary scrutiny, will he put in the Library a list of all the Questions he has had to answer and all the Statements to which he has responded on this subject since 23 June? Perhaps we can at least then all agree that that is a pretty good record.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I will be delighted to do so. I am very much enjoying the experience of answering all these questions. I will be here again shortly after one o’clock to answer more.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, did the Article 50 negotiation timetable take sufficient account of the fact that it will include two sets of continental summers, and perhaps even one for the Minister? Also, what will be the effect on the timetable of national elections during this two-year period?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, a number of national elections will take place during this period, not just in France and Germany. We have set out our negotiating position and we will set forth to achieve our aims in those negotiations. Obviously, the political situations in various European countries may change but our negotiating positions are as set out.
Brexit: Trade
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the comparative advantages, disadvantages and costs to the United Kingdom economy of (1) free trade agreements, (2) membership of the European Union Single Market, and (3) participation in the European Union Customs Union.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, we want the UK to have the greatest possible barrier-free trade with the European Union, delivered through a bold and ambitious free trade agreement. We continue to undertake a wide range of macroeconomic and sectoral analyses although, as agreed by Parliament, we will not publish anything that might harm our negotiating position.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
While I am grateful to my noble friend for his Answer, will he address the Question and the information that I seek in it? The Government are asking this House and the other place to take an awful lot on trust. Given that our main exports are in services, how confident is he that we will reach agreement on financial services, for example, within two years of our having left the European Union?
Lord Bridges of Headley
On the first point, I have little further to add. The Government have clearly said—I answered on it a moment ago—that, as the negotiations continue, we will continue to provide to this House and the other place what information we can without undermining our negotiating position. That is not only the right thing to do, but the right thing if we are to build the national consensus that I said at the start we wished to build as we go forward. On my noble friend’s point about financial services, which is a very valid one, I would like to think that we are moving into a slightly new era as regards the understanding of the challenges and issues we face. There is a greater understanding of the mutual benefit that will be achieved if we come to an understanding with our European partners on financial services—not only to avoid a cliff edge in these negotiations, but to ensure that European companies and European Governments continue to have access to the global capital markets and the wonderful services provided in the City.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, the Government will be very aware that in the Korn Ferry survey of FTSE 100 chairmen, 88% are convinced that, as it has been decided to leave the single market and the customs union, no trade agreement could possibly provide the current level of access. Does the Minister accept that consensus is now growing that, under the best terms we can get, we will see a drop in exports to the EU of something like 22%—nearly a quarter—and that no deal with the United States, no matter how favourable, could do more than claw back a very small portion of that loss?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me, but she is approaching this from a somewhat pessimistic point of view. I approach it from a more optimistic and ambitious point of view. I believe that the United Kingdom has a very strong economic record on which we can build. I believe that we already have fantastic networks, right across the world, on which we can also build. Therefore, while I understand the challenges that lie ahead, I believe that when we put our mind to it and approach it in the way that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has set out, there is no reason to take the somewhat pessimistic approach that the noble Baroness has outlined.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, what do the Government think of the latest Civitas research, which can find no discernible benefit from our membership of the EU single market and customs union since we joined it? Is it not also true that the EU needs our free trade very much more than we need its? Is it not also the single market that inflicts Brussels overregulation on the 90% of our economy which does not sell into it, and which has stopped us doing free trade deals with the markets of the future? Is not the single market a pretty good disaster?
Lord Bridges of Headley
There are a number of questions wrapped up in that. From what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister set out in her thoughtful speech at Lancaster House, I shall pick up one point. There are aspects of the customs union that we do not wish to be part of, which restrict our ability to strike free trade agreements with non-EU countries. However, there are aspects of the customs arrangements that exist which we wish to preserve. We wish to try to ensure that there remains frictionless trade across the EU, as far as possible.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, when it comes to assessing the single market, as suggested in this Question, has my noble friend noticed that the Visegrad four countries—and, indeed, several other east and central European countries—are in a state of considerable dissent and questioning about the structure, character and future of the single market? Are we in touch with those Governments and those countries?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My noble friend makes a very good point, as always. Yes, we are in touch with those countries. We are well aware of the issues bubbling around throughout Europe about the future of the single market. All I say is that the British people decided on 23 June to leave the European Union and therefore the course is the one that the Prime Minister has set out.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
Can the Minister tell us how much of a fist-fight the Government are preparing for to protect their position on the customs union?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I am sorry to say that I will not start commenting on language such as “fist-fight”. It does not necessarily augur well for creating the best tone for the negotiations that lie ahead. I will say only that we are determined to protect and strengthen the competitiveness of the United Kingdom economy.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend reinforce what he just said in reply to the Opposition Front Bench? Would it not be a good thing, in the conduct of these debates, if it was recognised that we are preparing not for a battle but for a negotiation?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I absolutely agree with my noble friend, and I will go somewhat further. It is absolutely in our mutual interest—both that of our country and of the countries of the European Union—that we not only come to an agreement on the issues before us but do so mindful of the fact that for generations to come, just as for generations past, this country has faced similar challenges to those faced by countries right across Europe. We therefore need to be in a position to continue to co-operate and collaborate with our European partners in the years and decades ahead.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, has the Minister read the House of Lords report on EU financial services, which fears that New York may predominate in the future as the global financial services centre—including, of course, those services which will gravitate to Frankfurt and Paris?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I have seen it, and it is clear that although some thought that it was a zero-sum game between London and the capitals of Europe, that is not strictly true. However, I point to what I said at this Dispatch Box last week—that there is a growing recognition, not just in this country but in others, that London will remain a very important financial centre, no matter what happens.
Business of the House
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
That Standing Order 40(4) (so far as it relates to Thursdays) and (5) be suspended until the end of the session so far as is necessary to enable notices and orders relating to Public Bills, Measures, Affirmative Instruments and reports from Select Committees of the House to have precedence over other notices and orders on Thursdays.
Business of the House
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
That Standing Order 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Thursday 9 February to enable the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day.
Digital Economy Bill
Thursday 2nd February 2017
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Digital Economy Act 2017 View all Digital Economy Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 80-III Third marshalled list for Committee (PDF, 262KB) - (2 Feb 2017)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if those noble Lords who wish to leave do so before I call the next amendment.
Clause 15: Internet pornography: requirement to prevent access by persons under the age of 18
Amendment 54B
“( ) the overarching duty of care of internet service providers and ancillary service providers and their responsibility to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure the safety of a child or young person involved in any activity or interaction for which that service provider is responsible.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, we all share a common purpose in wanting the new age verification process in Part 3 to be robust, trusted and effective. It is of course vital that we put in place powers to protect children from viewing inappropriate pornographic material, and we have rehearsed the arguments as to why it is important many times before in the House. We therefore believe that there should be an overriding duty of care on internet service providers and ancillary service providers to keep children and young people safe when using these sites.
The details of how this duty should be applied need to be subject to further consultation, which is what our Amendment 54B seeks to achieve. However, more substantially, we are concerned about the scale and the scope of the regulatory functions in the Bill, which to our mind have not been thought through and were not given sufficient scrutiny in the Commons. This was not helped by the fact that substantial new clauses were added to the Bill late on in the process which considerably extend the powers of the age verification regulator. The result is that Part 3 feels very much like a work in progress, with many of the usual checks and balances unresolved.
This was identified by the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee which, as we know, raised a number of specific concerns that we will address in later amendments. By way of example, the Constitution Committee stated:
“We question whether the House can effectively scrutinise the Bill when its scrutiny is impeded by the absence from the face of the Bill of any detail about the operation of the proposed age-verification regime”.
We agree with that point and we have concerns about the whole regulatory structure as it is currently set out in Part 3. That is what Amendment 54D seeks to address.
The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, specifies that the regulator should be the British Board of Film Classification, and it has been widely assumed that it would take on a similar classification role for online to that which it already carries out for offline. But the new, expanded role set out in Part 3 has much more extensive powers to follow up those who fail to apply age verification filters with fines and ultimately with the blocking of their sites by internet service providers. We believe that these functions are separate and should be carried out by a separate regulator. Indeed, when we recently met the Minister, Matt Hancock, he said that Ofcom was in a better position than the BBFC to handle the financial penalties proposed.
In addition, there is a need to specify who will carry out appeals and to ensure that this is a separate, independent organisation and not one that is appointed by the regulator. This point was raised by the Delegated Powers Committee and again we have tabled separate amendments on it that will come up later. Finally, we would argue that there needs to be effective oversight and supervision of the new regime to ensure proper governance and value for money. Arguably, Ofcom rather than the Secretary of State should have a role in holding both the classification and the enforcement agencies to account, as well as reporting to Parliament from time to time on progress. But of course Ofcom cannot do everything, which is an additional reason why we believe that we need to take time to allocate the different layers of responsibilities correctly.
No doubt other noble Lords, like ourselves, have received over the past few weeks representations from many bodies providing internet service provision, payment and ancillary services. They have raised concerns about the new powers in the Bill and how they will work in practice. Indeed, one of the ISPs went as far as to say that it was so concerned that it was going to redraft the whole of Part 3—so there is a major concern about how the powers are to be allocated. This is why we believe that it is important to get this right by taking more time to consult on the role and functions of the regulator or regulators and to bring a clearer set of proposals back to both Houses. Amendment 54D would achieve this objective.
We believe that we need to take extra time to get this right. It should not be left to the Secretary of State and the eventual system for protecting children, which is something we all agree with, will be much more robust as a result. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, with the permission of the Committee, it may be helpful if I say a few words before other noble Lords make their contributions in order to help the rest of our debate on this part of the Bill and to put on record the Government’s position on a key issue that we will be debating today.
The BBFC is going to be given powers in the Bill to give notice to payment service providers and ancillary service providers under Clause 22 and to ISPs under Clause 23 of websites that have inadequate age verification as well as prohibited material. Many noble Lords have raised concerns with me about the scope of what amounts to “prohibited material”, so let me put on record what I have been telling those noble Lords in the many meetings we have had. The Government disagree that “prohibited material” should be excluded from the regulator’s powers. We must not unintentionally legitimise all types of pornographic content as long as age verification controls are in place. Extreme pornography can involve dangerous content. The current definition of “prohibited material” in the Bill would bring parity with the offline world—material that would not be classified by the BBFC, including material that is in breach of criminal law.
The Government’s intention is to protect children from harmful content. We have listened to the arguments that in doing so, the drafting of the Bill may have unintentionally extended the powers of the regulator too far. We all share a common goal of keeping children safe and the Government will ensure that, in achieving this aim, we have a proportionate and fair impact on others who enjoy the freedoms and equalities that are important to everyone. So I can commit that we will give this further consideration in order to reach a conclusion that this House agrees is a satisfactory way of meeting our aims of protecting children from harmful pornographic content. I will be very happy to discuss this with interested Peers before Report.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, as I said at Second Reading, I am pleased to be speaking today on a subject that I have regularly brought before your Lordships’ House over recent years in my several online safety Bills—the importance of protecting children online, which is very much today’s subject. I have tabled my probing Amendment 55 so that the Government can set out their plans for which organisations will act as the age verification regulator for which sections of this Bill, as this is crucial to ensure the child protection provisions of Part 3 are successfully implemented.
My amendment would designate the British Board of Film Classification as the age verification regulator for the whole of this process. I know that many in this House and the other place were delighted to hear the Government’s announcement that the BBFC will be the notification regulator for Part 3, a position for which it will be formally designated later this year. I am sure we can all agree that it will bring a level of expertise to that role which will be really invaluable. The use of the term “notification” regulator, however, suggests that the BBFC will provide only part of the regulatory function and that another kind of regulator will have a role to play. Indeed, this was backed up by the BBFC, which stated in its evidence to the Public Bill Committee in another place that it did not intend to have any role in enforcement under Clauses 21 and 22 on fines and informing payment providers and ancillary service providers.
This same message is repeated in the Explanatory Notes:
“The BBFC is expected to be the regulator for the majority of the functions of the regulator (including issuing notices to ISPs to prevent access to material), but is not intended to take on the role of issuing financial penalties and enforcement notices to non-compliant websites”.
This begs an important question to which the Minister must now provide an answer. Who will be the other regulator? It is one thing to have not clarified this at the point of introducing the Bill. It is, however, quite another for the Bill to have passed entirely through one House and be well on its way through another without any update.
In asking this question, I should say that I was very pleased to see that the Government have said that the BBFC will assume the enforcement role in relation to Clause 23, which was introduced on Report in another place. This, however, still leaves questions about the enforcement regulator for Clauses 21 and 22 and how the enforcement regulator in these clauses will interact with the BBFC in its role as “notification” regulator.
In its report on the Bill, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee criticised the lack of information about the regulator, saying:
“The decision as to who to appoint as regulator should be taken before, not after, a Bill is introduced so that it can be fully scrutinised by Parliament. This is especially because the regulator will have important and significant powers conferred by Part 3 which include the ability to impose substantial civil penalties”.
Parliament should know who the enforcement regulator will be, since it will be able to impose these substantial penalties.
Your Lordships’ House should be informed how the enforcement regulator, assuming the Government are still planning on a second regulator, will operate with the BBFC in terms of the mechanics of deciding whether to issue a fine, an enforcement notice, or notice to internet service providers to block certain sites, and how the two regulators will produce consistent guidance for this part of the Bill. Ofcom would be an obvious option for enforcement, but last November it made it clear that it does not want the role. I ask the Minister: who do the Government have in mind? When will he bring that information to the House? I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for not taking part in Second Reading. Having led on the Investigatory Powers Bill and the Policing and Crime Bill I was hoping for some time off for good behaviour, but apparently a policeman’s lot is not a happy one, even when he has retired.
My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and I have Amendment 55B in this group. The first thing to say is that we on these Benches believe everything that can be demonstrated to be effective should be done to restrict children’s access to adult material online. We also believe that everything should be done to ensure that adults can access websites that contain material that it is legal for them to view. That is why Amendment 55B would require the age-verification regulator to produce an annual report on how effective the measures in the Bill have been in general in reducing the number of children accessing adult material online and how effective each enforcement mechanism has been. We also share the concerns expressed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Howe of Idlicote, on these provisions having been made somewhat at the last minute, and that they may not have been completely thought through.
The aims of the Bill and the other amendments in the group are laudable. The ideal that there should be equal protection for children online as there is offline is a good one, but it is almost impossible to achieve through enforcement alone. We have to be realistic about how relatively easy it is to prevent children accessing physical material sold in geographic locations and how relatively difficult, if not impossible, it is to prevent determined children accessing online material on the internet, much of which is free. An increasing proportion of adult material is not commercially produced.
That is not to say that we should not do all we can to prevent underage access to adult material, but we must not mislead by suggesting that doing all we can to prevent access is both necessary and sufficient to prevent children accessing adult material online, the detail of which I will come to in subsequent amendments. Of course internet service providers and ancillary service providers should do all they can to protect children, but there are also issues around freedom of expression that need to be taken into account.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, in light of these and some later amendments, I want to raise the matter of ancillary service providers. My understanding is that social media platforms continue to argue that they do not fall within the definition of ancillary service providers and are seeking confirmation from government that they have no role to play in preventing children accessing pornography online.
I am aware that the Minister stated at Second Reading:
“The Government believe that services, including Twitter, can be classified by regulators as ancillary service providers where they are enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic or prohibited material”.—[Official Report, 13/12/16; col. 1228.]
I was pleased to hear him say that, but I would like confirmation that it remains the Government’s position. Unless such platforms are included, I simply do not understand what Part 3 of the Bill hopes to achieve.
I am unconvinced that it is possible to remove all adult content from the purview of children, but it is imperative to make it clear to young people that viewing adult sexual content is a transgressive act and not a cultural norm, so, at a minimum, it should be as difficult as reaching the top shelf in a newsagent or being underage in a pub. That is imperative for reasons I set out in great detail at Second Reading, so I will not repeat them here but simply say that children and young people are turning in large numbers to pornography to learn about sex, with unhappy consequences. Often violent, mainly misogynistic, unrealistic adult male fantasy is not a good starting point for a healthy, happy, consensual sex life.
I would have preferred for the age verification system to be fully thought out, prototyped and beta-tested before it came to the House in the form of legislation. None the less, I agree that Part 3 is a valiant attempt to stem the flow of adult material into the hands and lives of children. In the absence of a better, more thought out plan, I support it. But if this is the path we are taking, we must be clear in our message: this material is unsuitable for those under the age of 18.
The BBFC says that it intends to take a proportionate approach to its new role and will target the top 50 adult websites as accessed by viewers in the UK. Its research shows that 70% of all those who access such sites in the UK visit the top 50. Among children, concentration among those top sites is even higher. In that respect, I understand that age-verifying 70% of adult material websites sends a clear message.
However, a brief search on Twitter, which has a joining age of 13, shows that commercial pornography is readily available, with popular accounts attracting hundreds of thousands of followers. Many of those who access pornographic social media accounts do not publicly follow them, so it is more than likely that the follower figures are dwarfed by the number of actual viewers. In the case of younger viewers, such platforms if accessed via an app leave no browser footprint that might be discovered by parents—a very attractive proposition.
If social media companies provide alternative access to the same or similar pornographic material with no restriction, surely the regulator should be entitled to take the same proportionate approach and target pornographic social media accounts with similar viewer numbers to those for adult websites. For most young people, social media platforms are the gateway to the internet. Unless they are to be included within the definition of ASPs, neither the problem of young people accessing pornography nor the ambition of setting a social norm that puts adult sexual material beyond the easy reach of children and young people will be achieved. It will simply migrate.
I note that social media platforms are not homogenous and that some, including Facebook and Instagram, already take steps to prevent pornography being posted and act quickly to take it down when it does go up. It is disappointing that not all platforms take this approach. I do not want to focus on Twitter, but noble Lords might like go to the account, @gspot1177, with its 750,000 public followers, which has been publishing pornography with impunity since 2009. Surely it is necessary to bring this into scope of the regulator. Nobody is claiming that the measures set out in the Bill will prevent 100% of pornography being seen by children and I understand Ministers’ arguments that doing something is better than doing nothing, but I am concerned that in the lack of clarity about what does and does not fall within the definition of ASP there may lie a lack of political will about holding certain stakeholders to account.
I would love to hear from the Minister whether major social media platforms including Tumblr and Twitter have confirmed to the Government how they would respond to requests from the BBFC to withdraw services from a non-compliant site—and whether his statement at Second Reading that social media platforms may be considered ASPs by the regulator still stands.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I also want to pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend Lady Benjamin have done on this area. I well remember my noble friend Lady Benjamin almost doorstepping the former Prime Minister David Cameron to get something done on this area. He agreed that action would be taken.
I spoke on this at Second Reading—not in any technical way because I am not a particularly technical person; I spoke as a head teacher of 20-odd years on the harm that pornography potentially does, and is doing, to young people. We are rightly always concerned about the safeguarding of children and young people. We put in place all sorts of safeguarding procedures, yet we seem to find all sorts of reasons why we cannot do anything about pornography. Many young lives, frankly, are being corrupted in the pure innocence of childhood as they follow an older brother or sister, a friend or a mate, who might say, “Oh, have a look at this”. Once they get involved in this, it does immeasurable harm, not only to the child but to their view of women, for example.
A young child of 12 or 13 on the internet, perhaps by accident, perhaps by a dare, perhaps encouraged by another person, watching female rape enacted—this is not something I want to be part of. I do not want a society that allows that to happen. It is important, and my noble friend Lord Paddick is right to say, that we should be effective in what we do. He also said that if children are determined they can access this, no matter what we put in place, but that is not a reason not to do something. The vast majority of children will do something. If somebody is determined to do something, they will always be able to do it. I hope that will not be a reason not to do something. I am relaxed about our having a look at this to get it right. I know it whizzed through the Commons, but even at this late stage I am relaxed about making sure that every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed in the interests of young people.
Baroness Byford (Con)
My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading on this aspect of the Bill. I was one of the people who said very clearly that I should much prefer not to have pornography of any sort on any website, because the world would be much better without it. The previous speaker is quite right. The influence that modern communication has on young people is devastating. In some families, it really has been disruptive and led to unfortunate consequences within them.
I welcome the Minister’s statement that they will take this away, think about it and come back again. I reiterate my dismay that again we have another very important Bill from the Commons that really has not been dealt with in the proper manner. I hope that in future the Commons will be allowed more time or will organise itself so that it can do the job it should and can do, and not leave it to this House to be the one saying, “Hang on”.
If you look at the number of amendments tabled to this one Bill, it reinforces the whole position that my noble friend the Minister must deal with, which in many cases should have been dealt with before. I am an old hand here and still feel strongly about this. I do not complain that my right honourable friends at the other end have not had the opportunity to do this—that is how the system works. However, we go on, year after year, saying the same thing and it is high time we got to grips with this. I would like to push a little further on the Minister’s response earlier that the Government will look at this: it is hugely important that they do.
I have slight concerns about Ofcom being perhaps one of those who should undertake this. In some ways, Ofcom is not always as robust as I would like it to be, which is perhaps unfair. Secondly, we certainly need to identify in the Bill before it leaves our House exactly what is to happen: who the enforcer is where there are dual splits within what we seek to do in the Bill. The Bill is hugely important and I hope that the Government will, as they have already indicated, take it away after Committee and think seriously about it. I would hate to think that some of the final detail will come through in secondary legislation, which we cannot alter. We need to get this into primary legislation. I support the comments made by other noble Lords and look forward to the Minister responding and, I hope, being able to take it away and come back, even if that means it happens a little later. It is much better to get it right later than to leave it in its current form.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I will make some brief points. First, on this set of amendments I am afraid I disagree with the noble Baroness: we must get on with this. It will not be perfect on day one but the sooner we get moving the better. We have talked about this for a very long time. That is why I am not really pro these amendments.
On Amendment 55, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lady Howe. She is absolutely right to spot this lacuna: the BBFC will look at this stuff and age verification, but who will enforce it? That is a problem and I was going to raise it later anyway. She was absolutely spot on there. My noble friend Lady Kidron was also absolutely spot on about these sites. Twitter could be classified as commercial because it takes money from pornography sites to promote them. I can get evidence of that. It would be difficult for it to say that it does not promote them.
Very quickly on what the Minister said, I was going to raise under the group starting with Amendment 57 the issue of including prohibited material with the age verification stuff. We should separate protecting children from protecting adults or it will confuse things. The big danger is that if we start using this to protect adults from stuff that they should not see—in other words, some of the adult prohibited material, of which there is quite a lot out there—we run the risk of challenges in court. Everything that the BBFC does not classify because it falls into certain categories is automatically prohibited material. It is not allowed to classify certain acts. I should probably not tell noble Lords about those now as they are pretty unpleasant but they are fairly prevalent in the hardcore pornography out there. If the pornography sites are blocked from supplying adults with what they want, they will just move offshore and get round this. If they do that, there will be no point in doing age verification and we will not protect our children. That will create the first major loophole in the entire thing.
I have this from the pornographers themselves. They know what they are doing. However, they are very happy—and would like—to protect children. If we leave them alone and argue through the Obscene Publications Act and other such things as to what they must stop adults seeing, they will help block children. They are very keen on that. Children just waste their time as they do not have money to spend. At the end of the day, the pornographers want to extract money from people.
I am advised that the real problem is that prohibited material includes content that would be refused a BBFC R18 certificate. The Crown Prosecution Service charging practice is apparently out of sync with recent obscenity case law in the courts. Most non-UK producers and distributors work on common global compliance standards based on Visa and Mastercard’s brand-protection guidelines. Maybe we should start to align with that. We should deal with that separately under the Obscene Publications Act. It will be very easy for the BBFC, the regulator or the enforcer to tell what does not have age verification on the front. That is yes/no—it is very simple. The trouble is that if we get into prohibited material, it will end up before the courts. We will have to go through court procedures and it will take much longer to block the sites. I would remove that from here. I shall leave my other comments to a later stage.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am grateful for those contributions. They address some very important issues, some of which we will deal with now and some of which we will deal with later during the progress of the Bill. To start at the end, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, made some interesting points regarding the statement that I made. We absolutely acknowledge some of them. I have listened to his suggestions. Our focus here is to protect children. That is what this Bill is for. That is what our manifesto commitment was. When he sees our suggestions, I hope that he will be able to contribute to the debate on Report—but I have noted everything he said.
The introduction of a new law requiring appropriate age verification measures for online pornography is a bold new step. It represents the first stage of ensuring that commercial providers of online pornographic material are rightly held responsible for what they provide and profit from.
Amendment 54B would require the regulator to publish guidance about the overarching duty of care on internet service providers and ancillary service providers, and their responsibility to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure the safety of a child or young person involved in activities or interaction for which the service provider is responsible. The purpose of our measures is to protect children from pornographic material. Seeking to stretch the framework further to regulate companies on a different basis risks the delivery of our aim. However, that is not to say that we want to ignore the issue. We take the issue of child safety online seriously and engage intensively with the industry through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety to ensure that robust protections are in place.
The Government expect industry to play a leading role in internet safety provisions, as it is best placed to offer safety and protection to children and young people. We know that it is already doing this and has default protections for under-18s, including the use of parental controls and tools to allow users to flag content, protect user privacy as well as educate users on staying safe with information and advice. We will have further opportunities to discuss the role of the industry, including social media and internet service provider filters, later in Committee.
Amendment 54D seeks to introduce a new clause with the requirement that the Secretary of State must consult on the role of the age verification regulator. The clause further seeks that the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report on the results of the consultation and the Secretary of State’s conclusions, with any appointments to be subject to approval in each House. The introduction of the measures requiring appropriate age verification for online pornography follows public consultation. We asked about the powers that a regulator should have and there was strong support for a number of responsibilities that we have introduced. The passage of this Bill has provided an important opportunity for debate on this and we have seen the introduction of an important new blocking power for the regulator, which we shall discuss later.
We are grateful to the DPRRC and the Constitution Committee for their reports, which a number of noble Lords mentioned. They made a number of recommendations about the designation of the regulator and how the regulator should fulfil its role. We are carefully considering those and will publish our response before Report.
Amendment 55, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, would specify that the Secretary of State is to designate the British Board of Film Classification as the age verification regulator. As the Committee will know, Clauses 17 and 18 provide for the designation of the regulator and we intend to designate the BBFC to carry out most—as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, reminded us—of the functions of the regulator. Indeed, some noble Lords may have seen the BBFC’s recent presentation to the Children’s Media and the Arts APPG.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening statement and for his comments now, but I do not really feel that he addressed our concerns about the overarching architecture of the regulatory structure: where the power should lie, the detail of which regulator has which functions and so on, and whether there is a need for someone to oversee the whole regime.
I also thank the Minister for his offer of further discussions about this, but as a number of noble Lords have said, it is rather frustrating that the information and debate that we ought to be having here in Committee is being shifted backwards so that we will have it in correspondence or perhaps offline before Report. Normally, we would expect the government proposals to be in front of us here, so that we can debate them in detail. As the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said, once again we find that the debates that we should be having in Committee are happening on Report, which makes it very frustrating for everybody involved. That also applies to the reports from the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee. With respect, the Government have had those documents for several weeks now, and I would have thought it would have been possible to have given us a response as to how the Government intend to react to them before today’s debate. I find this whole process for considering Part 3 very frustrating. Notwithstanding that, I know that the Minister means well and I am sure we will all want to take up his offer of further discussions, if that is possible.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made a very good point about who the other regulator will be, and I was not sure that the Minister really answered it. Again, if we are going to get down to putting in the Bill that the BBFC will have part of that function, it is right that we should also say who will have the other part of it; otherwise, the Bill is not going to make sense. So I have an ongoing sense of frustration. Some of the issues that a number of noble Lords have raised will spill into some of the discussions that we will have on other amendments and will no doubt come up several times, regrettably, although maybe that is just because of the way that we have structured some of the amendments.
I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that we need a much clearer definition of ancillary service providers. To the outside world, that is a non-phrase really, but it means either so much or so little, and we just need some clearer definition of what it means in terms of the responsibilities of social media providers. It may well be, as I think the noble Lord was suggesting, that some of them have different responsibilities from others, but we need that debate. It is a really important debate, since, as the noble Baroness was saying, children are accessing this material and there do not seem to be any real proposals in front of us for how we are going to get a grip on that. That is perhaps something that we can return to later as we debate other provisions in Part 3.
Finally, I think the Minister strayed into the whole issue of what is prohibited material. Again, we have amendments on that later and will return to it when those are discussed, but I thought that we had made more progress on that than the Minister is now suggesting. I know that a number of noble Lords had a meeting with Matt Hancock, the Minister, a couple of weeks ago, and I thought that we were edging towards a new form of words, but it does not seem that this is before us from what the Minister has said. So again, we have a level of frustration about this.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Let me confirm that I hope we are edging towards some agreement; it is just that, as the noble Baroness will be aware, there are times when one can announce these things and there are times when one cannot. I agree with her that it is somewhat frustrating—in the same way that it is frustrating when, though we have had the Explanatory Memorandum since the Summer Recess, amendments appear at the last minute. It is a frustrating process.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Well, this is because the discussion has gone on over the summer, with the Government and with other people. We have been seeking clarification, which we have not had, which is why we finally put down amendments. Anyway, this debate is going to continue, I think, through the course of Part 3. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) The Secretary of State shall by regulations made by statutory instrument lay guidance for the purposes of subsection (3) before both Houses of Parliament.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, this returns to some of the more detailed proposals of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee. As I have already said, when we first looked at Part 3, we were immediately concerned about the lack of oversight and accountability of the powers and functions of the age verification regulator or regulators. So we were not surprised, when the reports of the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee were published, that they very much echo our concerns. For example, the Constitution Committee said:
“We are concerned that the extent to which the Bill leaves the details of the age-verification regime to guidance and guidelines to be published by the as yet-to-be-designated regulator adversely affects the ability of the House effectively to scrutinise this legislation. … The House may wish to consider whether it would be appropriate for a greater degree of detail to be included on the face of the bill”.
This is what we are debating and grappling with today.
The Delegated Powers Committee raised a number of more detailed criticisms. For example, it was concerned that the Bill leaves it to the Secretary of State to determine who the regulator or regulators should be, and said that it is inappropriate for the regulator to then decide what the appeals mechanism should be. It flagged up the need for this to be an independent body. It was deeply concerned that the regulator would be left to draw up its own guidelines on the circumstances in which internet sites would be deemed to be publishing pornographic materials. It went on to say:
“We consider it objectionable as a matter of principle that a regulator, who is to be clothed with extensive powers to impose fines and take other enforcement action, should itself be able to specify how key concepts used in clause 15(1) are to be interpreted”.
It also noted that further broad discretion to the regulator was being granted to produce guidelines on the application of those financial penalties. In all these areas it therefore recommended that the regulator’s guidelines should be laid before Parliament and subject to the affirmative process. In the absence of a positive government response to these recommendations, we have been helpful by setting out a number of amendments that aim to achieve that desired outcome.
So Amendment 54C would require the guidance on the types of arrangements for making pornographic material available, and circumstances in which it is judged to be commercial, to be laid as SIs before both Houses. Amendment 55A specifies that the Secretary of State should make regulations for a clear appeals procedure which would come before both Houses, and makes it clear that the appeals regime should be independent. We are also supporting Amendments 69 and 229B, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which aim to achieve a similar outcome.
Amendment 56A would require an SI on the arrangements for issuing enforcement notices to those who contravene the age verification regime. Amendment 62A would require the guidelines on the blocking of access to sites via payment providers and ancillary service providers to come before both Houses in the form of SIs. All these proposals are drawn from the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee.
I have also added my name to Amendment 66, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. We believe that the power to block sites, while important as an ultimate deterrent, should be imposed proportionately and with careful scrutiny. The current wording of Clause 23 allows for the regulator to give a notice to an internet service provider that it should block non-compliant sites so that the offending material cannot be accessed. The clause also specifies that the regulator should inform the Secretary of State of its intention to give such a notice. We do not believe that that is the right mechanism, and it does not provide enough independent scrutiny of the decision. This is why the amendment requires a blocking injunction to be initiated by the Secretary of State in conjunction with the regulator.
Lord Morrow (DUP)
My Lords, when I spoke at Second Reading on 13 December, I addressed the enforcement provision in Part 3, and want to do so again today. I warmly welcomed Clause 23, as have other noble Lords, which the Government introduced on Report in another place, and I continue to do so.
Clause 23 is a robust provision and I believe that it would be far more effective than the proposal in Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Clement-Jones, which would replace Clause 23 with one entitled “Court orders”. The truth is, as I shall explain when speaking to amendments in the next group, that there are real problems with the enforcement mechanisms provided by Clauses 21 and 22 of the Bill, especially in relation to websites based outside the United Kingdom. This has always been a special concern, because the vast majority of online pornography accessed from within the UK is accessed from sites based in other jurisdictions.
The failure of Clauses 21 and 22 to provide credible enforcement mechanisms for the age verification requirement in Part 3 was highlighted very effectively in another place by parliamentarians from across the political spectrum. The critical thing about Clause 23 is that it gives the age verification regulator the power to enforce the age verification check provision without delay. The knowledge that, regardless of where in the world the site is based, it can be blocked by the UK age verification regulator will give those sites a strong incentive to introduce robust age verification. Amendment 66, by contrast, would place this in great jeopardy.
I want to raise three major problems with Amendment 66. First, it causes delay in the sense that, if it were to become law, we would then have to wait for the Secretary of State to introduce regulations, without which the age verification regulator would have no power to initiate IP blocking. Secondly, Amendment 66 makes the provision of these regulations, and thus the provision of IP blocking, entirely optional. If the Secretary of State does not get round to producing the regulations, there will be no IP blocking at all. Thirdly, in depending on a court injunction process, this amendment apparently prefers a very much slower, more expensive and more cumbersome mechanism, which websites will know cannot be used very often. This will give them hope that they can carry on without age verification checks because the chances of their being caught will be much less. Of course, the existence of the current Clause 23 powers does not mean that those powers will be used frequently, but the fact that websites will know that they could be deployed quickly and easily will make them much more wary about taking such risks, and will therefore keep children that much safer.
In setting out these objections, I make two other points. First, I understand the argument that there is a copyright precedent for the use of court injunctions, but the idea that we should therefore necessarily follow it is not remotely compelling. There was once a time when injunctions were not used in relation to copyright, but—rather than saying that there is no precedent to act and therefore we should not act—the decision was made that we should act and, in the case of copyright infringement, the use of injunctions was appropriate. Today, though, we are not dealing with copyright infringement; we are dealing with something quite different, which has a concern for child protection at its core. In this context, the mechanism set out by the Government in Clause 23 is more effective and much more appropriate. Secondly, if Amendment 66 is based narrowly on a civil liberties concern, I would have to say that, quite apart from the fact that this concern has to be balanced with a concern for child protection—which, in my view, Amendment 66 does not manage to achieve—it is important not to lose sight of the fact that any decision on the age verification regulation could be judicially reviewed.
When faced with a relatively robust provision of an enforcement mechanism for age verification that would help keep children safe, Amendment 66 with its delays and optional, rather than mandatory, standing cannot but be seen as an attempt to weaken the child protection provisions in the Bill, which I find deeply disturbing. Part 3 of this Bill entered your Lordships’ House as a robust and progressive measure placing us at the cutting edge of child protection online. If we were to replace Clause 23 with Amendment 66, it would leave us much weaker and—in the sense that websites would know that they could risk never being held to account for not having age verification checks—fatally compromised. I believe that this is misjudged, misconceived and mistimed. I very much hope that the Minister will stand by Clause 23 and oppose Amendment 66.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I am absolutely delighted that we have had the views of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, about my amendment before I had a chance to speak to it, but maybe that’s life—he has given me the benefit of his views before I have set my own on record. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, set out extremely well the frustrations of those of us who, in the words of my noble friend Lord Storey, are very keen to make sure we get the right shape for this part of the Bill. There is absolutely no difference between us, in that we wish to see Part 3 be as effective as possible in preventing access to child pornography. We have been debating for only an hour and it is quite clear that this part of the Bill is worryingly embryonic.
Lord Maxton (Lab)
My Lords, just for the sake of clarity, the noble Lord used the term “child pornography”, which is not the purpose of the verification. Verification is to stop children accessing pornography—let us get that absolutely right and on the record.
Lord Clement-Jones
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, for that intervention. He is entirely correct—I misspoke. We are also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for highlighting that the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee both pointed out considerable flaws in the way this part of the Bill is constructed.
In particular, I want to speak about the lack of appeal mechanisms. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said:
“We consider it inappropriate for the important question of appeals to be left to ‘arrangements’ made by the regulator, subject only to the approval of the Secretary of State, without any type of Parliamentary scrutiny”.
The committee was not the only one that made such comments. Interestingly enough, even the UN Special Rapporteur has commented on this:
“Moreover, I express concern at the lack of judicial oversight with respect to the power of the age-verification regulator to shut down websites that do not comply with the age-verification requirement. Any legislation restricting the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, as well as any determination on the shut down of websites must be undertaken by a body which is independent of any political, commercial or unwarranted influence in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor discriminatory”.
That is fairly powerful testimony.
There are a number of different ways of achieving an appeals mechanism. The first mechanism, to which the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, takes such considerable exception, is to have a judicial process at the beginning, before any website blocking can take place. The other is to allow an appeal after a website has been blocked. With regard to the appeal afterwards, at the time the amendment was drafted it was thought that the BBFC would be the age verification regulator, and we very much welcomed its involvement. However, it has now become clear—perhaps “clear” is not the adjective I should use; rather, it appears to be emerging—that the BBFC will not be the only regulator involved in Part 3.
When Amendments 69 and 229B were drafted we tried to make the new form of appeal very similar to the kinds of appeal mechanism that the BBFC uses for the purposes of the Video Recordings Act. In fact, most of the rubric in Amendment 229B comes from the part of the BBFC website that demonstrates the system of appeals on certification and so on. That seemed a sensible and reasonable way of proceeding, on the basis that the BBFC would be the age verification regulator for the purposes of Clause 23. One may wish to adopt a different form of appeal if that is not the case.
The second approach, which the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, objects to so strongly, is set out in Amendment 66. That is obviously a mechanism designed to make sure that before the very serious step of website blocking is taken, a certain procedure is gone through, ensuring that it is a last resort, and that there is proper oversight of the way in which the age verification regulator has conducted itself. That, too, seems an entirely reasonable approach.
What we are all looking for is an indication from the Government that they accept the need for this kind of appeal mechanism, whatever it may be, and that we will be able to have a look at it on Report. I should point out that we finish our fourth day in Committee next Wednesday, after which we break up for half term, and then come almost straight back to Report stage. There is very little time for much debate and discussion about these matters. This is one of the real issues, so I hope the Minister will ensure that the discussions start immediately and that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked, the Government will respond quickly to the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and to the Constitution Committee’s report. Otherwise we will all remain in the dark until the Minister decides to enlighten us on 22 February.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, I put my name down to one of these amendments because I wanted to talk about appeals. The reason for that is very simple and comes back to what I said earlier. I do not think there should be any question about there being no age verification. That should be almost an absolute offence: if there is no age verification, a site can be blocked, just like that. If the relevant people want to make an appeal, they can do so later and make it as complicated as they like. The main issue has already been raised and I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, that Clause 23 is ideal. I entirely agree with the point about the foreign sites. They are not going to do anything if we do not block them. They will just mess around and children will get access to adult pornography for goodness knows how long. We need to be able to block immediately sites that do not have age verification.
I refer to appeals as we are muddling up the question of what is pornography with that of what is material that adults are not permitted to view. We need an appeals mechanism as we are going to get wrapped up in the lacunae and the mismatches between the Obscene Publications Act, the court cases and everything else, as I said earlier. We can see a Lady Chatterley-style case going through and taking years. In the meantime, all the non-age verified sites have to do is to keep appealing or whatever. That is not going to work. If we are going to include what is permitted for adults to view in this part of the Bill, we need an appeals process for that, but not an appeals process if the relevant sites do not have age verification in relation to potentially pornographic material. I will talk about that when we discuss the group of amendments commencing with Amendment 57.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his opening remarks at the beginning of this debate. I was pleased to hear that the Government are in listening mode as we work our way carefully through this Bill.
When we speak about the crucial subject of the enforcement of the age verification provision, it is vital to remember that we are talking about how we ensure that children and young people are kept safe. All the evidence is that early exposure to pornographic material can be extremely harmful to children. The Economist reported that given the view that sexual tastes are formed around puberty,
“ill-timed exposure to unpleasant or bizarre material could cause a lifelong problem”.
As I repeatedly say, childhood lasts a lifetime.
There is evidence that pornography can lead to unrealistic attitudes to sex, damaging impacts on young people’s views of sex and relationships, putting pressure on how they look or influencing them to act in a certain way. All of that reminds us of the context in which we are having these discussions on the finer points of enforcement. With this context in mind, we need to make sure that the age verification provisions in Part 3 are backed up with the most effective means of enforcement.
We have heard noble Lords set out why they think Amendment 66 would be better than Clause 23, but does it really stand scrutiny? There is a concern about the delay that would result from Amendment 66. Quite apart from the fact that requiring the age verification regulator to enforce the age verification requirement through court injunctions would be much slower and much more expensive than the procedure under Clause 23, there is the fact that Amendment 66 would further delay the provision of effective enforcement, and therefore child protection, through the requirement that IP blocking would take effect only if the Secretary of State at some future point decides to make regulations allowing this. In this regard I am particularly concerned that the drafting of proposed new subsection (1) in Amendment 66 implies that the Secretary of State can consider making regulations only when the BBFC considers that there is an actual person in contravention. The BBFC cannot be ahead of the game and will be on the back foot while it waits for the regulations to be made, if they are to be made at all. This does not make our children and young people safer. I am also concerned that Amendment 66 does not provide legal clarity for ISPs at this stage of the Bill on whether IP blocking will be required and, if so, how that will need to be delivered.
While Amendment 66 does not provide certainty, Clause 23 sets out very clearly its central requirement in subsection (2)(c) that an ISP must,
“prevent persons in the United Kingdom from being able to access the offending material using the service it provides”.
It sets out when that would be required in subsection (1), how it would be implemented in subsection (2) and the obligations on the ISPs in subsection (8). The BBFC knows what it can do; the ISPs know what will be expected of them; and the pornographic websites will be clear that their sites might be blocked if they do not comply with Part 3. In comparison with the much weaker Amendment 66, Clause 23 is so effective that exchanging them would fundamentally weaken the child safety provisions in the Bill. That would be a real tragedy.
Why are we making exceptions for porn merchants? We have had a system in place in the UK for dealing with child abuse images for over 20 years. It is the envy of the world. It has never required prior judicial authorisation. Let us be clear: the Internet Watch Foundation, which runs the system, could at any time be brought to court to explain an action or decision it has taken, because it is subject to judicial review. Not only has the IWF never lost a judicial review case, no one has ever taken one against it. We get rid of terrorist material without requiring any judges or courts to get involved and I have never heard any criticism of that system. But if we are talking about protecting children against porn—oh no. Everything slows down, everything becomes more expensive and we have to get a judge and lawyers involved, because it is suggested that, uniquely, we need prior judicial authorisation.
However, the age verification regulator will have an appeals system. Every decision the regulator takes can be made the subject of a judicial review. If the regulator gets taken to court and loses all the time, perhaps we would need to look at the provisions again, but I have absolutely no reason to believe that would be the case. Therefore I think that Amendment 66 should be rejected, because the material we are talking about here is extremely harmful to children and we want it out of sight as quickly and simply as possible. I am sure that no one in this House would want their children or grandchildren ever to be exposed to or damaged by this vile material. Our overworked courts and judges have enough on their plates. We simply do not need to drag them into this on a routine basis. Let us put our children’s well-being and protection first. I very much hope that the Government will stand by Clause 23 and reject Amendment 66.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, I rise to speak against Amendment 66, which in my judgment would seriously undermine the scope for Part 3 of the Bill to be enforced. I have campaigned for child safety online for many years and am far from reassured that the amendment will deliver on that objective. I have also raised repeatedly concern about the quantity and type of pornography accessed in the UK but based in other jurisdictions. I am very pleased that the Government have recognised that this is a significant issue. However, without being able to ensure that foreign websites take the action that is required under Part 3, in practical terms we will be no further forward.
This is no theoretical discussion. In its evidence to the Public Bill Committee in the other place, the British Board of Film Classification said that it planned to target regulation at about 50 sites and that it does not expect any of these to be in the UK. Clause 21 sets out fines but is far from clear about what the Government can do if a site in another jurisdiction refuses to pay a fine; your Lordships can come back to that when we debate the next group of amendments.
Clause 22 has a better international reach but it fails in a number of different scenarios relevant to the discussion on Clause 23: first, if a site offers free pornography; secondly, if it does not use conventional credit cards but relies on payment methods such as bitcoin; and thirdly, if the website does not use a UK-based ancillary service provider. These very brief statements highlight the need for another enforcement option for foreign websites, and I am pleased that many Members in the other place agreed. I commend the work of Mrs Claire Perry, the honourable Member for Devizes, who had the support of 34 MPs from seven parties for her amendment, which had a similar objective to Clause 23. I also congratulate the Government on responding constructively with the introduction of Clause 23.
For Part 3 to be effectively enforced, it is critical that foreign sites know that the UK regulator could block them. The Digital Policy Alliance, in its briefings on the Bill, said that that there would be a major loophole in the Bill without an IP-blocking option. To this end, the proposals in Amendment 66 are deeply problematic. My noble friend Lord Morrow has already mentioned concerns about delays arising from the need for the Secretary of State to produce regulations and the question of whether he or she will use the power. On top of this, court injunctions are expensive and cumbersome, and every website would know that they could be used only very occasionally, which could tempt foreign sites accessing the UK to risk not bothering with age verification.
I am also concerned that Amendment 66 would undermine the admirable work the Internet Watch Foundation does on removing child abuse images. I understand that if blocking of pornographic and prohibited material should require court injunctions, it will form a very difficult precedent for bodies such as the foundation, which help to keep our children safe. If it had to use a court injunction every time it requested that a page should be taken down, that would greatly limit and inhibit its capacity and as such would be a grave and very serious mistake.
By contrast, Clause 23(1) allows the BBFC to use IP blocking, after notifying the Secretary of State, from the day Part 3 comes into effect. The BBFC may need to use this power early into the Bill’s implementation if it cannot trace a foreign website or if the website is unresponsive and does not use credit card payments, which might be blocked under Clause 22. There will be no delay as to when this enforcement power can be used. Secondly, it will give the BBFC the power to ask ISPs to block sites when they need to. It is not saying that they must use this power but that they can. There will be no delay or the expense of going to court to get a blocking injunction. Thirdly, there will be no negative impacts on the Internet Watch Foundation and the admirable work it does on removing child abuse images.
In a context where the majority of online pornography accessed in the UK comes from websites based in other jurisdictions, the provision of a robust and flexible IP blocking mechanism is central to the ability of this legislation to enforce the age verification provisions that are at its heart to keep our children safe. To swap Clause 23 for Amendment 66 would not reflect well on us. In closing, I warmly congratulate the Government on Clause 23 and hope that they and the Minister will stand resolutely by it and against Amendment 66.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, this has been an important and interesting debate—I can tell that by the number of Peers who are arriving to hear my response. I also appreciate very much the offer of help given by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I have listened carefully to the arguments and again I acknowledge that we are not able to give our answer on the DPRRC’s report, but as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, it is very important to get it right and we will produce the response soon.
The age verification regime was designed to provide a proportionate and practical response to the very real problem of the easy availability of internet pornography to children, and we need to bear that in mind when considering this issue. Amendments 55A, 69 and 229B are concerned with appeals. The BBFC has a strong track record in running the system of classification, including a two-stage appeals process which includes an appeal to an independent authority. We understand the desire to specify in detail in the Bill what an appeals process must look like for what is undoubtedly a serious matter, but we are satisfied that the BBFC is in a strong position to develop and administer a fit-for-purpose appeals process. Clause 17 specifies that the Secretary of State may not designate the regulator until satisfied that arrangements will be maintained by the regulator for appeals by the key persons involved in the regulatory framework, as set out in Clause 17(4)(a) to (e). As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, the DPRRC has made some well-considered recommendations on appeals that we are considering and will be responding to before Report.
Amendments 54C, 56A and 62A provide that the Secretary of State must, in regulations made by statutory instrument, lay guidelines before each House of Parliament on different areas of the regulatory framework. The internet, as we all know, is a fast-changing area and the legislation has been drafted with the necessary flexibility to create a proportionate regulatory framework. For example, it will be for the regulator to publish guidance about ancillary service providers. I have also noted the recommendation of the DPRRC on these matters and I can assure noble Lords that we are considering it carefully before responding.
On the issue of ISP blocking, government Amendment 67 ensures that the regulator must not direct an ISP to block a non-compliant site should that be detrimental to national security, the prevention or detection of serious crime, or an offence listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003. We believe that it is right that the actions of the regulator in seeking to protect children from pornographic content should not have unintended consequences for the work of law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies in combating serious crime and protecting national security. I am confident that the industry will take a responsible position and therefore envisage that the regulator will need to use this power only sparingly. However, where it does need to be used, I would suggest that the regulator would never wish to be in a position where it might have an unintended impact on efforts to ensure public safety.
The provision provides an important safeguard for circumstances in which a site might form part of an investigation. The Government and the regulator will agree arrangements for how the deconfliction process will take place. This is an important step towards ensuring that the regulatory regime functions in a successful way and giving the regulator a framework in which to succeed.
Amendment 66 tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and other noble Lords brings forward blocking by court order. We recognise that providing the regulator with the power to direct internet service providers to block content is a serious step, but the conflicting views of noble Lords in the debate show that this is a difficult area to get right. We have always been clear that we want to build an effective regime. This is fundamentally different content to regimes where court orders are used. As I have said, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, agreed, we envisage that the regulator will need to use this power only sparingly. However, the cost and process of the court order procedure would place an undue burden on the system We know that the court order process for copyright, for example, is not without issues, and unlike copyright where the individual is seeking a court order, in this case there is a regulator with expertise in classification.
It is important to note that our regime is about encouraging compliance by the industry. Giving the regulator the power to direct internet service providers is the proportionate and right approach to ensuring that children are not inadvertently exposed to harmful pornographic material. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, that we are all trying to balance child protection and civil liberties; that is the issue we are trying to resolve. Indeed, there is no black-and-white answer and it may well be that we will need to have further discussions. But I remind noble Lords that the Delegated Powers Committee said that it considered it objectionable for an unspecified regulator—people have talked about it being the BBFC but I do not think it necessarily will be—to have so much power to impose fines and take other enforcement action. We need to look again at how we can ensure some other oversight of those powers. Amendment 66 would provide a legal structure for all that, and we still feel it would provide the certainty that does not exist under Clause 23. Further, it would provide a degree of independent oversight, which Clause 23 as it stands does not.
I say again that the ISPs caught in the middle of all of this are very concerned about the way Clause 23 is worded. They feel that they will be caught in the middle of legal battles, and it may well be that whatever we decide, these matters will end up in court anyway. Given that, the more legal clarity and specification we can put in the Bill, the better, because that will help everyone to understand their rights. Some noble Lords have also queried the appeals process, but it is important to spell out not only what that process should be, but that it should be independent. Again, our amendments seek to achieve that.
I know that the noble Lord has said that he wants to come back to this when the more detailed response to the Delegated Powers Committee’s report has been produced. I hope that our amendments have been helpful and that they may provide a working copy from which he can put his ideas together. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Brexit: New Partnership
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the Government’s plans for exiting the European Union. Today we are publishing a Government White Paper on the UK’s exit from, and new partnership with, the European Union. This Government have made clear that they will honour the choice made by the people of the United Kingdom on 23 June 2016. The UK will leave the European Union. This House is currently considering a straightforward Bill that will give the Prime Minister the authority to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union and begin the negotiation over our exit. That is not a Bill about whether or not we leave the EU, or even how we do so, but about implementing a decision already taken by the people of the UK in last year’s referendum. But we have always said that we would detail our strategic aims for the negotiation and seek to build a national consensus wherever possible.
This White Paper sets out those aims and the thinking behind them. It confirms the Prime Minister’s vision of an independent, truly global United Kingdom and an ambitious future relationship with the European Union. This is based on the 12 principles that will guide the Government in fulfilling the democratic will of the people of the United Kingdom. These are: providing certainty and clarity where we can as we approach the negotiations; taking control of our own laws and statute book; strengthening the union by securing a deal that works for the whole of the United Kingdom; maintaining the Common Travel Area and protecting our strong historic ties with Ireland; controlling immigration from the European Union; securing the rights for European Union citizens already living in the United Kingdom and the rights of United Kingdom nationals living in the European Union; protecting and enhancing existing workers’ rights; ensuring free trade with European markets, forging a new strategic partnership with the European Union, including a bold and ambitious free trade agreement and mutually beneficial new customs agreement; forging ambitious free trade agreements with other countries across the world; ensuring that the United Kingdom remains the best place for science and innovation; co-operating in the fight against crime and terrorism; and, finally, delivering a smooth, orderly exit from the EU.
These 12 objectives amount to one goal: a new, positive and constructive partnership between Britain and the European Union that works in our mutual interest. All of them are key, but let me highlight some of the specific issues in the White Paper. It reiterates our firm view that it is in the United Kingdom’s interest for the European Union to succeed politically and economically and so we approach the negotiations to come in a spirit of goodwill and working to an outcome in our mutual benefit. We recognise the European Union’s principle of the four freedoms and so the United Kingdom will leave the single market. Instead, we seek a new strategic partnership, including a bold and ambitious free trade agreement and a mutually beneficial new customs agreement that should ensure the most free and frictionless trade in goods and services that is possible. That will be to our mutual benefit.
As the White Paper notes, we export £230 billion-worth of goods and services to the EU while importing £290 billion-worth of goods and services from the EU every year. It also sets out how, after we leave the EU, the United Kingdom will look to significantly increase its trade with the fastest-growing export markets in the world. While we cannot sign new trade deals while still a member, we can and are preparing the ground for them. This means updating the terms of our membership of the World Trade Organization, of which the United Kingdom was a founding member. Modern free trade agreements require mechanisms to resolve disputes and to provide certainty for businesses on both sides. So the White Paper examines precedents in this area and makes it clear that we will negotiate an arrangement that respects UK sovereignty.
In terms of clarity and certainty, we recognise the need to provide it wherever we can during a period where some uncertainty is inevitable, so we will bring forward another White Paper on the great repeal Bill which will lay out our approach in detail. This legislation will mean the repeal of the European Communities Act while converting existing EU law into domestic law at the point of exit. That means that the position we start from—a common regulatory framework with the EU single market—is unprecedented. This negotiation will not be about bringing two divergent systems together. It is about finding the best way for the benefits of the common systems and the frameworks that currently enable the UK and EU businesses to trade with and operate in each other’s markets to continue when we leave the EU.
The White Paper also sets out that we will take control of our own laws, so that they are made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast and ensure that we can control the number of people coming to the United Kingdom from the European Union and that the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the United Kingdom will come to an end. It will be for Parliament and the devolved legislatures to determine significant changes to reflect our new position.
I have said at this Dispatch Box before that there will be any number of votes on substantive policy choices. To that end, the White Paper makes it clear that we expect to bring forward separate legislation in areas such as customs and immigration. Delivering a smooth, mutually beneficial exit, avoiding a disruptive cliff edge, will be key. A never-ending transitional status is emphatically not what we seek, but a phased process of implementation of new arrangements—whether immigration controls, customs systems, the way we co-operate on criminal and civil justice matters, or future regulatory and legal frameworks for business—will be necessary for both sides. As the White Paper says, the time needed to phase in new arrangements in different areas may vary.
As one of the most important actors in global affairs, we will continue to work with the European Union to preserve United Kingdom and European security, fight crime and terrorism and uphold justice. We must work more closely—not less—in these areas. We will seek to build a national consensus around our negotiating position, so we are talking all the time to business, civil society, the public sector and representatives of the regions. We have engaged the devolved Administrations in this process and, while no part of the United Kingdom can have a veto, we are determined to deliver an outcome that works for the whole of our country. We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the United Kingdom economy, covering more than 50 sectors, to shape our negotiating position.
To conclude, the referendum result was not a vote to turn our back on Europe. It was a vote of confidence in the United Kingdom’s ability to succeed in the world and an expression of optimism that our best days are still to come. Whatever the outcome of our negotiations, we seek a more open, outward-looking, confident and fairer United Kingdom that works for everyone. The White Paper is available on the Government website and I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses”.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and the House for agreeing to hear it so early, before having time to see the White Paper. It was a courtesy to me so that I can get away for the funeral of my favourite uncle, Uncle Joe. That is why we are having this debate early—so I can go and bid farewell to him—and I thank the House for its tolerance.
I also thank the Government for now—perhaps a little late—putting a White Paper to Parliament and making an announcement here. It was a tad regrettable that the Prime Minister’s two key speeches were made outside Parliament; one to the Conservative Party on 2 October and one in Lancaster House on 17 January. It is Parliament—and particularly the House of Commons—which speaks for the country, so we are pleased that the White Paper, which we have long sought, has been announced at the Dispatch Box.
The driving motivation for Mrs May and her negotiators must be the long-term economic and social well-being of the UK. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that she led the country. I hope that she can and will, because only by exiting the EU in a way that serves all the country—Scotland, Wales, London and the areas that have done less well from globalisation—will she truly be able to work to unite a divided country and also enable our economy, businesses, workers and consumers to benefit, while safeguarding our environment and our relationship with our nearest neighbours and close allies.
Some of what is suggested in the White Paper we can support: tariff-free, encumbrance-free and—I think the Minister said—frictionless access to the EU market; the ability to recruit talent; support for science and innovation; and, as I have stressed before, the partnership that we need with the EU 27. But we also have serious concerns about the White Paper, which will form our agenda for scrutiny here and, I hope, for the ongoing work of our EU committees, to which the Minister paid tribute earlier.
Consumers are not highlighted in the 12 principles but are vulnerable to losing compensation from cancelled flights and dangerous products once we are out of the European alert system. They will possibly be unable to use our courts to follow insurance claims for car accidents abroad, and may even face visa requirements to travel in the EU. The environment is also not one of the overarching 12 principles, despite enormous improvements to the environment made at EU level in co-operation with our EU allies. Nor is how to make good our absence from Euratom—just three paragraphs in the White Paper. We regret any departure from the customs union. We will seek to understand why on earth this is an objective, given the problems it will cause for our importers and exporters, particularly of complex products or components, and for the service sector, as was raised this morning.
I am also curious about the background to the White Paper. Is it just the Lancaster House speech but in a more normal White Paper style? Or is it what we would normally expect from a Government who know what they are doing, based on careful cost-benefit and options appraisal, with impact assessments prepared for the various options? The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, asked some fairly simple but fundamental questions this morning about such assessments, but answers came there none. I ask again: will the Government, while holding any negotiation tricks safely up their sleeve, complete and publish impact assessments on the White Paper’s objectives? Will they make these available to our EU committees in a timely manner so that their reports can influence the Government’s thinking?
When will the Government publish the other White Paper, not on what is called the great repeal Bill but on what is actually a retrenchment Bill? Will there be pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill?
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I also thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, but I ask him from where the Government believe they derive the mandate to leave the single market, in an extreme version of Brexit. This dishonours the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, breaks the Conservative manifesto promise to stay in the single market and breaches the wishes of 90% of voters who, in a poll last November, said they wanted to stay in the single market. There was no choice on the ballot last June that asked people, “Do you want to leave the single market?”.
Therefore, will the Minister tell me why this version of Brexit, which will be so destructive to our economy and jobs, is being chosen? It will also be a great deal more bureaucratic. Any alternative to the smooth trade we get with the single market and the customs union, especially for supply chains that exist not only in manufacturing but in services and, as I learned this morning, universities, which depend on the free exchange of academics, will be more bureaucratic and mean more red tape. The Conservatives always tell us they stand for slashing red tape. Also, how do we expect to get the benefits of common systems and frameworks when we are not in the single market and customs union? I do not understand how we can derive such benefits.
The Prime Minister said in her Lancaster House speech that,
“no deal … is better than a bad deal”.
In the light of that, will the Minister please explain how the Government will fulfil the promises of certainty, clarity and a smooth orderly exit, avoiding a disruptive cliff edge? If the Government propose to walk away from the negotiations, how can they avoid a disorderly, chaotic Brexit, which is precisely what business and most of us fear? Where is the national consensus? Where are the 48% of people who voted to remain reflected in the White Paper, which I acknowledge I have not had the opportunity to read, although I read the Statement, which talks about a national consensus? I second the request for the publication of impact assessments for us to know exactly where the Government think they are taking us in concrete reality.
The Prime Minister has admitted that the UK will continue to pay into the EU budget for the sectoral benefits they expect to get. Where will the money come from for the NHS, promised by the leave campaign? It is currently about £11 billion; we all know how cash-starved the NHS is.
On the declared red line of no jurisdiction for the European Court of Justice, how will we then co-operate on crime and terrorism, and exchange data? These Benches fully support cross-border co-operation on policing and security, as well as civil justice. The Home Secretary was pressed on this in the other place by the Home Affairs Committee. It asked how she was going to get those arrangements while denying the jurisdiction of the Luxembourg court. She floundered in answering that question, as did the Minister of State in the Ministry of Justice to the EU Justice Sub-Committee on Tuesday in the area of civil justice. It simply does not add up.
I also ask the Minister a question we keep asking because it is important, particularly to this House. It is a cross-party concern that EU nationals and Brits in the rest of the EU should not be a pawn in negotiations. There is nothing whatever to prevent the Government giving a unilateral guarantee and a simplified procedure for EU nationals to stay, and for Brits in the rest of the EU. It is morally indefensible as well as economically illiterate not to do so. Can the Minister give me a real answer why that is not happening?
Lastly, if the Government really believe in British democracy, they should trust the people for a final say on this deal. [Laughter.] It is not a laughing matter. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, thinks it is funny. The Liberal Democrats do not. We take democracy seriously. People have not had a chance to see the colour of the Government’s money when it comes to what Brexit will mean in detail. They—not just Parliament, but voters—should get the chance to say whether that Brexit deal is good enough or whether they prefer to stay with the European Union.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Ludford, for those interesting remarks. I start by offering my condolences to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I completely concur with the thrust of what she said about the need for parliamentary scrutiny. As I said at the Dispatch Box earlier, and will continue to say, the Government will provide information and the opportunity to scrutinise me and other Ministers as we proceed in the process. I look forward to the debates that lie ahead.
I am also heartened by the approach taken by the noble Baroness and her party to the overriding approach set out in the White Paper. Obviously, it is absolutely our intention to try to safeguard our economic prosperity and, as she rightly said, to represent all parts of the United Kingdom and all parts of the economy. I am delighted therefore that there is the basis of some consensus around those points.
The noble Baroness entirely legitimately asked very basic questions about the protection of consumers and of the environment. I come back with the simplest of responses: as I have said previously, the approach underpinning the great repeal Bill is to ensure that those EU laws and regulations are enshrined in UK law. I am sure we will go on to debate those points and matters of detail in the weeks and months ahead, but that is absolutely our underlying approach.
On the customs union, as I have said before, we should start thinking about the customs union in terms of its component parts. Yes, there is the component part with regard to the common external tariff and the CDCP, from which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said we wish to withdraw. However, there are other aspects of it, as the noble Baroness well knows, regarding the processes around frictionless trade, such as authorised economic operators and trusted trader schemes, and precedents that one could point to on the borders between Canada and North America to ensure very free and frictionless trade. Therefore, it is slightly premature to say that we are somehow going to lose all these points. We are focused on it and are determined to ensure that we achieve trade that is as frictionless as possible.
Both the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Ludford, raised impact assessments. I am sorry to say that on this point, at this juncture, the Government disagree on publishing an impact assessment, for the simple reason that, as I have said before, it would undermine our position at the negotiating table. I feel that we will continue to disagree on this. I strongly recommend that noble Lords think about the consequences of providing such an analysis for the negotiations that are set to come. I note that the other place voted by a substantial majority not to do anything to undermine our negotiating position.
As for the publication of the great repeal Bill, I agree with the noble Baroness that the Bill will have within it a number of measures to ensure that the Government have the powers to deliver a smooth and orderly Brexit. Here, we will have to get the balance right to ensure that this House and the other place have the opportunity to scrutinise not just the Bill but the measures that may flow from it, while ensuring that our statute book is fully operable on the day we depart. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, raised this point in Questions earlier. I am very mindful, as are my fellow Ministers, of the need to get that balance right. We will ensure that there is as much time as possible for proper scrutiny of the White Paper and of the Bill. We will be mindful of the thoughts of noble Lords on processes that might be entailed in making sure that the statute book is fully operable.
On the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, once again I am sorry: we just disagree on this point. There was a referendum. That gave this Government the mandate. There were numerous times during the referendum campaign when those on both sides of the argument made the point that what people who voted leave would be voting for was to leave the single market. I have chapter and verse here from Mr David Cameron, my right honourable friend Mr George Osborne, the noble Lords, Lord Mandelson and Lord Darling, and my noble friend Lord Hill, and, on the other side of the argument, Mr Michael Gove and the Foreign Secretary. All made it very clear during that campaign what a vote to leave would mean. It is not quite right to say, therefore, that the British public did not know what they were voting for.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, made a number of salient points and raised questions which I am sure we will wish to return to in the weeks and months ahead. I will pick up just a few of them. She mentioned standards. She is absolutely right: there is an issue around standards which this Government are very focused on. We want to ensure that consumers and businesses can continue to operate and get the protection they need, and that businesses have the frictionless trade they enjoy. The standards framework is slightly more complex than some people may understand, for the standards are set by European bodies which are not part of the EU. Our membership therefore is not entirely hinged on our membership of the EU—I am thinking of CEN and CENELEC in particular. We are focused on that and on the issues around conformity assessment that arise from it, and we will obviously wish to debate them more in due course.
The noble Baroness also asked how we would avoid a cliff edge. This comes back to the fact that we have set out what we believe is a clear, rational approach to the negotiations. We believe that it will be in our mutual interest to come to an agreement with our European partners and that we will avoid a cliff edge as long as that happens. That is what we intend to do.
The noble Baroness mentioned the role of the ECJ. As she rightly pointed out, the ECJ has a role in a number of ambits. Given that we are leaving the ECJ, it will be a matter for negotiation how we can continue to have a relationship with those bodies and agencies in the months and years following our exit.
I have nothing further to add on the issue of EU nationals, but the Government have raised this issue with other EU leaders and they told us that they did not wish to start to negotiate on this point until we had begun formal negotiations and therefore had triggered Article 50. That is why it is important that we get to the point of triggering Article 50 by the end of March.
Finally, on whether there should be a second referendum, I would simply say this: there are some people in the Liberal Democrats who do not accept the outcome, who feel incredibly angry and who feel that the referendum is reversible and can somehow be undone. The public have voted. I think it is seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say, “Sorry, guys, you got it wrong. We’re going to try again”.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I am very sorry they disagree with that, because those were the words of Sir Vince Cable. It is what the Liberal Democrats themselves have been saying. I entirely agree with the guru of Twickenham. I am so sorry that we disagree on this fundamental point.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
Is my noble friend aware that none of us has had a chance to read the White Paper yet? We have an advantage in this House that at least we have had it before the Second Reading and can properly discuss it.
Perhaps my noble friend can respond on one point that concerns me. I was involved when we had the presidency of the European Union for six months and I know of the great organisational pressures that are put on government at such times. I do not know what encouragement we can give to the other members of the European Union, but as I look at who the next presidencies will be after Malta—in the shape of Estonia, then Bulgaria, Austria and Romania—I do not think that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who will worry about the ability of the presidency to cope with the great pressures it will have at that time.
On a lighter note and just to warm things up a bit, is my noble friend aware that we are approaching the 100th birthday of Dame Vera Lynn? I do not think that I am the only person who noted how improbably appropriate her songs would be for this situation. They include:
“We’ll meet again, don’t know where,
Don’t know when”,
and:
“Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye,
Cheerio, here I go”.
The last is perhaps even more to the point:
“Say that everything will turn up right,
It hurts to say goodbye”.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, we will certainly be meeting again, here, many times. On the next presidencies, my noble friend raises a very good point. I think that I am right in saying—in fact, I am sure—that the Government have offered support for the presidency of the Estonian Government if it were required. We are obviously in conversations with all the nation states that he has mentioned. We have been supported by them in making sure that we will continue to have a role in matters of substance that come to be discussed by the EU until we leave the EU, thereby fulfilling our role as a full member until the day we leave.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, in his foreword, the Secretary of State calls this White Paper a “plan”. Does the Minister agree that any plan worth the name requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis? Does he further agree that there is no such analysis in this White Paper or in the Statement or in the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech? There is certainly not a cost-benefit analysis of what operation under WTO rules would mean, what departure from the single market would mean, or what withdrawal from the European customs union would mean. All we have from the Government is the Statement this morning:
“We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the UK economy”.
What will they do when they produce those analyses? Keep them to themselves for fear of telling our counterparts in negotiation what we are thinking. Is it not clear that there is no compromise of our negotiating position in being honest with the British people about the cost-benefit analysis which is absolutely vital? In the absence of such a cost-benefit analysis, this White Paper is not a plan worth the name; it is a wish list.
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord makes his point with his customary passion and eloquence. I simply say that I am sorry but I disagree on that point. The British people were presented with a clear choice on 23 June. They were presented with different options. They made a choice. Furthermore, as your Lordships will know, the House of Lords European Select Committee earlier in the year said that parliamentary scrutiny of negotiations,
“will have to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the desire for transparency, and on the other the need to avoid undermining the UK’s negotiating position”.
That is our position and we will stick to it.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, chapter 9 in the White Paper sets out how, after we leave the EU, the UK will look to significantly increase its trade with the fastest growing export markets in the world. Does the Minister agree that a number of those countries already in the EU do significantly better with those export markets in the rest of the world? Why in fact are we waiting until after we leave the EU to start doing work on preparing to meet that competition? Why have we only heard from Dr Fox referring to lazy management in this country and have still not heard anything in detail from him? We have had the industrial strategy, which is as woolly a document as one could ever see—no specifics in it, no targets and no timetables. It is woolly in the extreme, like the people who have led the country out of the EU. When can we expect to get moving on a specific, timetabled and detailed analysis of how we are going to compete in the rest of the world? We do not need to wait until after we have completed the negotiations.
Lord Bridges of Headley
There are two separate points there. First, what are we doing to help UK businesses export, as we speak? There is an enormous amount of work going on on that front. The signs are already there that we are beginning to get great progress in our export markets around the world. That work continues. As regards the actual point that I think the noble Lord is getting at about the negotiations, he will be well aware of the duty of sincere co-operation, which ensures that we are therefore not able to start formal negotiations with non-EU countries until we have left the EU. The noble Lord may have a sense of impatience about that—I can sense it—but the reality is that we need to approach these negotiations in good faith and good will towards our European partners, and not seek to tear up or undermine the obligations that we face as a member of the EU today.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, on the question of trade agreements, given that there is a trend for intra-regional trade, has there been consideration given to starting a conversation with regional bodies such as the ACP, Mercosur, ASEAN and the Commonwealth? All the bilaterals engage with those regional bodies. Just to give an example, I encourage the Government to look at the Central American Association Agreement, which is an EU association agreement which encompasses trade, and to bring it into Parliament, because it has been stuck for a very long time without coming before the House.
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Viscount makes an extremely good point. Indeed there are a number of organisations like Mercosur and certainly the GCC which my noble friend Lord Price has I am sure been in contact with. We will continue to have conversations with those groups as well as individual member states. I would be happy to discuss that point with him in more detail.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, has my noble friend seen the latest report from TheCityUK stating that the EU has been a straitjacket on the City of London, which will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to now do business with the whole world? The EU’s own leaked report from the monetary affairs committee says that the EU has to do a workable deal with the UK, because it is absolutely vital for all Governments in the EU to get access to the City of London. In these circumstances, will my noble friend tell the remaining remoaners to start having faith that this is a great country, and we can be an even better country once we are outside the straitjacket of the dying and declining EU?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My noble friend makes a good point. There is a growing realisation across many financial services, both in the City and elsewhere, about the means by which we can come to some workable arrangement that I hope is to our mutual benefits. I remind your Lordships of what the Governor of the Bank of England said a couple of weeks ago about the risks that Brexit poses:
“there are greater financial stability risks on the continent in the short term, for the transition, than there are for the UK”.
As my noble friend says, there is a growing realisation on these points and of how we might come to some workable solution in the future.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, is it not somewhat hubristic of the United Kingdom to offer to assist the Estonian presidency of the European Union, when we ourselves said that we no longer wanted to hold the rotating presidency of the European Union?
The key question that I wanted to ask was about the great repeal Bill—the great retrenchment Bill. Can the Government assure us that they are thinking through the implications of implementing all the regulations that are in place, bearing in mind that many entail reciprocity and the jurisdiction of the ECJ? How will we deal with that? Will the Bill look at that?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I am not going to go into further detail on that specific point now. As I have set out in the Statement, we will publish a White Paper and the noble Baroness is absolutely entitled to raise that point. Let us do that when we have the White Paper in front of us.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I seek clarification of the Minister’s words—words that were on page 35 of the White Paper and on page 6 of his Statement—
“This negotiation will not be about bringing two divergent systems together. It is about finding the best way for the benefits of the common systems and frameworks that currently enable UK and EU businesses to trade with and operate in each other’s markets to continue when we leave the EU”.
Do those common systems and frameworks not in fact amount to the regulations of the single market? In fact, is this not a recognition that the single market will be our target?
Lord Bridges of Headley
Well, it is just a simple recognition that when we bring the EU acquis into UK law, we will therefore have exactly the same systems on both sides of the Channel. Then this House and the other place can in the weeks and years ahead decide how best to proceed.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, on page 63 of this White Paper, the Government say that they,
“remain committed to European security”,
and wish still to,
“add value to EU foreign policy and security policy”.
It goes on, of course, to talk about the civilian missions in Kosovo, Georgia and Ukraine, and says that those missions increased European stability. Is it the Government’s intention that, after leaving the European Union, we will continue to participate in common security and defence policy—not just good will but operations which the White Paper itself acknowledges have been so important?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Baroness, again, makes a very good point. It is clear that a number of the operations under way confront significant challenges that are likely to continue way into the future. I am not getting into detail about how we can best continue those levels of co-operation but, as I have said before at this Dispatch Box, doing so will clearly in very many cases be in our national interest, as it will be in Europe’s interest.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, as a follow-up to the question just asked by the noble Baroness, I say that I am delighted that we have the words “new partnership”. Can we please enter these negotiations as talks with friends and allies? There is far too much underlying hostility. That must not prevail. We are to work with our friends and allies in a different way and capacity; some of us deeply regret that, but that is gone. Let us make sure that this is a new and positive chapter. Can my noble friend assure me that that will be the hallmark of the talks?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I completely agree with my noble friend. The whole spirit behind the White Paper and the Government’s approach is one of building a new partnership on the basis that there will be, as I said, issues on which it is absolutely in our national interest and those of member states right across Europe to collaborate and co-operate in the months and years ahead, and to enable our businesses both in the UK and right across Europe to continue to trade freely. As I also said, we enter these negotiations very much in a spirit of good faith and good will.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I am sorry but it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats. If we are taking questions from around the House, it is the Liberal Democrats’ turn.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, first, I thank the Government for publishing the menu after the House of Commons has finished its dinner. I have a specific question about our withdrawal from the Euratom treaty, which has provided the framework for civil nuclear power and the management of nuclear waste in this country for the last 40 years. What communication have the Government had with the industry to assure themselves that the future of nuclear power on which their energy policy depends is still secure? What estimates have they made of the cost of creating a brand new regulatory framework to replace the one we are leaving behind?
Lord Bridges of Headley
All I will say on this point is that obviously we have had extensive consultation and talks with the nuclear industry. It remains of key strategic importance to the country and we have been clear that this decision does not affect our aim of seeking and maintaining close and effective arrangements relating to civil nuclear co-operation, safeguards and safety with Europe and the rest of the world.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, would the Minister acknowledge that it was a gross exaggeration for him to claim that our Front Bench statement represented a consensus about the White Paper? For example, on the question of the single market, the Government’s position is that they will not continue membership of it. The Statement repeated the catchphrase that they will seek an ambitious and comprehensive trade agreement with the EU. First, is that not what we have already? Secondly, are there not inevitably all sorts of attendant conditions to do with any trade agreement that are very similar to the arrangement with the arbitral role of the much-maligned European Court of Justice at present?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I should set out that we intend to forge a new partnership with the EU that has different hallmarks from the relationship at the moment. To give just three examples, in our new relationship we will have the ability to take control of our borders, to be outside the ECJ and to be able to forge new free trade agreements with non-EU countries. That is the basis on which we will proceed.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the fact that early on in the White Paper, Chapter 3 is headed “Strengthening the Union”. Did my noble friend see the statement made earlier this week by Mr Esteban González Pons, the leader of the ruling Spanish MEP delegation in the European Parliament? He said that if Great Britain leaves the EU, all of Great Britain leaves the EU completely. We know that Spain has problems in terms of Catalonia and the Basque country and that they cannot accept any kind of special solution for Scotland. Will my noble friend use the opportunity of the Joint Ministerial Committee to point out to the First Minister of Scotland that she must accept the result of the referendum, that the Spanish and others would veto any special deal, and that she should stop embarrassing Scotland by putting forward unworkable and confused policies and instead stick to her day job of trying to run a failing Administration?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My noble friend makes his remarks in his usual forthright manner. Clearly, the vote on 23 June was a vote for the whole of the United Kingdom. As the Prime Minister said, and I repeated today, our approach will be to negotiate in the interests of the entire United Kingdom, no part of which has a veto. We are looking at the proposals that my noble friend referred to and I hope that we will continue to have constructive conversations in the JMC.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, one subject that is not among the 12 principles and which I do not think has been covered in our own debates or reports is international development. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, quite rightly brought up European security and the Minister said that he could not disclose any details. Could he undertake to talk to his colleagues about international development? We have a substantial programme with Europe and want to know, in advance, what will happen to it.
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Earl makes a good point and I am happy to meet him to discuss it. My only point in response is that I do not wish to go into the mechanism of how we might achieve our aim. As I have said many times, where the national interests of the United Kingdom and the interests of member states across Europe coincide, we will obviously proceed with an open mind and will be willing to co-operate and collaborate where possible.
Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab)
What happens if the Minister’s optimism is somewhat misplaced? Does he agree that, in the event that he is wrong, this country must go its own way? In particular, might he form the view that the country is best served by being in the EU? I have been a member of the Commission for a very long time, as has my noble friend. Is it not important that an alternative view is put forward to the House by this Minister? I am not sure whether he is capable of that, but I think he will have a duty to put it forward eventually.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I think the noble Lord was suggesting that we somehow put forward a view to stay within the EU—if I understand him right. Obviously, that decision was made by the British public on 23 June.
Brexit: Disabled People
(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Needham Market
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on disabled people of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I am very pleased to have secured time for a debate this afternoon on the impact that leaving the EU will have on people with disabilities. During the referendum campaign, little was said about this matter and I have heard very little since. But the implications for millions of disabled people and their families could be profound. The choices that will be made by the Government over the next few years about how we leave and what they choose to prioritise will be of enormous significance. I am grateful to the Papworth Trust for its thorough and calm analysis in its publication of last autumn, Brexit: What Next for Disabled People?
I declare an interest as a member of the advisory board of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as patron of a local charity, Ace Anglia, which provides support and services to people with learning disabilities.
This is not the place to introduce a debate on the impact of Brexit on our economy overall. Indeed, it may be years before we can make a full assessment of that. But, if it is anything like as bad as some of us fear, the consequent deterioration in public finances could significantly reduce the amount of money available for benefits to disabled people and to the public services on which they are often dependent. The charity Scope estimates that 400,000 working-age disabled people are dependent on social care. It also reports that disabled people spend an average of £550 extra a month as a result of their disability. Clearly, these people have much less financial resilience to withstand a downturn and are more dependent on public services.
Of immediate concern is the loss of grants from European structural funds. According to the Academic Network of European Disability Experts, 19% of all European social fund grants are spent on projects directly supporting disabled people. To put that into context, the Papworth Trust alone received £7 million from that source between 2007 and 2016. The future sources of funding beyond 2020 are completely unknown. A quick glance at the White Paper published earlier suggests that the Government will meet some of these commitments—but only until 2020. That is a very short-term planning horizon.
Supporters of Brexit have always argued that the UK itself should be responsible for this kind of spending, not the EU. That is fair enough, but then we should expect to see some allocation of funds from the savings, whatever they may be, of no longer being members. To assist charities and other bodies with their forward planning, the Government should begin to offer some clarity about the post-2020 scenario.
There is a much deeper concern that a rush to deregulation, as a matter of either political choice or economic necessity to improve competitiveness, will reduce the statutory protections available to disabled people, especially with regard to employment and access rights. Anti-discrimination laws, while enacted by this Parliament, have their roots in EU law and could be removed by this or a future Government should they choose. The Government have set out, in outline at least, that their approach to unravelling the past 40 years of lawmaking in a European context will be the rather misnamed great repeal Bill. It seems to me to be a sensible approach to keep hold of the legislation that we currently have and to review it over time. This must be with proper parliamentary scrutiny and not just delegated to Ministers—although I am not convinced that the Government fully understand yet what a massive task this is, and the amount of Civil Service and parliamentary resource that will be required to perform it.
I will give some examples of what I mean. The blue badge scheme for parking concessions for people with disabilities is standardised across the EU. There is a comprehensive package of rights for disabled travellers on air and rail services. The charity Guide Dogs has pointed out to me that we have EU-mandated disability awareness training for bus drivers, and rules that ensure that electric and hybrid vehicles are audible. These are important matters and we need to make sure that they are not accidentally or deliberately lost in a wholesale bonfire of EU law.
The employment equality framework directive is a major component of EU labour law and combats workplace discrimination on the grounds of disability, as well as gender, age, race and sexual orientation. It will be a matter of choice for the Government as to whether they wish to hold on to these protections and, crucially, to what extent they are prepared to work with the groups representing the interests of disabled people to make sure that their needs are fully understood.
We are all aware that there is a social care crisis in this country, which is completely interwoven with the serious problems facing the National Health Service. There is no time in this introduction to detail concerns about the loss of EU migrants to the health and social care sector, although other noble Lords may have more to say on this. An estimated 130,000 EU citizens are working in the health and social care sector, so this is a major issue. There is already evidence that a combination of uncertainty about future arrangements and the increased instances of racially motivated attacks is making it harder to recruit into this sector. The fall in the value of the pound is making the UK a much less attractive option. Given that there is already a vacancy rate of around 5% in the care sector because of the low pay and unsocial hours, any deterioration here is a matter for concern. The charity Sense estimates that currently 108,000 learning disabled people with moderate to severe needs receive no support whatever. It would be catastrophic if this were to get any worse.
Health is of course mainly a national competence and there has never been an attempt to provide uniform services across the EU 28. However, there are some rights that exist across the EU that may now come into question. Because disabled people are more likely to use healthcare services, they could be affected more. All EU citizens can access each other’s health services free of charge using the European health insurance card. Will a continuation of this scheme be a priority for the Government? The UN estimates that around 1.2 million British citizens live and work in the EU. If we restrict the rights of EU citizens to the NHS, of course the same will happen to ours.
What will happen to the large number of pensioners, some of whom are disabled, currently accessing health services in places such as Spain and Cyprus? If the scheme is not to be continued, the Government will need a massive campaign to make sure that British tourists have adequate health insurance when they travel. For people with disabilities, getting such insurance can be very difficult and costly, and the Government will need to take this up with the insurance industry.
I understand that there is an NHS Europe transition team. I would like the Minister to assure us that disabled people are being consulted and involved in the thinking about what the implications might be of the different outcomes and options being considered by the Government. There are many tricky issues to be considered and resolved, and some of them will be part of the terms of departure that we agree with the EU. Others, such as co-ordination rules for social security, can be done bilaterally and could, if we are not careful, result in a bureaucratic nightmare.
We will still be Europeans and it makes no sense to turn our back on everything. It is estimated that there are 70 million disabled people in Europe, and a well-established network of research and development projects in which UK organisations have been active. It is an absolute priority to remain within those networks and funding programmes if we are not to lose the very real progress that we have made in understanding and treating the disabilities themselves and, crucially, in helping disabled people to live more fulfilled lives.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, we should thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for initiating this debate. While the referendum campaign provoked some discussion around the significance for disabled people of remaining in or leaving the EU, these matters were not centre stage in our national debate. There was neither a specific reference to what Brexit may mean for some 10 million-plus disabled people in the January pronouncement of the Prime Minister nor a single word in the White Paper that has been issued today.
We are in the impossible position of being asked to start the process of exiting the EU without any clear idea of where it will end—except that the Government have given up on membership of the single market and the customs union. History will reflect with incredulity on how we got into such a mess. There is real concern that the future for the UK outside the single market will make us poorer as a country than we would have been over the long term. The OBR has made the judgment that any likely Brexit outcome will lead to lower trade flows, investment, net inward migration and potential output. All this has adverse implications for the public finances and our social security system, already battered by austerity.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that we should be grateful to the Papworth Trust for its briefing on the key issues affecting disabled people and the EU. We should acknowledge the importance of the EU to date in bringing down the barriers faced by disabled people—for example, in improving access to public buildings and transport, and supporting employment programmes. Indeed, 19% of ESF grants are spent on projects that directly support disabled people. This is not to deny the role of the UK in leading the way on disabilities legislation but to recognise that the EU directives and the treaties that we have signed underpin discrimination laws.
Once outside the EU, the UK will lose the underpinning of EU equalities legislation and the oversight by the European Court of Justice. Can the Government at least confirm their intention on membership of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights? Commitments to enshrine all existing EU legislation into domestic law, the so-called great repeal Bill, are welcome but this does not mean that these rights will be sustained over time. Moreover, being outside the EU means that the UK could be left behind on future developments, such as the planned EU-wide European Accessibility Act. Would the Government support embedding the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which we ratified, into domestic law?
We know that disabled people are heavily reliant on the NHS and social care services, and we know that these services are heavily dependent on migration from the EU. We also know that there are horrendous recruitment problems in the sector. Restrictions on free movement will only exacerbate these. It is imperative, therefore, that the status of EU nationals working in the UK is clarified as a matter of urgency, to help retention. There is also a need for a clear strategy for the future.
We should not overlook the capacity issues in all of this—for the Executive, Parliament and the Civil Service—specifically in relation to plans for EU legislation that is currently directly applicable but which has to be converted into UK law. The House of Commons Library note suggests there could be some 5,000 pieces of legislation. I ask the Minister to provide us—in due course but, I hope, as soon as possible—with a list of all those which touch on matters relevant to disabled people. When ministerial red boxes are being stuffed full of Brexit matters, who will focus on delivering the halving of the disability employment gap?
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)
My Lords, leaving the EU is very much a disability issue, with hidden risks that were not aired much during the referendum campaign. Therefore, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for introducing this really important debate.
As time is short, I will concentrate on the area I am most familiar with: the workforce which facilitates independent living for disabled people such as me. I declare an interest as someone who has employed personal assistants from at least 10 EU countries during the past 25 years. I am not unusual. There are thousands of disabled people who do the same. Our personal assistants—some call them carers—are a mixture of UK and EU nationals. They are crucial to our independence and our freedom to enjoy a private and family life, to work, to socialise and to raise children. Our employees are funded mainly by social care or healthcare personal budgets. During the past 30 years, increasing numbers of disabled people have become employers.
When preparing for this debate, I searched for data on how many EU nationals were employed as personal assistants. I contacted the United Kingdom Homecare Association and independent living PA agencies, such as Independent Living Alternatives and PA Pool. No specific data were available but we know there are more than 70,000 EU citizens working in social care. I then contacted disabled employers through social media platforms to find out more about their reasons for seeking personal assistants from EU countries.
Everyone I heard from said first that the pool of potential UK employees was drying up, yet demand for care workers continued to rise. The EU workforce was therefore an essential supplement, and all were concerned about moves to restrict it. Other reasons given for recruiting EU nationals were a strong work ethic and reliability, and the fact that the job tends to attract single people, who, as a rule, are found to be more flexible in their working hours, giving much-valued opportunities for spontaneity. They are keen to fill live-in employment positions. This helps disabled people who live in rural villages where local employees are limited. Some commute to and from their home countries between work stints. Such flexibility is a win-win situation for both employers and employees.
I spoke also to John Evans, a quadriplegic man and pioneer of independent living for disabled people in the UK and internationally. He said:
“I have been free from residential care for 34 years, employing my own PAs who support me to have full control of my life. They have come from 15 different EU countries. Without their support I could not do my work at home and abroad. If the Government does not make some kind of arrangement to protect our access to the EU PA workforce, I will lose my freedom again”,
and he will have to return to residential care. We constantly hear about the threat to the NHS if restrictions to work in the UK are tightened. The PAs and carers employed by thousands of disabled people must be accorded the same attention; otherwise, the current social care crisis will worsen and disabled people will lose the right to independent living, as set out in Article 19 of the UN convention.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission shares my concern. In its evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ Brexit inquiry, it said that any change in Immigration Rules,
“should be subject to a rigorous equality and human rights impact assessment”.
Will the Minister assure the House that this assessment will be carried out rigorously and shared with Parliament? Will he also guarantee that disabled people and their organisations will be thoroughly involved in any Brexit developments regarding access to the EU workforce? Our independence depends on it.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, there are certain debates in which you discover quite happily that someone else has done the heavy lifting for you. I thank my noble friend for that. What strikes me about this debate is that it is not about the big acts of principle because when it comes to disability, this Chamber—and, indeed, the whole British Parliament—handles it pretty well. It is the small things. It is the stream of regulation that we are always struggling with to make those big acts of principle count.
I remember when we were dealing with small concessions in regulations about transport, people from all Benches coming up to me and saying, “It is really inconvenient to make sure that the displays at stations are the right size, that we have the easiest tables to fold down to change a baby on, that the toilets are accessible”—there is always a good reason why not. That gets easier and easier to ignore when you have a smaller machine driving it, when you have people saying, “It is very inconvenient regulation for me”. If you do not have real weight and determination behind it, or an energy, it gets picked off.
People will say, “That is red tape. It gets in the way”. One of the many things I have covered in your Lordships’ House is health and safety. I came to the conclusion that everybody was against health and safety regulations until their child was up a ladder. It will be inconvenient for you until you have a disabled child or a disabled parent who needs that support. We need a clear guide and energy here, with the Government prepared to commit time, resources and, indeed, political capital to standing up to people like that. It is going to get more difficult because the EU is a convenient punchbag, let us face it. We can duck round it and say it is the EU’s fault, not ours—“We have to do it, I’m afraid”. If anybody has not seen that here, I can take them through a few events. I will not do that now because no one has annoyed me quite enough to do it. But that happens and unless the Government are prepared to publicly start taking on the responsibility for those unpopular small decisions with certain sectors, we are going to fall down here.
The Papworth Trust report points out that the drive from Europe means there is a focus. You have to come behind it grumblingly, saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t do this but I appreciate you have problems”. You have to take it on. Unless the Government are prepared to look for a cross-party consensus about how we go about this, we will get into trouble. The disabled are one group but others will suffer as well. We must take on the fact that this unpleasant grind to make sure that things are accessible and easy to use is there. If we do not do that, we will jump from events where we have a big, dramatic event—“We’ll make a change. Oh, that doesn’t work. It’s out of date, we’ll have to go back”. That is inefficient and inconvenient for those who happen to have their lives disrupted in a large way in that process.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for securing this debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss this important question. When we debated the question of withdrawing from the EU last June, I said it was clear to me that disabled people would get a much better deal by remaining within the EU. In my experience, it has always been possible to get much more for disabled people from the EU than from our own Government, of whatever complexion. Now that we have decided to leave, it is important to make sure that the benefits disabled people presently derive from being in the EU are maintained by the United Kingdom.
Most of the benefits come from the single market. To take just three examples, first, in 2014 disabled people successfully influenced the revision of the EU’s public procurement directive. Accessibility is now a mandatory criterion for all public tenders above a certain financial threshold. According to the European Commission, public procurement accounts for 14% of the EU’s GDP. At home, according to a 2015 House of Commons briefing paper, in 2013-14 the UK public sector spent a total of £242 billion on procurement of goods and services—33% of public sector spending. In sectors such as energy, transport, waste management, social protection, and health and education services, public authorities are the main buyers, so public procurement regulations offer a substantial lever for improving accessibility and bringing about change, just as they did in the United States many years ago.
Secondly, on the accessibility of the world wide web, despite strong resistance initially from national Governments, we now have a directive that ensures the accessibility of all public sector bodies’ websites. It covers their mobile applications and includes an enforcement mechanism. This means that disabled citizens can access e-government services right across Europe. In conjunction with the previously mentioned new rules on public procurement, this directive ensures that industry delivers digital solutions that are accessible to all. We already have European standards for accessible ICT, but technology is moving very rapidly in this area and it is good to have this new legislation to ensure that disabled people are able to keep up.
Finally on accessibility of goods and services, the European Commission has now tabled a proposal for a directive that would harmonise accessibility requirements across the EU for a wide range of goods and services, including smartphones, computers, ticket machines, ATMs, retailers’ websites, banking, e-books and associated hardware such as Amazon’s Kindle, and audio-visual media services and related equipment. Travel-related information is also included. Items not complying with the standards will not be able to be brought to market. This proposal does not include everything one would want and is still under negotiation—it does not include white goods such as washing machines and microwaves, for instance—but it goes much further than anything we have in this country. In the UK, the Equality Act does not apply to manufacturers and manufactured goods.
The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referred to concerns that withdrawal from the EU will put at risk the implementation of disability awareness training for bus drivers as well as measures to ensure the audibility of electric and hybrid vehicles. Regulations requiring bus drivers to undertake disability awareness training are due to come into effect in 2018. The requirement was due to come into force in 2013, but the Government made use of a derogation to delay it. It would indeed be a perverse result of Brexit if, instead of being just delayed, the regulation was lost altogether.
The EU regulation on sound levels of motor vehicles would mean that all new quiet vehicles must be fitted with an acoustic vehicle alerting system, or AVAS, by 2021. But again, it is now unclear whether this regulation will be incorporated into UK law once the UK has left the EU. Will the Government commit to the introduction of disability awareness training for all bus drivers and to ensuring that all quiet electric and hybrid vehicles are rendered audible, with a clear deadline for installing acoustic vehicle alerting systems on all quiet vehicles?
From the point of view of disabled people, there can be no doubt that it would make sense for the UK to remain a member of the single market. If we do not, and if we are to safeguard the interests of disabled people, we need, on Brexit, to bring across as many of the benefits of the single market as possible. I trust that the great repeal Bill will do this and that we will choose to hang on to as many of the benefits thus transposed as possible.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for giving us the opportunity to reflect on this important subject. For many years, the European Union has been an important driver of disability rights in the UK, helping to improve disability access and strengthen non-discrimination laws right across Europe. It was the European Union that ensured non-discrimination laws were extended to smaller businesses, and the European Court of Justice which extended rights to carers and those in relationships with a disabled person, to name just two examples. With the proposed European Accessibility Act still some time away from implementation, I hope the Minister can understand the fear expressed by many in this House and outside it that a post-Brexit UK may start to fall behind its European counterparts when it comes to disability rights.
Britain, of course, has a proud history of disability rights, but that is no guarantee of future progress. Indeed, in this time of cuts and savings, there will be great pressure on Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that those with disabilities take their “fair share” of the cuts. Despite the admirable rhetoric on cutting the disability employment gap, it is significant that one of the few policy changes of substance thus far has been to dramatically cut the benefit entitlements of disability benefit claimants in the work-related activity group. The Government’s policies, such as including disabled people within the underoccupancy charge and restricting the eligibility criteria for personal independence payments, are further trends that make many of the disabled people I have spoken to fearful for the future of disability rights outside the EU.
As we move towards Brexit, it is absolutely essential that Her Majesty’s Government give disabled people confidence that the UK will be a world leader in disability rights, showing the way forward rather than lagging behind. Although we have made significant progress over recent decades, there is still a long way to go in securing full accessibility and rights for disabled people in our country. This can be a particular problem in rural areas—I declare my interests as president of the Rural Coalition—where many people with disabilities still struggle with accessing basic services, particularly public transport. People in rural areas can also struggle to access adequate care services, something which may become even harder if and when the UK Government introduce immigration restrictions on those EU residents who make up a significant proportion of our caring workforce.
I realise that the Minister will today seek to reassure the House that any existing EU disability rights legislation will be incorporated into British law through the great repeal Bill. But I hope he will be able to go further than that, and reassure us that Her Majesty’s Government recognise there is still a huge amount of work to do and that there is a determination to take this forward.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for securing this debate. Many people are tired of hearing that Brexit means Brexit. This debate may give some insight into what disabled people are thinking. It seems a long time since I made my maiden speech on what became the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. I have been surprised by how much legislation there is concerning disabled people incorporated in the European Union. Britain has helped to lead the campaign for better protection for disabled people. It will be a tragedy if, ostracised from Europe, we become an isolated island. As far as disability issues are concerned, I feel that Europe needs us and we need Europe.
I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurance today. Many disabled people are frightened at this time. Diabetes can be a serious disability if not controlled. Will such research as the DIAMAP project, the Alliance for European Diabetes Research, funded by the European Commission, still be available for members from the UK? The European Commission funds many important research projects to find ways of preventing disability. Does Brexit mean that we will no longer be part of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, a renewed commitment to a barrier-free Europe? Will the blue badge for disabled drivers or passengers, a European project, still be available?
I am very concerned when I hear members of the Government say that we want to let in only the brightest people when Brexit takes place. This will be a disaster for disabled people who need help. We have many disabled people, some of whom can work, but they need carers who can help with personal care and mobility. We do not have enough British people who want to do such jobs. We need the many young, fit people who come from the EU who are honest and want to work. They do not need to be high-fliers but they need to feel wanted and to be cherished. Otherwise, with a low pound and abuse, they will not come. The Government have a responsibility to enable disabled people to live as independent lives as possible.
Lord Borwick (Con)
My Lords, I leap briefly into the gap. I declare an interest as trustee of several charities, notably the Ewing Foundation for deaf children. Brexit changes Britain, but we do not know exactly how. The negotiations have barely started; all we have are our worries and our hopes. While we in this House will in future be considering a positive mountain of regulations, we know that we will have the benefit of many Members with personal knowledge of disability. I doubt there is a legislative chamber in the world with such effective and numerous representation of disabled people. The further point, however, is to make certain that the voice and opinions of disabled people are heard and thought about when regulations are formulated, not just at this legislative stage.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)
My Lords, this is a timely debate. Thanks to my noble friend Lady Scott, we have heard forcefully this afternoon some of the real worries about Brexit both from disabled people themselves—I am one—and others. Perhaps the main one concerns what will happen to the thousands of personal assistants from the EU who give top-quality care to severely disabled people if there is no free movement. Who knew, before the referendum, that Brexit might mean that all the EU directives, which have made life so much better for disabled people travelling throughout Europe, for example, or even accessing public sector websites, might have to be negotiated all over again? Or will they? Who knows?
There is now a terrible uncertainty about what will happen in the future. Will we have reciprocity for all the working people from the EU who are settled in this country to stay after Brexit? This is perhaps the greatest worry for many disabled people, as they are now used to the high standards and attitudes of many EU care workers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, has said. I must straightaway ask the Minister whether he thinks there is any chance of an exemption from the restriction on the free movement of labour for staff in social care and NHS services. I repeat my noble friend’s question about whether there are any disabled people on the NHS Europe transition team.
The word “reciprocity” is very important in the field of social security as well as care. There has been a long-standing provision in EU law to co-ordinate social security schemes for people moving within the EU and EEA. This is a very important protection for disabled people who may want to reside in other EU or EEA member states. These co-ordination rules, such as allowing a person’s contributions paid in one country to count towards entitlement to benefit in another country, or allowing certain benefits to be taken abroad with them, are there to support free movement. What will happen in the future? What about those people who have lived and worked in more than one member state and paid national insurance in those countries?
At present, a person who moves from one member state to another has access to benefits in the host country if they are economically active or can support themselves. Working EU and EEA migrants are entitled to in-work benefits on the same basis as nationals of the host country, but this could all change. Will the Minister say which department is in charge of these negotiations? If there is no certainty for many months, quite a lot of disabled UK nationals living abroad are likely to return to the UK, where they may well need care services and quite possibly supported housing, thus adding to the strain that services are experiencing.
I turn briefly to the great repeal Bill, which, as we know, will annul the European Communities Act 1972 and transpose EU law into domestic law. The difficulty will come when the Government decide which laws will be scrapped altogether. The wretched Red Tape Challenge does not give us any confidence, as the report of the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Committee makes clear. This is about regulations being burdensome; it does not seem to matter that their disappearance might make life more burdensome for disabled people. So we are particularly concerned about hard-won rights in the fields of, for example, product design, air and rail travel, employment, building accessibility, public sector website accessibility and many others. Can the Minister assure us that disabled people will be in the forefront of negotiations on any matter that affects them directly?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, this fascinating brief debate serves to highlight the enormity of the task facing both the Government and Parliament in the months and years ahead, as we seek to understand and then deal with all the implications of the decision to leave the EU. Will the Minister tell the House how the Government propose to enable us to scrutinise the issues as they start to emerge? Will there be pre-legislative scrutiny of the great repeal Bill to ensure Parliament is sighted on the areas where the Government are unable or unwilling simply to transfer current provision across, or where, as various noble Lords have mentioned, there is a need for some regulatory or enforcement mechanism that is currently Europe-wide?
Like my noble friend Lord McKenzie, I read the White Paper carefully—I even searched the electronic version—and I could not find the words “disabled”, “disabled people” or “disability” anywhere in it. Will the Minister tell the House how much thinking the Government have begun to do on the impact on disabled people of the decision to leave the EU? Has his department developed a strategy to engage with key stakeholders in the field and, through those stakeholders, directly with disabled people, both to consult them and to reassure them that it is engaged with the issues? My noble friend Lord McKenzie made some important points about the commitment to enshrining long-term protections for disabled people in our law. Will the Minister also commit to enshrining in law those protections for disabled people that currently derive not from EU legislation but, for example, from judgments of the European Courts?
The question of transport was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Thomas of Winchester, and the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Low, among others. I should be very interested in the answers about blue badge recognition and accessible transport, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Low.
The matter of health and social care is absolutely crucial. Disabled people have a higher than average need to access health and social care. We have heard already about how many disabled people will be accessing health services in other EU nations and are very anxious about what will happen next. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, mentioned the EHIC. What are the Government doing about that? Are they beginning negotiations on this—how high on their priority list will it be? If not, what will they do to enable disabled people to obtain appropriate insurance care? Have they begun discussions with the insurance industry or representative bodies in the financial services sector?
The question of social care is the one that exercised noble Lords most. We have heard all kinds of figures. The one I drew out from the Skills for Care website suggests that there are currently 90,000 EU nationals working in adult social care in England alone—some 7% of the workforce. Can the Minister give the House a definitive figure for how many non-UK EU nationals are working in social care, and tell us what he intends to do to ensure that that workforce is protected? Do the Government have a plan to enable those people to carry on working? Obviously, I think they should allow all EU residents who are settled here to carry on, but what are the Government doing specifically about social care?
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, who always takes these issues and gives them such a clear reality when she describes her own experience of what it means in practice for one after another EU national to come in. The point she made is crucial. This is not a technicality but the difference between disabled people living independent lives and not living independent lives. The Minister should hear how concerned people around the House are about this. What do the Government plan to do?
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, raised the really important question of social security entitlements. What do the Government plan to do about the entitlement to benefits of disabled EU nationals who have been resident in the UK? Conversely, do Ministers have a plan for dealing with the benefit entitlement of disabled UK citizens who have been ordinarily resident in another EU state? If they suddenly have to return to the UK, will they be entitled to full support? What comes through crediting towards benefit entitlement if time is spent in another EU country?
I would be interested to hear the answer to the question on ESF funding, and how disability organisations will be protected in the longer term, past 2020. We have only just begun to scratch the surface. The House needs to hear from the Minister today, first, some hard answers to questions. The Government have had seven months to think about these issues, and we look forward to hearing what they have to say. Secondly, we want to know that the Government are taking this seriously. It is not just a question of each department looking at regulations in silos. Who in government is taking responsibility for having a strategic look at the impact of Brexit on disabled people as a whole, making sure that nothing is missed and, ideally, doing what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said and showing that the UK can be a leader in this field? That is the very least we deserve to hear.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her request that I answer quite as many questions as she put to me. She will be faintly disappointed that, because of time constraints, I will be unable to answer absolutely everything that has come forward in the course of this debate, but I will certainly give an assurance that I will write to all noble Lords giving answers to questions that I cannot touch on in the necessarily brief speech that I have time to make.
I also offer my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for giving us the opportunity for at least airing—I think that is the best word—this subject initially on this occasion and acknowledging the deep concern felt all around the House. I hope that I can deal with some of the misconceptions and fears that have been expressed. I also want to give an assurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, my noble friend Lord Borwick, and others that, first, there will be considerable consultation as and when appropriate, as there always has been by the department that I have had the privilege of rejoining after so many years.
I also give an assurance again, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that there will be considerable scrutiny by Parliament of these matters. She might find that she gets rather sick of the scrutiny by the end, because we all know that there will be scrutiny this Session, and possibly once we get the great reform Bill next Session, and the Session beyond. She will acknowledge that our strong parliamentary system provides more than enough opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny both in this Chamber and in the other Chamber—where the Bill has already started and will be coming here after our break—and through the inquiries being conducted by a great number of Select Committees in another place. I am thinking particularly of the recent inquiry from the Women and Equalities Select Committee on ensuring strong equalities legislation. That will provide the appropriate scrutiny for these matters that the noble Baroness rightly seeks.
I start by stating clearly that this Government have a firm commitment, made clear in our manifesto and later on, to maintaining the United Kingdom’s strong and long-standing record of protecting the rights and traditional liberties, and to supporting disabled people to fulfil their potential. The decision to leave the European Union does not change this, and officials in the Department for Work and Pensions, in which I have the honour of serving, and in other departments will be working closely with all colleagues, and particularly with the Department for Exiting the EU, to ensure that the impact on disabled people is considered fully.
I can assure the House of the protections covered in the Equality Act 2010, which we should remember—I shall not say merely, because it added more things—consolidated all previous legislation. We have legislation going back a long way to the ground-breaking Disability Discrimination Act 1995. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for mentioning the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, on which she made her maiden speech. That Act predates our accession to the EU by some years, which shows how long we have been involved in this field, in which we have a long and proud history.
The right reverend Prelate used those very words when he said that we had a proud history. He wants us to be a world leader. I can give an assurance that we are a world leader. We were a world leader with legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and we will continue to be a world leader. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will see that stepping forward yet slightly further with the Improving Lives Green Paper. That is something we are committed to do, and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and others have made clear their commitment in this field.
As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in her speech on 17 January, the Government will continue to work to ensure that the UK is a fairer society. I am sure that the whole House agrees that that should include disabled people to ensure that they have the right support and full access to opportunities provided by my department and other departments. We were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we made a manifesto commitment to halve the disability employment gap. That commitment is evidence of the importance the Government place on their duty to support disabled people to fulfil their potential. We intend to meet that commitment as far as possible.
Having a disability should not determine the path someone is able to take in life—in or out of the workplace. What should count is a person’s talent and desire to succeed. It is good to be able to report that, in terms of that commitment, we have already seen 600,000 more disabled people in employment than in 2013, and that is progress and an example of where we are going. The problem is that employment in other areas has also gone up and, therefore, the gap has not narrowed as much as it should, but we are going in the right direction and the fact that we have more disabled people in employment is a good thing. We want to see the gap narrow as well—but narrow while both are going up, rather than narrow while they go down. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would accept that this is the aim that we should pursue.
Since the new Disability Confident scheme launched on 2 November 2016, we have seen more than 3,500 employers sign up to it, including some big employers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Barclays, Channel 4 and Fujitsu. They all recognise the important point that the talent and skills that disabled people can bring to their organisations should be recognised. This improving picture is very encouraging, although there remains much more to be done. That is why the Improving Lives Green Paper, which I touched on, seeks to start a far-reaching national debate by: working even more widely to change employers’ attitudes; trying to get systems across the department and the health service—obviously we have to work across government—working together better; encouraging everyone to focus on disabled people’s strengths and abilities; and introducing an accessible information requirement for local buses.
As I said, we have a proud history of leading the way internationally. If one looks at, say, the EU standards for making rail vehicles accessible, they are modelled on our own UK standards. To give one small parochial example, our very own city of Chester won this year’s European Union Access City Award. Through our international development aid work, the UK actively helps other countries to support disabled people. We recently joined the International Disability Alliance to create the Global Action on Disability group to stimulate more action on disability globally. I can assure the House that this Government will continue working towards the best possible outcome for all the people of the United Kingdom, which obviously includes people with disabilities.
There has been considerable concern about the impact of immigration changes to the recruitment of carers and workers from the EU—as raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell; others have also touched on it—and I understand the concerns. The precise way in which the Government will determine how to control the movement of EU nationals to the UK after Brexit has obviously yet to be determined. We are considering very carefully the options open to us, following Brexit, to gain more control. As part of that, it is important that we understand the impact of any changes that we make on the different sectors of the economy and the labour market, including on health and social provision. But I assure the House that this is a matter that will be foremost in our minds in negotiations and thereafter.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also touched on the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. I can assure him that there is no intention whatever to withdraw from the Council of Europe, and we will still be subject to the European Court of Human Rights which, as the noble Lord knows, has nothing to do with the EU. That court long predates our membership of the EU but is possibly one of those popular misconceptions that should have been laid to rest many years ago—I see that the noble Lord and one or two others nodded at that. I can also give an assurance that we will continue our commitment to the UNCRPD; there is no question of any change in procedure on that.
I appreciate that there are a great many other questions on which I will need to write to noble Lords. The nature of these debates, as I said at the beginning, allows us to air the subject only briefly, so I shall therefore be writing a number of letters. I again express my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for bringing this Question to the House today and thank all other noble Lords for their excellent contributions.
Ensuring that disabled people have the support that they need and the opportunities to fulfil their potential continues to be an incredibly important issue. It is one that the Government have repeatedly demonstrated their commitment to, as did previous Governments—it is a commitment that this and previous Governments can all be proud of. I can confirm that officials in my department are already engaged in those discussions that I mentioned with officials in other departments to ensure that disability issues are given due consideration. Exiting the European Union, whatever our future relationship with the EU, will not diminish that commitment to making the United Kingdom an accessible, equal and fair society.
Digital Economy Bill
Thursday 2nd February 2017
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Digital Economy Act 2017 View all Digital Economy Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 80-III Third marshalled list for Committee (PDF, 262KB) - (2 Feb 2017)
Lord Morrow
Lord Morrow (DUP)
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 56, 58 and 65, which stand in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. At Second Reading, I made clear my concerns about how Part 3 would be enforced. Given the wide-ranging scope of the Bill, I did not expect to get detailed answers to my questions when the Minister wrapped up the Second Reading debate on 13 December. However, I am disappointed not to have received any subsequent reassurances from the Minister about my concerns and I therefore raise the same points again today, in the hope of receiving some concrete answers.
Part 3 of the Bill relies on three enforcement mechanisms, one of which is IP blocking, in Clause 23, which I support but will leave others to discuss. I am concerned about the other mechanisms, which many hope will be used before IP blocking is even considered. My Amendment 56 is to Clause 20, which allows the age verification regulator to impose a fine of either a maximum of £250,000 or 5% of the qualifying turnover. How will this power operate if the website which is not in compliance with the age verification requirements of Clause 15 is based outside the UK? I am not the only noble Lord to have this concern. At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said that she was concerned about how the Government would be able to ensure that overseas sites would pay these fines. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, with all his experience chairing the Digital Policy Alliance, also said that:
“One of the things that became apparent early on was that we will not be able to do anything about foreign sites”.—[Official Report, 13/12/16; col. 1214.]
As it seems unlikely that the Government will be able to collect fines from individuals outside the United Kingdom, my probing amendment, Amendment 56, would make that position explicit by ensuring that fines can be imposed only on someone resident in the UK. I would very much like to be proved wrong, but there is no evidence yet as to how this policy will be successfully enforced.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak on my two amendments in this group. Amendment 63 relates to the guidance that the age verification regulator may issue under Clause 22(7). It would make publishing this guidance mandatory rather than discretionary. It has been noted by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the regulator has extensive powers to issue guidance under Part 3—that is, in Clauses 15(3), 21(9) and 22(7). The guidance required in Clauses 15(3) and 21(9) is mandatory, but in Clause 22(7) it is discretionary.
The effectiveness of Clause 22 is central to the Government’s enforcement strategy. It is great that they want to disrupt pornography websites that are not in compliance with the age-verification requirements of Clause 15(1) by either stopping the money via the payment providers or disrupting other business activities via what the Government deem ancillary service providers—ASPs—a term that is broadly defined in Clause 22(6).
The Bill states that the age verification regulator,
“may publish guidance for the purposes of subsections (1) and (6) about the circumstances in which it will treat services provided in the course of a business as enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic material or prohibited material”.
It is essential that the guidance in clause 22(7) be published. It is not just something that would be nice to have, which is how the Bill currently stands.
In making the case for mandatory guidance, I would like to make two additional points. First, Parliament should know what the Government intend should be considered an ASP, so that the debate we are having today can inform the guidance. In their original consultation document on age verification, the Government defined ASPs as,
“services which support and profit from the delivery of pornography on commercial sites. These include, but are not limited to, payment systems, advertising on pornography sites, web-hosting services, and other revenue-generating processes associated with these sites”.
Payment providers are defined in subsection (5) but whether the Government still intend that other types of organisation listed in the consultation document should fall within the scope of Clause 22 is not clear. The truth is that we do not know whether there will be any clear, comprehensive guidance, and that is simply not good enough from the Government. There is a strong argument that the definition of an ASP should be fully provided in the Bill. My hope is that, at the very least, we should have an absolute guarantee that the regulator will provide guidance defining who will be considered an ASP.
Secondly, I would like to raise questions about how social media and media sites will be treated for the purpose of Clause 22. We need clarity on this. If my amendment was accepted, that clarity could be provided through mandatory guidance. I was pleased to hear the Minister reconfirm that all social networking sites will be classed as ancillary service providers, and that this arrangement would apply to the likes of Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and so on when showing commercial pornographic material.
However, I want to mention briefly user-generated material on social media, an issue that naturally arises in debating this Bill if we are told that it will not cover it, despite a vast amount of hardcore porn that can easily be viewed by anyone, including young children, being just a couple of clicks away. The majority of social media sites say that 13 year-olds are allowed to use their sites. In fact, 75% of all 10 to 12 year-olds in the UK are on one or more social media sites. So there is no justification for a site that says 13 is its minimum age providing easy access to harmful 18-plus material; even less so when the same site also knows that in fact, large numbers of under-13s are its customers.
As it stands, commercial porn sites will be required to introduce age verification to limit access to over-18s, but social media sites escape such a requirement if the material is user-generated. Therefore, we leave the door wide open and we may end up driving kids away from big porn sites straight into the virtual clutches of porn merchants who operate via social media. One suggestion is that perhaps the proposed new regulator could identify individual accounts or profiles persistently publishing pornography on a significant scale on any site or service. The regulator should then have the power to require the owner of the site or service to delete the account or profile, or put it behind an age verification gateway. Importantly, the whole site or service would never be blocked or restricted.
I welcome Amendment 69A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which would seem to be an additional sensible means of beginning to address some of these concerns regarding non-commercial pornography. Requiring the Secretary of State to lay regulations concerning non-commercial porn is helpful. I particularly support the proposal for a warning sign on a website that the user may be about to access pornographic material. A warning of this kind may not be a silver-bullet deterrent but is a welcome step in the right direction and a platform upon which we can build for the future.
If the Government are not going to address user-generated content through this Bill, then I wonder what their child protection policy is with respect to engaging user-generated content. If the Government have reached the conclusion that commercially generated content is something from which children should be protected, then it seems illogical not to be concerned about user-generated content. It is worth remembering that the Government’s manifesto commitment was to,
“stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online”.
There is no mention of how the content was produced. The Government’s response may be that addressing user-generated content is more difficult, but we need to address this issue. I hope that the Minister will meet me and other concerned Peers to discuss this challenge.
I turn briefly to my other amendment, which is short and to the point. Amendment 237 would add a new paragraph to ensure that Part 3 and Clause 80 come into force one year after Royal Assent. The Bill as it stands does not say when, or even if, Part 3 and Clause 80 will ever come into force. This is an oversight which would do our children and young people a great disservice. I am sure that is not the Government’s intention. When the Bill was debated in Committee in the other place, the Minister said he expected that Part 3 would be in effect 12 months after Royal Assent. This is a welcome expectation. However, to give certainty to all the organisations affected by Part 3 and video-on-demand providers who will need to adjust their age verification systems, there should be confirmation of that 12-month timetable by putting that commitment in the Bill. It seems to me that this lack of clarity stands at odds with the explicit commitment to commence other sections of the Bill to a specific timetable. Clause 89 sets out that six sections will come into force the day the Act passes, 17 sections and one schedule two months after Royal Assent, and one section on 1 June 2020. Every other section will depend on the Secretary of State bringing the relevant sections into force by regulations.
This situation with Part 3 is completely unsatisfactory. I urge the Minister to commit to the timetable set out in the other place by tabling an amendment on Report to ensure the child protection measures we have debated will come into effect a year after Royal Assent, and to place on notice all those providing commercial pornographic websites that they will need to prepare to comply with the age verification requirements in Part 3. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to my questions and very much hope that the Government will accept my amendments.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I have Amendment 69A in this group. Before I discuss that I wish to address a few remarks to the other amendments in the group. I understand the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, about enforcing fines on people who are not within the United Kingdom. However, I do not understand how his Amendment 58 would be any more effective if the payment service provider or the ancillary service provider is also outside the UK. Perhaps when he addresses the Committee shortly, he will also indicate to me, because I am a little confused, the difference between his provision in paragraph (a) of proposed new subsection (2) in his Amendment 65, where enforcement of the age verification regulator’s decision on the payment service provider or ancillary service provider is implemented by way of an injunction, and the proposals suggested for a similar process under Amendment 66.
On Amendment 69A, as I mentioned on an earlier group, there are increasing amounts of adult material available on the internet that is not commercial in any sense. Much of it is taken from commercial websites but there is no reference to which website the material has come from, and therefore no suggestion that it is intended as a lure or as providing a link to a commercial site.
To take up issues just raised by my noble friend Lady Benjamin, increasingly there is pornographic material that might be described as “home videos”, either those produced by what might be described as exhibitionists or others where innocent members of the public, including some celebrities in recent years, are deceived into performing sexual acts to their computer camera not knowing that they are being recorded for subsequent posting on to publicly available websites. There is also the issue that Liberal Democrats have been very strong in trying to tackle: those instances of “revenge porn” where disgruntled exes post compromising videos online. From what I can see, that type of material is not covered by the Bill, as there is no commercial aspect and no ancillary services involved. There is confusion about what “ancillary service providers” means. In his remarks on an earlier group of amendments, the Minister talked about pornographers to whom ancillary service providers provide their services. In the case of self-generated or home-grown obscene material, though, there is no pornographer that the website is providing a service to, at least in one sense. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, spoke about the fact that there are some social platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, which are very good at taking down inappropriate material: they have strict rules about obscene material posted on their platforms. However, there are particular difficulties here with platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr. Although 99% of the content is innocent and of no harm to children, or anyone else, there are Twitter feeds and Tumblr pages that have adult material on them. Those are not simply links to porn sites, but actual videos on the actual pages or Twitter feeds. While most have a warning on the front page—NSFW, or not suitable for work, or 18+ only—that is usually also the page that has already got pornographic images on it. Even on Twitter, it may not be clear that the media content is pornographic until one has accessed those images. Clearly, there is difficulty in enforcing age verification on those platforms when the overwhelming majority of the material contained on them is not adult material.
What I believe needs to be explored is making a tool available to those who want to use social media for adult material, so that when the Tumblr page or Twitter feed is accessed, the user is diverted to a page that warns what lies behind and provides an option to divert away from the adult material. That alternative page could be a government-specified warning about the impact that pornography can have on young people, advising where support can be given and so on: the equivalent to the warning messages that are now printed on cigarette packets, for example. Alternatively, the Government could by regulation insist that such a tool was made available to ensure such a warning page is placed on accounts, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, mentioned just now, so that people are alerted that such pages or Twitter feeds have adult content on them. It falls short of requiring age verification or blocking such accounts, which I am sure Twitter and Tumblr would resist, but it would still address an important issue.
In its useful briefings on this aspect of the Bill, the NSPCC says there is a particular problem with children who accidentally stumble across adult material. This would go some way to addressing that issue. The NSPCC says a particular problem is pop-up advertisements from commercial pornography sites, which regrettably this amendment does not address—nor is that addressed by any other part of the Bill. Will the Minister tell the Committee whether there is any move by the Government to address that issue?
It is one thing for the BBFC to block a porn site that does not have age verification; it is quite another to suggest—as the Minister said on an earlier group of amendments—that we block a platform such as Twitter, if it fails to do the same for a handful of feeds that contain adult material. I accept that the amendment as drafted is probably far too wide in the powers it gives to the Secretary of State, but it is important that we do not ignore non-commercial adult material, which in increasingly a problem on the internet.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, my amendment to Clause 17, which noble Lords have already discussed, raised the importance of knowing how the Government plan to enforce the Bill through the appointment of one or more age verification regulators. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, raise similar questions about the mechanics and processes of enforcement and I am very glad to be able to speak in support of Amendments 63, 56, 58 and 65.
On Amendment 63, I agree completely with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has said. If we are not to have real clarity about the identity of ancillary service providers in the Bill, the idea that we can make do with optional guidance is unsustainable. It must be made mandatory. On Amendment 56, I support the call from the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, to hear a full explanation from the Minister of the mechanisms for enforcing the fining provisions in Clause 22 in other jurisdictions, which were alluded to by the Minister in another place.
In the time available today, however, I would like to focus particularly on Amendments 58 and 65. Any noble Lords who were in your Lordships’ House when we debated the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 will know that I had a major reservation about the Government’s plans to rely on payment providers to enforce the licensing provisions applying to foreign websites. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, has demonstrated that my reservations were well founded. In response to written Parliamentary Questions I tabled last year, the Government said that, since the law came into effect in 2014, the Gambling Commission has written to approximately 60 gambling websites reminding them of the law, and payment providers have been asked to block payments 11 times. Given the size of the global online gambling market that can access the UK, that surely seems tiny. If we are supposed to be reassured, I suggest that the Government should think again.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, also raised questions about why the Government think that ancillary service providers will act to withdraw their services. I recognise that the Government want to disrupt the business models of pornographic websites, but for some companies, to withdraw their services would be disrupting their own business models. They may be small businesses, not major international organisations such as Visa and Mastercard. In such cases, it would not be in the interests of the business to act. They cannot be expected to do so unless it is made an explicit legal requirement with a clear sanction. My concerns about the absence of any sanction or requirement to act are readily acknowledged by the Government’s own publications, in a manner that I find rather unnerving. In the press release the Government issued when they announced their plans for IP blocking, they said they were,
“also seeking co-operation from other supporting services like servers to crack down on wrongdoers”,
and in the notes to the release said:
“Websites need servers to host them, advertisers to support them, and infrastructure to connect them. With the international and unregulated manner in which the Internet operates we cannot compel supporting services to be denied but the regulator will seek to gain cooperation from the industry”.
They seem to be hoping that, although they have inserted this age verification requirement into statute, it is acceptable to back it up with what is effectively a non-statutory, half-hearted good will enforcement mechanism. Lest anyone doubts this, they should review the Government’s evidence to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee about the delegated powers in the Bill. The Government reported on the guidance to be issued under Clause 22(7) about who will be given a notice about non-compliance of pornographic websites. Importantly, the Government said:
“The recipients of those notices can decide whether or not to take action. Accordingly it is considered that no Parliamentary procedure is necessary”.
It seems that the Government hope that by placing the obligation for age verification in statute, we will congratulate them on fulfilling their election manifesto commitment, without—at least as far as Clause 22 is concerned—any credible commitment to enforcement.
Lord Maxton (Lab)
My Lords, I am very reluctant to take part in this debate, because I was not available to speak at Second Reading, which always restrains noble Lords from speaking in Committee. However, I will make three points.
First, I confess openly that I have indulged in sexual activity—I will not say when, as that might be unfair. But I have never fired a gun or a revolver in anger, or taken part in a fight with a knife, or indeed taken part in a fight at all. Yet we are not banning scenes of violence, even on the news, which are seen by children all the time, whereas we are involved in banning scenes of sexual activity. That may be right, but we ought to be looking at other areas of life as well, because they can damage children just as much as sexual activity can.
Secondly, this law as it stands—many noble Lords who have moved or spoken to amendments have admitted this—is almost inoperable. It cannot be enforced—or can be enforced only on rare occasions. That is rather like speeding in your motor car, which is an analogy I have used before. Everybody breaks the law by speeding—or most people do—because they know that they will not get caught. That is rather like this law, as it stands at present. The problem with unenforceable or rarely enforced laws is that they bring the law into disrepute—and that is the danger of this part of the Bill as it stands. We are in danger of bringing in something that is not enforceable and, by doing so, we are bringing the law itself into disrepute.
Lastly, I will give my solution to all of that. The aim of this part of the Bill is not to stop pornography sites but to stop children watching them. There is a simple answer to that—but, unfortunately, it is an answer that the Liberal party do not support and which the Tory Government got rid of when we introduced the voluntary part of it. It is an identity card. If you introduce a mechanism whereby you can get into pornography sites on any device only by using your fingerprint or via eye recognition, or whatever it might be, of course that can stop it. On my iPad I already have a device by which I can save my passwords and which will show them to me when I want to use them. But I can get into it only by using my fingerprint; I cannot do it any other way. I cannot even use my normal four-digit pass code; I can do it only with my fingerprint. Why not do that sort of thing for pornography sites as well? Only adults will be able to get into them; children will be barred by the introduction of an ID card mechanism, so that you can get into it only by that means. Unfortunately I have hospital appointments during the next sitting of Committee, but I hope that on Report I will be able to introduce amendments to that effect.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I have one amendment in this group. I very much support Amendment 65, but there is no point adding anything to what the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said. He covered it in great detail and for all the right reasons. I will add only for the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, that a lot of the payment service providers—this is the key to it—such as Mastercard, Visa, and so on, are international. If there is a duty on them, they are very good at trying to stick to the law. That would close quite a few holes and make life a bit difficult for sites—so as a deterrent, it would really help.
Sadly, this whole approach to cutting off the ancillary service providers years ago was enough to kill off pirate radio in the 1960s—which I was very sad about. But this time I approve of being able to do it, because I approve of the motive behind it: trying to stop children accessing pornography.
Amendment 68B, in my name, questions what a “large number” of children is. I realise that it is obvious that you have to prioritise, because 80% of the sites are over a certain size and they will definitely come under this. They handle 80% or so of the traffic, or whatever, so I can see that you should check up on them first. But they are also the ones that will comply, because many of them are onside anyway. However, let us say that there are 10% of sites left. That is an awful lot of children, if you do the maths in your head. You knock one nought off the end of however many children there are, but you still leave an awful lot. I therefore do not understand why we are leaving in a “large number” as a constant target. There must come a point when it is worth moving on to the smaller numbers as well. I therefore do not understand the purpose of the clause. It is self-evident that they will have to prioritise. If they do not, they are idiots—and I know perfectly well that the members of the BBFC are not. Therefore I cannot understand the purpose of it.
Amendment 69A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has some merit in it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, there is a lot of non-commercial stuff out there. The purpose of this is to stop children viewing pornography. It does not matter whether it is commercial or not. If you put in something like this, there are clever ways in which people will try to define their sites as non-commercial. In particular, if they can start appealing against this—this is where having a complicated appeals process would become so dangerous—I can see loopholes opening up. So we need to start including non-commercial pornography—and it is okay if it takes a year.
I also support Amendment 237, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. We need to have a deadline. It is something that all sites can work towards. We should say that, on whatever date, if sites are not compliant—we suggest that it ought to be a bit like a speed limit, where you ought to slow down before you hit the 30 miles per hour limit—we will issue notices to the ISPs to block them. Something might happen, because you have a level playing field, everything happens on the same date, and under the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, they will have a year to do it in. That is probably enough to get your regulations in place and so on. It is a very good idea.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
My Lords, I am pleased to be able to support Part 3 of the Bill, and Amendments 58 and 65, in their objective of increasing child safety. However, I am concerned that the Government’s proposal in Clause 22 currently leaves many questions unanswered. I am raising these points in the context of the Government stating in the impact assessment for the Bill, published last May, that the regulatory system to be set up under Clause 22 would merely,
“nudge porn providers to comply and put age verification in place”.
That is not consistent with the much bolder manifesto commitment simply to,
“stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material”.
Since then the Government have set out a robust position on IP blocking, which leaves websites little room for doubt as to what might happen if they do not comply with Part 3. The enforcement action is clear: the age verification regulator can issue a notice and internet service providers have a duty to respond. In this regard, and alluding back to the previous debate, I think it is vital that Clause 23 should remain as it is—unamended.
However, there has been no upgrading of Clause 22 in parallel with the introduction of Clause 23, so we are left with the notion of “nudging” websites—which gives me little reassurance that this is a robust approach to enforcement. Under Clause 22(1) the age verification regulator may give a notice to a payment provider or an ancillary service provider, but it is not clear when or if the regulator would inform the service provider that such a contravention was happening. Would it be after a fine was not paid or after a letter had been sent—and, if so, how long would a website have to respond before a notice would be given? I hope that the Minister will set out the Government’s intentions.
I support Amendment 58, tabled in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. It would require the regulator to issue a notice under Clause 22(1). The noble Baroness deserves much credit for her persistence in bringing this issue before your Lordships’ House over many years. My bigger concern is that, having set out clearly that internet service providers must act in response to a notice from the regulator, there is no transparent statutory expectation on payment providers or ancillary service providers. How do the Government expect enforcement to take place without this power? Others have set out their case on this point in detail and I will not take up the time of the Committee by repeating it, but I am left feeling concerned that there is no power to require service providers to take any action after receiving a notice from the regulator. Furthermore, such a lack of teeth undermines the Government’s manifesto commitment to prevent children accessing all pornographic websites.
I fully support Amendment 65 in the group, which would make it a duty for payment providers and ancillary service providers to act by removing their services from contravening websites, and makes that duty enforceable. I hope that the Government will agree.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to support in particular the inclusion of Amendment 65 on the requirement for payment services providers to cease providing a service to those who flout the age verification rules, and I am pleased to say that it looks like we are building slightly more of a consensus on that than we did on the previous group of amendments. It seems to us that this is the most powerful measure that can be taken against rogue pornographic sites. If we can cut off their source of income, the likelihood of a positive response is almost inevitable.
The very nature of commercial pornography is based on the vast sums of money that can be made from it. Indeed, when we debated Part 3 at Second Reading, several noble Lords made the point that legitimate pornography sites would welcome the age verification process as they do not make any money from children casually visiting their sites; they want the more serious players to be involved because obviously they are the ones who are going to pay the money, so there is a kind of internal logic to what is being proposed. For these sites, the overriding concern is to harvest the profits, and any threat to that is likely to bring about an immediate response.
However, I also accept the point that we have to get the enforcement right, and I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about the experience with regard to the Gambling Bill, some of which I did not know. If there is a problem, let us talk it through and work it out because somewhere in the mix is the answer to our problems.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for bringing up these rather difficult points which we have to address. This highlights that trying to fulfil our manifesto commitment is much easier in some parts, but there are also some areas on the edges that we accept are difficult. I do not think we are going to achieve a 100% success ratio and we are cognisant of that.
I shall start by addressing some of the general points that noble Lords made before I get on to the specific details of the amendments. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, for not answering his questions asked at Second Reading. I wrote a long letter on 21 December and I missed out some of his points, although at the end I made an offer to all noble Lords to bring up anything that they wanted.
As far as porn sites overseas is concerned, and how we should enforce this new law against such websites and companies that are not based in the UK, the aim of our policy is to capture all commercial sites regardless of where they are based. Overseas providers will still be incentivised to comply by the elements of the scheme which will disrupt their income streams. ISP blocking powers greatly increase the chance of effectiveness of the whole regime—I will come on to that more in a minute. The regulator will have the power to identify and notify infringing sites and to enable payments providers to withdraw services under their existing terms and conditions. These already require merchants to act legally, both in the country they are based in and in the countries they serve.
It is of course possible that there will be cases where it is difficult to enforce a financial penalty—for example, in the case of websites with no UK presence, as identified by the noble Lord. Even in those cases, however, circumstances may change and the option to enforce will remain. For example, the location of a pornographer may change or enforcement regimes may evolve. The regulator has discretion to take a proportionate approach. What I do not understand, however, is why not even allowing the regulator to include foreign sites is an improvement.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, also talked about payment providers and ancillary service providers. I can inform noble Lords that we have had constructive discussions with payment providers and they have indicated that they will act under our regime. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, confirmed that. There are ranges of potential ancillary service providers. In some cases, the existing terms and conditions will allow them to act when notified by the regulator. We believe that companies will take responsibility when enabling or facilitating the availability of pornography.
The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, talked about ancillary service providers that carry pornography not being blocked. The Bill strikes a balance. It is our belief that the key issue is the commercial providers who monetise pornography, attracting large numbers of underage visitors in the process. Like the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, we believe that dealing with the largest of these providers will be a great step towards a reduction in access by children.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred to content such as revenge porn. This was brought up again by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. We are clear that abusive and threatening behaviour online is totally unacceptable. Legislation is in place to prosecute online abuse. In the case of revenge porn, Section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 created a new criminal offence of disclosing private sexual photographs or films without consent and with the intent to cause distress, so there is existing legislation. There is new legislation and old legislation that has been adapted to deal with that very problem.
I shall now come to the detail of the amendments. Clause 20 provides that the designated age verification regulator may impose a financial penalty where someone has breached the requirement to have age verification controls in place, has not complied with an information requirement or has not complied with an enforcement notice. Clause 20 allows the designated regulator to give an enforcement notice where someone has breached the requirement to have age verification controls in place.
Amendment 56 would reduce the regulator’s discretion by restricting its ability to apply financial penalties for a breach of the requirement to have age verification controls in place. It would remove the power to apply financial penalties to non-UK residents in breach of Clause 15(1). The Government’s view is that the regulator should have the flexibility to apply sanctions to persons who are non-compliant, regardless of where they are based. During the Government’s consultation on these measures, arguments were made over the potential difficulties of enforcement, especially on taking action against non-UK companies. We are clear, however, that a flexible approach that includes a number of options is needed. We accept that there may be difficulties in taking enforcement against companies based overseas. However, as I said, we should not restrict the options available to the regulator, which should be able to take a view on enforcement based on the particular facts of any given case.
The Government recognise that financial penalties may not be effective in every case. That is why we have included other options for the regulator. For example, the power enabling the age verification regulator to instruct ISPs to block content to sites that remain non-compliant greatly increases the effectiveness of the whole regime and of compliance by providers of pornography. Our regime is designed to ensure that financial penalties are not the only sanction; there is also the ability to disrupt non-compliant sites’ business models. But we should ensure the regime allows for both fines and enforcement notices as appropriate to the individual, regardless of where they are based.
Clause 22 is an important provision containing powers at the heart of the regime to enable the age verification regulator to notify payment service providers and ancillary service providers of non-compliant persons. Amendment 58 would make it mandatory for the age verification regulator to serve notice to any payment services provider or ancillary service provider under Clause 22(1) where it considers that a person is contravening the age verification requirements in Clause 15(1) or making prohibited material available on the internet to persons in the UK. We need to be careful to ensure that we do not constrain the BBFC, which is expert in this area and committed to its role as an AV regulator in carrying out the role in the most effective way. It is important that the regulator has the flexibility to take the most appropriate action depending on the facts of any given case.
Amendment 63, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, would require the regulator to publish guidance under Clause 22(7), rather than having the discretion to do so. I realise that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee have made recommendations about increasing the level of parliamentary oversight for this guidance. We have listened to and noted those concerns; we are carefully considering our response to the committees as a matter of priority. Again, as I have said, we will be able to outline that before Report. On the question the noble Baroness asked about who would be classed as an ancillary service provider, I will correct something she said. I think what I said was that the Government, under the legislation, believe that internet sites can be classified by the regulator as ancillary service providers— it is ultimately the regulator’s decision—where they are enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic or prohibited material. If that is the case, it could be notified.
Amendment 65 would require payment services providers and ancillary service providers to block payments or cease services provided to the non-complying person where the regulator has given notice to the payment services provider or ancillary service provider under Clause 22(1). This approach represents a considerable change. We are quite clear that it is not necessary. It is important that the BBFC has the freedom to build effective working partnerships with payment service providers and ancillary service providers. As part of a proportionate system, it is not necessary for the BBFC to begin regulating those services. We think that the focus should rightly be on the providers of pornography.
Lord Morrow
My Lords, I respectfully thank everyone who has participated in this debate. I have to be honest with the Committee that I am disappointed by the response. However, I must be very truthful, too, in that I am watching the clock with one eye as I have a flight to catch, and I may not catch it if I stand here any longer. So noble Lords may understand why I will be brief. I was looking forward to the Minister perhaps explaining in some detail how the fangs would apply abroad and how that would work. I would be grateful if, even now, he would take that on board. Perhaps he would write to me and outline in some detail how he sees that working.
Very briefly, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, this will bind services and financial transaction blockings only if they have a foot in the UK. My amendment would provide leverage in that instance. That was the point that maybe I did not make clear, but it was the point I was trying to make. Also, I was very struck by the point of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, when he said that he thought the way forward would be identity cards. If that amendment is brought up at a later stage, he will discover that I am very close behind him going through the Lobby when he makes that suggestion. At least he can look to me for that—whether that is good news or bad news. He does not seem very impressed. I leave it there and thank everyone for speaking today. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, in moving Amendment 57, I shall speak also to Amendments 59, 60, 61 and 64. These amendments address the issue set out by the Minister this morning, but I make no apology for revisiting this and setting out our position so that it is on the record, although I take the point that he may not be able to answer all the points this afternoon.
Nevertheless, I should like us to have that debate. These amendments would remove the reference in Clause 22 to the regulator defining and imposing new controls on what is prohibited material on the internet. Noble Lords will know that there has been increasing concern about the implications of this wording. It is felt that it would give the regulator extended powers of censorship beyond that originally envisaged in the Bill. When our colleagues in the Commons originally raised concerns about press reports that the Bill could be used in practice to extend internet censorship for adults, the Minister, Matt Hancock, was quite clear. He said:
“I have also seen those reports. I think that they misread the Bill. That is neither our intention, nor our understanding of the working of the new clauses”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/11/16; col. 1284.]
However, others have since put a different interpretation on the scope of the wording, so there has been ongoing concern about what can best be described as mission creep.
The purpose of Part 3 of the Bill is to provide protection for children from accessing online pornography. We all agree with this intention. However, as the wording stands, it potentially sets new limits on consenting adults accessing pornography that is not harmful to themselves or others. This is material that would not receive a film classification certificate, but neither would it be subject to prosecution. It is not helped by the fact that, by all accounts, the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidelines on this issue are out of date. There is a resulting grey area of pornography that by practice, but not by statute, is not prosecuted. We strongly contend that this is not the place to resolve these wider debates on adult consensual pornography. It is an issue for public debate and for consultation at another time.
In more recent days, Matt Hancock has met with various groups of us and has, I understand, accepted that the wording in the Bill is not as it was intended. He has proposed, albeit informally, that instead a definition of prohibited material should be based on that of extreme pornography, as defined in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. We agree that this is a helpful proposal that could well resolve the debate.
We regret, therefore, that the Government were not able to produce an amendment along these lines in time for today’s Committee, which is really where some of these important principles should be resolved, before we get into the more formal, technical detail on Report. These amendments flag up our concerns with the current wording to urge the Government to come forward with detailed proposals before Report and, we hope, to build a consensus to go forward on this issue. Child safety is the issue here, not adult consensual pornography. I beg to move.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, briefly, I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said. That is why these Benches support the amendments. I took quite a look of comfort from what the Minister said early on in today’s proceedings. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, there are considerable concerns about the width of “prohibited material” and the very existence of that particular set of conditions inserted at a fairly late stage in the Commons.
Of course, we have talked about the site-blocking provisions but the prohibited material aspects really confuse the issue as they deal with access by adults. It was very useful having the meeting with the Minister and his colleague, Matt Hancock, to talk about these issues. Having discussed the matter, we felt that the proposed new definition of prohibited material, limited to the 2008 Act, was acceptable as that is very tightly defined. Again, I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that it was very disappointing that immediately after that meeting the wording as in this amendment was not made available or put down for the Committee. That would have been enormously helpful in settling people’s concerns about the width of the definition of prohibited material, which goes well beyond the harm test used by the BBFC under the Video Recordings Act.
That is really the essence of it—tying it back. I hope the Minister will shortly explain this in greater detail than he did at the beginning of this session to allay our many fears about something fairly extraneous being introduced into the Bill. I stood corrected earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, about the exact purpose of Part 3, which is to prevent access by children to online pornography. We must be very clear that that is what we are about, rather than trying to censor the internet on a broader basis.
Lord Browne of Belmont
My Lords, on Second Reading, a number of noble Lords raised concerns about censorship and the definition of prohibited material. I found this surprising as we have so often heard the mantra that what is illegal offline is illegal online. Offline, the British Board of Film Classification has operated for a long time on the basis that it will not classify certain types of video work based on the content. This principle is well established and has been in statute since an amendment to the Video Recordings Act 1984 was made in 1994 after the Jamie Bulger murder. That requires the BBFC to have special regard to any harm to potential viewers. A “potential viewer” means,
“any person (including a child or young person) who is likely to view the video work in question if a classification certificate or a classification certificate of a particular description were issued”.
Moreover, it is of course an offence under Section 9 of the Video Recordings Act to supply a video work which the BBFC decided is not suitable for classification. It is also an offence under Schedule 10 to have such a work in possession for the purpose of distribution and supply.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)
My Lords, time is somewhat against us this afternoon. I will be extremely brief. I pass no judgment on where the line should be drawn. I say simply that it is an unassailable argument that it should be drawn in the same place offline and online. Well before the internet of things arrives, the internet is already regarded as a method of distribution of DVDs, CDs and books, so it would be entirely illogical to have one rule offline and not implement it online.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, first I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for supporting my amendment in the last group about proportionality and the order in which websites should be tackled. Moving on to this group, I spoke to this set of amendments when we addressed this issue in the group starting with Amendment 54B—so I can abbreviate my speech and be quick. I support the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on the point made in the part of the briefing he was reading about the Obscene Publications Act and the Crown Prosecution Service advice et cetera being out of step with each other and out of step with enough members of the public for it to matter—that is the real trouble. I had thought to mention one or two of the unsavoury practices that you might find that will not be classified under the current ruling in Clause 23, but I think I have been trumped by the newspapers.
Some in the BBFC probably see this as an opportunity to clean up the internet. But it is not going to work; it will have the reverse effect. This whole issue of what is prohibited material needs to be tackled in another Bill, with a different regulator or enforcer, so it does not get confused with the business of protecting children, which is the purpose of this Bill. It will not protect children anyway, as this material ought to be behind the age verification firewall in any event. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, pointed out why it might not be: you have a possible lacuna in the Bill. If you say that the material is stuff that the BBFC has classified, the really nasty stuff is not included, because it is not able to be classified—so suddenly Clause 23 might not apply to it. He is absolutely right there. This is one of the dangers, which is why they are having to try and draw in the idea of prohibited material. It would be much easier to remove prohibited material altogether.
It has been suggested to me that the easiest thing would be to alter Clause 16, which deals with the definition of pornography. Instead of having this very limited scope, it would be much easier just to have the one simple definition which is already in Clause 16(1)(e)(i), but with the wording slightly expanded to say, “Without prejudice to the application of the Obscene Publications Act 1959, any material produced solely or principally for the purposes of sexual arousal”. You could leave it at that, and then you would protect children from anything unsavoury that we do not want them to see. That is a much simpler solution than getting into this terribly complicated debate about what is prohibited material.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I very much share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about this set of amendments and prohibited material. As they stand, the amendments would have the effect of causing the Bill to place 18 and R18 material behind age verification checks, which Clause 16 limits to 18 and R18 material, while prohibited material would be freely available without any such protection. This would be pretty irresponsible and would show no regard for child protection. Even if the Bill was amended so that prohibited material was only legal online if placed behind age verification checks, we should not forget that the important strategy of targeting the biggest 50 pornography sites will not create a world in which children are free from accessing prohibited material, so that adults can relax and access it without concern. Even if the material was made legal online and given a BBFC classification, this would give a measure of respectability in the context of which it would no doubt become more widely available, and thus the chances of children seeing it would be further exacerbated.
Moreover, the crucial point is that we cannot make prohibited material legal in an online environment at the same time as maintaining the category of prohibited material offline. The former would inevitably result in the latter. Mindful of this, and of the fact that the category of prohibited material is long established, it would be wholly inappropriate for the House or indeed the Government to simply end the category of prohibited material online without a major public consultation. I very much hope that the Minister will completely reject these amendments and stand by what he said on this matter at Second Reading.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I was very grateful to the Minister, Matt Hancock, and to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, who met concerned parliamentarians to discuss the Government’s thinking about how to move forward on this issue. I look forward to seeing the wording around what will and will not be prohibited in order to ensure that the protections that apply offline also apply online. I believe that we need to build on the consensus in this House that children should be protected from harmful content online and I firmly believe that prohibited content is harmful to children.
The BBFC’s harm test under the Video Recordings Act, on which the definition of prohibited content is based, has proved to be an effective child protection standard offline with DVDs, and online with UK-regulated video-on-demand content. So I ask the Minister for an assurance that the Government remain committed to keeping prohibited content in the Bill. Most importantly, I ask the Minister to confirm that prohibited content will include content which covers simulated sexual abuse of child characters—and I stress sexual abuse in the widest sense, and not limited to rape and incest fantasies. I also want an assurance that the prohibited content I have set out covers not only realistic portrayals of children but CGI material. If this legislation is to be future-proofed, it is vital that CGI portrayals of child sex abuse are prohibited. I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that this will be the case.
This is not about freedom of speech, civil liberties, censorship or invasion of privacy; it is about the bigger case of putting children first, and of protecting and safeguarding our innocent children from harm. I often find myself in agreement with the Opposition Front Bench—but not on these amendments, which take too much risk with child safety. So I urge your Lordships to consider the implications very carefully before pursuing the wholesale removal of prohibited material from Clause 22.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, this is an important debate, dealing not just with age verification but whether prohibited material should be included. I do not want to stand here and defend opposition amendments or put words into the mouth of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who can correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think that the object of the exercise was to completely get rid of prohibited material; it was to raise the extent to which the definitions may have exceeded what was originally intended. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others that the point is that the current definition of prohibited material in the Bill allows the BBFC to consider content based on its existing hard-copy guidelines. We recognise that some think this goes too far and therefore we are continuing to listen to views on that. On the other hand, asking the regulator to consider only classifiable pornographic content creates the real risk that more extreme content will proliferate further.
I realise that it would have been easier if we had had a definition in front of us today. I know that we have discussed this with various noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is obviously teasing me because he knows that it takes time. As a lawyer, he will know that these issues are complex, and we have to make sure that all parts of government are happy with the wording. I shall repeat, for the benefit of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and other noble Lords, the important bits of what I said this morning. It is our intention to protect children from harmful content. Therefore, we have listened to the arguments that, in so doing, the drafting of the Bill may have unintentionally extended the powers of the regulator too far.
I committed this morning—and do so again—to giving this further consideration in order to reach a conclusion that this House agrees is a satisfactory way of meeting our aims of protecting children from harmful pornographic content. I repeat my offer to discuss this with interested Peers. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, can be temporarily satisfied that we do not intend to get rid of prohibited material entirely. There is not much more to say at the moment, but we will come back to this on Report. In the meantime, I would be grateful if the noble Baroness would withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I am grateful to the Minister. He is absolutely right and I am sorry if I did not make that clear. When we were proposing to take those words out, we were rather hoping that somebody would come up with a definition that would replace them—it was not just an attempt to take them out finally and for ever. It rather highlights the fact that we do not have another form of words to be working with today.
I do not envy the Minister in trying to balance all these different desires to get the wording right. We agree with the principle that offline and online should be dealt with on the same basis, but the problem is that in practice, what happens with offline material is not what is necessarily captured in the current legislation. That is the difficulty we are trying to grapple with. Our aim is to maintain the status quo. We do not want to ruffle any feathers or change anything. We want to make sure that what people can access online has the same checks and balances as offline has at the moment. The problem is the lack of a current substantial legal definition. As I said, there is a grey area, so we have to work our way through it. That is the difficulty.
As I said, I do not think that we should start redefining anything massively without a public consultation. People have talked about that and I agree. We are simply trying to protect the status quo so that adults who currently look at material can carry on looking at it—and this has nothing to do with child protection and children’s access to pornography. We need to understand what we are aiming for, but it is a question of getting the wording right. I am sure that the noble Lord will come up with something with which we can all agree in the medium term. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
“No power to give notice under section 23(1) where detrimental to national security etc
(1) Before giving a notice under section 23(1) requiring an internet service provider to—(a) take steps referred to in section 23(2)(c)(i), or(b) put in place arrangements referred to in section 23(2)(c)(ii),the regulator must consider whether the steps or arrangements would be likely to be detrimental to a matter mentioned in subsection (3).(2) The regulator may not give a notice under section 23(1) where it appears to the regulator that the steps or arrangements would be likely to be detrimental to any of those matters.(3) The matters are—(a) national security;(b) the prevention or detection of serious crime, within the meaning given in section 263(1) of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016;(c) the prevention or detection of an offence listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003.”
Lord Paddick
“Anonymity
(1) Age-verification providers must be approved by the Age-Verification Regulator.(2) In this section an “age-verification provider” means a person who appears to the Age-Verification Regulator to provide, in the course of a business, a service used by a person to ensure that pornographic material is not normally accessible by persons under the age of 18.(3) The Age-Verification Regulator must publish a code of practice to be approved by the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament.(4) The Code must include provisions to ensure that Age-Verification Providers— (a) perform a Data Protection Impact Assessment and make this publicly available,(b) take full and appropriate measures to ensure the accuracy, security and confidentiality of the data of their users,(c) minimise the processing of personal information to that which is necessary for the purposes of age verification,(d) do not disclose the identity of individuals verifying their age to persons making pornography available on the internet,(e) take full and appropriate measures to ensure that their services do not enable persons making pornography available on the internet to identify users of their sites or services across differing sites or services,(f) do not create security risks for third parties or adversely impact security systems or cyber security,(g) comply with a set standard of accuracy in verifying the age of users.(5) The code must include provisions to ensure that publishers of pornographic material take full and appropriate measures to allow their users to choose the Age-Verification Provider of their preference.(6) Age-Verification Providers and publishers of pornographic material must comply with the code of practice.(7) To the extent that a term of a contract purports to prevent or restrict the doing of any act required to comply with the code, that term is unenforceable.”
Lord Paddick
The amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I have to say that it is only because we were quicker on the draw that I am leading on this amendment rather than the noble Baroness.
As I have previously alluded to, we believe that age verification is not sufficient protection for children on the internet. It can easily be circumvented, and it would be very difficult to place age verification on such platforms as Twitter and Tumblr. In relying on this mechanism, there is a danger of diverting attention away from other important and effective methods of addressing the issue of children accessing adult material online. Despite our misgivings, we believe that everything should be done to protect the privacy of those who have their age verified to enable them to access adult material on the internet. I am grateful to the Open Rights Group for its briefing and suggested amendment on this issue, which is the wording we have used for our amendment.
Age verification systems almost inevitably involve creating databases of those who are accessing adult material. It is completely lawful for those who wish to look at adult material to access these websites, but it is a sensitive area and many will be wary about or even deterred from accessing completely legal websites as a result. Security experts agree that unauthorised hacking of databases is almost inevitable, and the advice to organisations is to prepare contingency plans for when rather than if their databases are accessed by those without authority to do so. The consequences of breaching databases containing sensitive personal data can perhaps be most starkly illustrated by the public exposé of the personal details of those who were members of Ashley Madison, which reportedly resulted in two suicides. The risk to privacy can be reduced if the age verification regulator approves minimum standards for age verification providers. These are set out in the amendment.
The amendment suggests that the age verification regulator publish a code of practice, approved by the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament. The code of practice should ensure that everything possible is done to protect the privacy of users and to allow them to choose which age verification system they trust with their sensitive personal information. For example, some websites provide a service that enables users to prove their identity online, including their age, for purposes unconnected with access to adult material but which could also be used for that purpose. The full extent of the provisions are set out in the amendment, and the evidence in support of the amendment is set out in the Open Rights Group’s updated briefing on the Bill.
The Constitution Committee addressed this issue in its 7th report of 2016-17:
“We are concerned that the extent to which the Bill leaves the details of the age-verification regime to guidance and guidelines to be published by the as yet-to-be-designated regulator adversely affects the ability of the House effectively to scrutinise this legislation. Our concern is exacerbated by the fact that, as the Bill currently stands, the guidance and guidelines will come into effect without any parliamentary scrutiny at all. The House may wish to consider whether it would be appropriate for a greater degree of detail to be included on the face of the bill”.
That is exactly what this amendment attempts to do. I beg to move.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, I want to say a few words because I have been working on the issue of age verification for a long time. I became interested in it when it became apparent a couple of years ago that it was going to come to the top of the agenda. For the last year or so, the Digital Policy Alliance, which I chair, has been working with the British Standards Institution to produce a publicly available specification—PAS 1296—exactly on this issue. Its whole point is to enable anonymised verification of the attribute of your age. People have said that you would have to give the information to the adult content site, the porn site, but you do not necessarily need to.
There are two stages: when the child, or the adult, first arrives at the site; and, if they are allowed into the site, what they then do. At the point when they come to the front page of the site, where they should be asked to prove their age, there should be an option—and this is the point about anonymity—that allows them to bounce off, with a token, to an age verifier. I have on my smartphone, for instance, one from Yoti. I can identify myself to Yoti; it knows about me and can send an encrypted token back to the website, which does not contain any identity information at all—purely the fact that I am over 18. If the regulator later needs to unravel the token because it appears that rules have been breached, it is possible to present the token and start unravelling it—but only with proper powers. The point is that a hacker cannot find out who presented that token. So it is possible now to do what is necessary.
That answers the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. The problem with an identity card is that it will identify you. If you gave your identity to one of these websites and it happened to be hacked, like Ashley Madison, and if you were a Cabinet Minister—or even like most of us here, actually—your career would probably be in ruins. So I think it is essential that people be permitted anonymity. That is why, I am afraid, I am not in favour of the identity card method. There are other similar ways of doing the same thing—
Lord Maxton
I would, maybe, accept the noble Earl’s point in this particular context, but the ID card has, of course, a variety of different uses—particularly if it is a smartcard—rather than just this one.
The Earl of Erroll
Absolutely; I know what the noble Lord means. I simply meant that this is not necessarily an ID application—except, maybe, to identify yourself to the site which then gives your attribute to the other website.
I am thoroughly in favour of the amendment, and so is the industry. We hope to publish a standard on this in the not-too-distant future, which may help the regulator determine who is a fit and proper person to carry it out.
There is just one other thing I want to say. Once you have done your age verification and then go on to the website, if you then choose to subscribe, and give it your credit card number and everything else, that is up to you. I hope and trust that the sites—I know that they are pretty careful about this—will encrypt properly and guard the information with their lives, if not yours.
Lord Clement-Jones
I do not want to overload the Front-Bench contributions from this side, or to turn this into a mutual admiration society, but I want to say that the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has played a blinder in educating many of us in this House about the possibilities and the technologies being developed on anonymised age verification. As the Minister probably knows, we had a very useful session with many of those developing new apps for this precise purpose. Yoti was one, VeriMe was another—one could go on. There are different types of age verification, which can be chosen by the consumer. The most recent, which is now virtually available for general use, is Yoti, which the noble Earl mentioned. These methods are now available for use; this is not a question of pie in the sky, or of things not being available for a year or so. That makes the amendment highly practical, and, as my noble friend said, it is absolutely essential for the protection of personal privacy.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I support the amendment and congratulate the noble Earl on all the hard work he has done. Six months ago I told him to get on with it, and he certainly has. We had a presentation, and I was so impressed by the progress that has been made in this area. Congratulations, and I thank him very much for all that he and his colleagues are doing to make sure that our children are safe, and that people feel that their data are protected if they go online for age verification.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I support the comments that have been made by a number of noble Lords. I think we all understand the need for particular care to protect the identity of those who are over 18 and legitimately want to access pornographic sites. Apart from anything else, as has been said, we must protect those individuals from blackmail threats.
In this respect, the age verification process has to be more rigorous in providing anonymity than other regulations where proof of credit card details may have sufficed, but may also have made identification of the individual all too easy. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, is not in her place, but I understand that the site that does the gambling checks does it on the basis of credit card details. Clearly, that would not be appropriate in the context of the issues we are grappling with here.
Thankfully, as we have heard, the technology is catching up with the need and there are now new age verification provider sites that can carry out the age checks. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for explaining in some detail how that works; it is all very reassuring. I do not think I have anything else to add: we have a consensus that some such measure needs to be built into the legislation, and I hope the Minister will agree with us.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords again, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for the teach-in.
Amendment 68 calls for the regulator to approve age verification providers and to publish a code of practice with which those providers must comply. This was similar or identical to the amendment that was rejected in the other place in Committee and on Report. I am afraid that the Government do not consider this clause necessary. However, I can assure noble Lords that we approach this issue with the utmost seriousness.
Clause 15(3) already requires the regulator to publish guidance about the types of arrangements it will treat as being in compliance. As the noble Earl explained, the technology is with us and the providers of age verification controls will be subject to data protection laws. The BBFC is already in discussion with the Information Commissioner’s Office to ensure that best practice is observed. It has indicated that it will give the highest priority to ensuring that the guidance it issues reflects data protection standards. The Government and the BBFC are also in discussion with the Information Commissioner’s Office on privacy and data requirements to ensure that the appropriate guidance is issued, as they are experts in this field.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has additionally made a recommendation on the approach to the types of arrangements for making pornographic material available that the regulator will treat as complying with Clause 15(1). We are considering whether we can address those concerns and, as I said, will respond as soon as possible.
As the noble Earl explained, innovative age verification solutions are coming to market, and we want to ensure that the regulator is enabled to make a determination as to the sufficiency of different and new controls. As noble Lords know, there are existing privacy and data security protections provided by the Data Protection Act 1998, administered by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The Act established a framework for the protection of personal data, balancing the privacy rights of individuals with the legitimate needs of organisations to make use of such data. It ensures respect for individuals’ rights to privacy and keeps their personal information secure from abuse. The Act ensures that data are handled safely and securely. It is right therefore that we do not seek here to duplicate this legislative and regulatory framework. However, we agree that we must ensure that it is built into the age verification process in a meaningful way and, as I have said, we will provide a response to the DPRRC recommendation on this matter. In the meantime, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I am very grateful for noble Lords’ contributions to this short debate, particularly to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for illustrating how a system as set out in our amendment already exists. I join my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones in thanking the noble Earl for his work with the industry. I thank my noble friend Lady Benjamin for driving him on, apparently. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for her support for the amendment.
The Minister said that the amendment was not necessary despite the Constitution Select Committee believing that such an amendment is necessary. On that basis, I cannot give an undertaking that we will not return to this issue on Report. However, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Review of online abuse
(1) The Secretary of State must carry out a review of online abuse.(2) In conducting the review, the Secretary of State must consult—(a) specialists in child protection;(b) people and organisations who campaign for child safety on the internet; and(c) any other persons and organisations the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(3) The Secretary of State must consider measures to prevent online abuse and harassment.(4) The Secretary of State must lay a report of the review before each House of Parliament within six months of the passing of this Act.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, as well as moving Amendment 70, I shall also speak to Amendments 71AA and 71AB, all of which would add a new clause to the end of Part 3 of the Bill. The amendments are all, in different ways, trying to move forward on the increasing social evil of online abuse and trolling.
Amendment 70 would require the Secretary of State to carry out a review of online abuse, consult widely and report back to Parliament within six months of the passing of the Act. Amendment 71AA would require commercial internet sites that host personal accounts to take responsibility for the material posted on the sites, issuing a safety impact assessment, informing the police of violent threats and removing posts that incite violence. Amendment 71AB would require the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice with which social media platform providers must comply and which would include how they should respond to online abuse and how they should protect children. We believe that our amendments all provide the Government with a road map for action on an issue of huge social concern. They are in themselves probing amendments, but provide practical solutions that we hope the Government will take seriously.
The deluge of online abuse has massive child welfare implications. We know that social media sites are increasingly being used to bully, bribe and intimidate young people. The charity Childnet has identified that one in four teenagers suffered hate incidents online last year, and the incidents are increasing. Teenagers with disabilities and from minority ethnic groups are disproportionately targeted. Schools are reporting that malicious posts, personal abuse and fabricated stories are undermining young people’s self-esteem, distorting their self-image and encouraging risky behaviour. All these trends are having a knock-on effect on child mental health, with demand for support increasing and services unable to cope. For example, a record 235,000 young people accessed mental health services last year, but many others were denied the help they need.
I have focused on young people, but we know that this is also a problem in the adult world. The recent survey of MPs highlighted the threats of violence, appalling levels of anti-Semitism and sexist abuse. The MP Luciana Berger has spoken openly about the torrent of anti-Semitic abuse she has received, including threats of violence. The latest reports show a 36% increase in anti-Semitic incidents last year. Luciana reported that Twitter was slow to act, even when cases were drawn to its attention, and that the police and social media did not co-operate effectively to intervene when allegations were made. Even when prosecutions took place, some of the abuse sites could still be accessed on Twitter. Other women MPs have been subjected to graphic messages threatening rape and murder, and we know that those are not always idle threats, as the tragic death of Jo Cox all too starkly reminded us.
Of course, the abuse directed at MPs is a tiny example of what is happening day in, day out, both to those in public office and to private individuals. Some of these incidents are investigated and some are not. For example, we know that 155 people were jailed for sending grossly offensive, indecent or obscene material. Equally, we know that that is the extreme end of trolling, and that many other people have reported that their complaints were not taken seriously. It feels as though we are no longer in an agreed area for behaviour. There are no longer clear rules about what is acceptable and there are no longer clear penalties for those that transgress them.
We do not pretend that the measures we are proposing will be a panacea that will resolve these huge social challenges, but we hope that they might be a first step to capturing the scale of the problem and giving people more reassurance about the direction of legislation in the future.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, this group of amendments includes Amendment 233A, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. When I read the initial amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I felt supportive towards them. They relate particularly to children, but, as she has said, there is also an issue with regard to adults.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, not only Members of Parliament have suffered and spoken about this—and I am glad that they have done so—but people with disabilities or learning difficulties. Social media sites are often used as a tool by stalkers, and, as the noble Baroness said, such behaviour has led to people suffering mental illness and, at times, to murder. I very much support the amendments in her name. The difference between them and my amendment is that mine would introduce a criminal test under the guidance of the CPS. I think we all agree that we must have some form of enforcement of the action that should be taken against this form of behaviour.
It seems to me that the providers have to take some responsibility. It was put to me that, if people were damaging themselves fighting and stabbing each other in a pub, the landlord would have some responsibility for that. The internet service providers also have some responsibility in this matter.
I realise that this is a difficult area to legislate for, and I know that there are other forms of legislation. Here we are looking for a way to work with interested parties, such as the NSPCC. We have made progress on action for children, but we are woefully behind in taking action against this damaging behaviour against adults.
I very much support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I hope that the Minister might support some of the sentiment, and the letter, of my Amendment 233A.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this point, but this may be relevant evidence. Last year, I went to a meeting with a parliamentary group that was looking at hate speech issues, and a representative of Facebook was there. She said—one may say that this did not show quite a correct view of freedom of expression—that Facebook takes down whatever its customers find offensive. A member of the public said, “Actually, when you have had 20 independent complaints, you take it down and it is immediately put up again”. That second step is where the remedies are not working at present. It does not get taken down. This was mainly about anti-Semitic hate speech of a vile sort that would have been well known in certain quarters in the 1930s. This is an urgent matter, which we need some remedy for.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, it has been suggested to me that this group of amendments could also be used in the code of practice and the safety responsibilities could also be drawn up to include non-age-verified pornography.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, the Government take the harm caused by online abuse and harassment very seriously, and we will continue to invest in law enforcement capabilities to ensure that all online crime is dealt with properly.
Amendment 70 would require the Government to carry out a review of online abuse and lay a report before Parliament within six months of Royal Assent. We do not believe that it is necessary to include provision for a review in primary legislation. As part of the ending violence against women and girls strategy, we have established an official government working group to map out the current issues, prevalence, initiatives and barriers to addressing gendered online abuse and to produce an action plan.
We are absolutely clear that abusive and threatening behaviour is totally unacceptable in any form, either offline or online. As the Committee will be aware, any action that is illegal when committed offline is also illegal if committed online. Current legislation, some of which was passed before the digital age, has shown itself to be flexible and capable of catching and punishing offenders, whether their crimes were committed by digital means or otherwise. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was amended to introduce two new stalking offences to cover conduct that takes place online as well as offline. In addition, the Government will be introducing a new civil stalking protection order to protect victims further.
We will continue to take action where we find gaps in the legislation, just as we did with cyberstalking, harassment and the perpetrators of grossly offensive, obscene or menacing behaviour, and of course we introduced a new law making the fast-growing incidence of revenge porn a specific criminal offence.
The Law Commission recently consulted on including a review of the law covering online abuse as part of its 13th programme of law reform, which will launch later this year. It is expected to confirm with Ministers shortly which projects it proposes should be included.
We are also working to tackle online abuse in schools and have invested £1.6 million to fund a number of anti-bullying organisations.
In addition, we are working to improve the enforcement response to online abuse and harassment so that it can respond to changing technologies. The Home Office has also allocated £4.6 million for a digital transformation programme to equip forces with the tools to police the digital age effectively and to protect the victims of digital crime, including online abuse and harassment. Police and prosecutors evidence offences carried out digitally, non-digitally or both. The CPS Guidelines on Prosecuting Cases Involving Communications Sent via Social Media makes clear the range of criminal law which can be brought to bear on offences committed through social media. Moreover, from April 2015, police forces have been recording online instances of crimes, including stalking and harassment.
I shall talk about the next three amendments together, as they all cover the duties of social media sites. Amendment 71AA seeks to make it a requirement for all social media sites to carry out a safety impact assessment. Amendment 71AB seeks to require Ministers to issue a code of practice to ensure that commercial social media platform providers make a consistent and robust response to online abuse on their sites by identifying and assessing online abuse. Amendment 233A seeks to impose a duty on social media services to respond to reports posted on their sites of material which passes the criminal test—that is, that the content would, if published by other means or communicated in person, cause a criminal offence to be committed.
The Government expect social media and interactive services to have robust processes in place that can quickly address inappropriate content and abusive behaviour on their sites. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, it is incumbent on all social media companies to provide an effective means for users to report content and perform the actions that they say they will take to deal with this. We believe a statutory code of practice is unworkable because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Dealing properly with inappropriate content and abuse will vary by service and incident. Technological considerations might differ by platform and as innovation develops. Users will benefit most if companies develop their own bespoke approach for reporting tools and in-house processes.
Social media companies take down content that is violent or incites violence if it breaches their terms and conditions. We expect them to inform the police where they identify significant threats or illegal activity happening on their sites. It is, however, extremely difficult to identify where the threat has come from and whether it is serious. We work closely with companies to flag terrorist-related content and have so far secured the voluntary removal of over 250,000 pieces of content since 2010.
I can assure the Committee that we share the sentiments expressed in these amendments. At the moment, though, they are not practical or necessary, so I hope on that basis noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, first, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, for stressing her point on enforcement. That is at the heart of the debate that we are having today. A lot of fine words are being said, but they are lacking the guts and enforcement to make any real change.
I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, who quite rightly made the point that material does not consistently get taken down. That very much chimes with evidence that we have received as well. Luciana Berger MP has made the point that, even when a case of anti-Semitism was taken to court and the perpetrator was taken to jail, the site that they had created stayed up on social media and was still there for anyone to access—that cannot be right. It raises questions about the responsibility of social media sites and whether they are acting with enough responsibility and consistency.
I was really saddened by the Minister’s response this afternoon, because I felt there was a degree of complacency in what he said. I do not know how much more evidence he needs to realise that the current arrangements are not working. As we have been saying, children and adults are suffering. There does not seem to be a mechanism where, if you feel that you are being abused, threatened, or having vile things said about you on sites, you can get any consistent recourse to have the matter dealt with. People say, time and again, that social media sites and the police are not working together consistently. On some occasions social media sites take action, but then the police do not follow it up. Sometimes it is vice versa: the police get involved, but then the social media sites do not carry out their responsibilities. This needs another look at—whatever the level or structure for which that is appropriate.
I will not press my amendments today, but I will not give up on this issue. I say to the noble Lord—and it may be that we can have further discussions on this—that a more robust response is needed from the Government than we have had so far, so I hope we can carry on this discussion. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
“Internet pornography: requirement to teach age requirement and risks as part of sex education
After section 403(1A)(b) of the Education Act 1996, insert—“(c) they learn about the risks and dangers of internet pornography, and the legal age requirement to access internet pornography under Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017.””
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, Amendment 71 requires schools to teach the risks and dangers of internet pornography, as well as an understanding of the new age restrictions which will apply to accessing pornography. This is not a new issue. For the last six or seven years we have been pushing for updated guidance on sex and relationship education. It remains a mystery as to why the Government have been dragging their feet on this issue for quite so long. The fact that our amendment addresses only part of this bigger demand results from the restrictions placed by the scope of the Bill, rather than from a watering down of our commitment to PSHE being a mandatory part of the school curriculum.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I added my name to the amendment. I find it bizarre that we have spoken for a couple of hours now about the dangers of internet pornography, and we have rightly worried about sexting, the harm that inappropriate images would cause to children, and about possible dating sites, but when it comes to educating children and young people we wring our hands and walk away from it. I do not understand that. Any parent would want their children to know what is going on. As the noble Baroness said, any child would want to have professionals talking these issues over with them and educating them about them.
Children need to be taught about the dangers of meeting people online, the risks of dating apps, the consequences of sexting and the problem that young girls feel they have to look and appear in a certain way. No wonder the levels of anxiety and depression among teenage girls are, as we have heard, the highest ever. Research by the DfE—not some distant organisation, but the Government’s own department—found that 37% of girls feel miserable and worthless. That should not be happening in 2017. What on earth is going on? There are frightening levels of self-harm, with a 52% increase in the number of admissions of self-harming children under the age of 16.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on putting down this amendment. He and many Members of this Chamber—on the Government Benches, on the Opposition Benches and on the Cross Benches—know that we have raised this issue over and again. During all the time that we have pressed for such a measure to be introduced, the Government have shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, you can do it”. Yes, it is compulsory in maintained schools, but it is not compulsory in academies or free schools. As academies now make up more than 70% of our secondary schools, there is real concern about what is happening with sex and relationship education.
It is interesting that Ofsted found in 2013 that 40% of schools that offered sex and relationship education required improvement or were inadequate in their provision of it. Even though schools provide the subject, there is real doubt about the quality of that provision. The noble Baroness was right that it has to be properly taught and that we have to ensure that the syllabus is of the highest possible level.
I want to cite a couple of other figures which highlight how worrying this whole issue is. In 2016, a parliamentary report found that almost a third of 16 to 18 year-old girls had experienced touching at school, while 70% of 11 to 15 year-olds in England said that they believed sex education should be compulsory, and a whopping 94% said that they wanted to learn about the risks and consequences of sharing pictures with people online or on social media. Our own children want us to make this subject available at school. Will we not listen to them? Barnardo’s research shows that three-quarters of young people believe that sex and relationship education would make them feel safer.
What are the arguments against? It used to be, “Well, this is for the parents to do”. The argument that I now hear raised from time to time is, “Well, we couldn’t really force faith schools to teach sex and relationship education, because some aspects of it might go against their own religious belief”. Really? I just do not accept that. Faith schools do a hugely important job in our society, but part of that job must also be protecting our young children. I and my party wholeheartedly support this amendment.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, since the Bill introduces age verification, it follows that children must be informed users. Not only does that make it more likely that they observe it but it would give teachers the necessary opportunity to discuss what they might find a difficult subject. Like others, I believe that this is a tiny part of a broader picture.
As some noble Lords know, I regularly speak in schools about pornography but more broadly about young people and their relationship to the internet. I have to report to the Committee that they have a palpable appetite for better digital education, not only SRE but a much broader digital education. By that, they mean a comprehensive understanding of the purposes and methods by which platforms and businesses interact with them, their rights as consumers and citizens and their urgent desire for some code of conduct. Interestingly, they want a code of conduct that covers their behaviour to each other. They also want a code of conduct that would determine the behaviour of businesses and platforms towards them. Above all else, you find what they want is a single moral landscape that recognises that the distinction between online and offline is completely immaterial to them.
Part 3 of the Bill deals with a single issue and this amendment deals with a narrow piece of learning. But the young people I speak to yearn for more. They repeatedly complain that e-safety is narrow, repetitive, badly delivered, and comes in the wrong lessons and from the wrong teachers. Although they themselves have fast fingers, many if not most have little idea of the workings of the technology they are using, let alone the full gamut of risk, from fake news to fake friends. A young person who can spot spam without clicking, is one less likely to see the unwanted adult sexual content that is our subject today. A young person who is knowledgeable about the way their personal data are collected is less likely to make bad decisions about what, where and when to give them up.
Children are not simply the objects of our concern; they are participants in their own good outcomes. We must learn to listen to their stated needs, not relentlessly pursue an adult agenda. I direct the Minister to the recent report of the Children’s Commissioner, Growing up Digital; to the report published this week, The Internet on our Own Terms, which captures the policy recommendations of young people; and to the evidence collected by the Communication Committee’s inquiry “Children and the Internet”, all of which has a great deal to say about the value, nature and scope of the education that children need.
In supporting this amendment I ask the Minister not only to recommend it to colleagues, but to listen very carefully to young people about the scope of the learning and the manner of teaching that they feel makes them secure and able users of the internet, which ultimately will help them to be contributors to the cultural shift that must accompany the legislation that is in front of us.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly, as my name is on this amendment, to support what other noble Lords have said and echo the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, in that we also tried to table a broader compulsory sex and relationship education amendment to the Bill but were told it was out of scope.
We have to address the fact that despite our best efforts young people, and indeed very young children, will be confronted with inappropriate images and inappropriate adult material on the internet, and they need to be taught how to respond. They need to be taught to turn it off immediately and to tell their parents about what is happening. Older children need to be told that the way in which actors in pornographic films treat each other is not the way that we expect our young people to treat each other.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I think we can all agree—and I certainly do—that this amendment has expressed very worthy concern about the safety of young people growing up in modern Britain today, and it is of great interest to many Members of this House and Members of the other place too.
As we have always said, age verification is not a panacea, and should certainly not be seen as the limit of child online protection activity in which the Government and key stakeholders are involved. Age verification controls are a part, but not all, of the approach to protecting children from potentially harmful content online. Education, awareness-raising with parents and carers, and equipping children with the resilience and tools to deal with their online experiences are critical. So I can agree with much of what the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, have said on this subject.
Keeping Children Safe in Education, the statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment, sets out that governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that children are taught about safeguarding, including online, through teaching and learning opportunities as part of providing a broad and balanced curriculum.
As my honourable friend the Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families, Edward Timpson, has said in previous debates during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill, this Government heard the call for further action on improving the quality of PSHE provision in schools and we are fully committed to exploring all the options available. I understand that this will come up in the Report stage for that Bill in the other place, where the Government committed to providing an update to Parliament on the issue.
This Government are clear that to improve provision any change must be made in the right way with proper consideration of all the issues, including online safety. I assure the Committee that the Government are committed to handling this important matter well. We intend to work with stakeholders and listen to the voices of young people over the coming months. With that assurance, I hope the noble Baroness can withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister and the other noble Lords who spoke in support. What the Minister said was quite right: if we were to start drafting Part 3 on our own terms, it would begin with education and everything else would filter down after that. The age verification process is definitely a supplementary part of a bigger challenge we face.
I accept, as the Minister said, that maybe progress is being made on this matter in another place on another Bill. That Bill will probably be resolved before we come back on Report, so we will watch what happens in the other place in some detail. If they are not able to resolve it, maybe we will be—so we could return to it at that point. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Independence of the British Board of Film Classification
(1) The BBFC is to be a body corporate which is independent from the Government.(2) All appointments to the BBFC are to be subject to fair and open competition.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, we spent a considerable amount of time earlier in Committee on the question of the powers that would be allocated to any regulators appointed under the Bill. We did not spend much time on who the regulators would be, although some concerns were raised. However, over the weeks and even today, we have increasingly gathered that the Government’s intention is that the British Board of Film Classification, the BBFC, should be given a major role in the work discussed in this particular part of the Bill.
I will start with the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has already been extensively referred to in the debate. It raised questions about what the position would be of any regulator appointed under the powers being taken in the Bill. It said, for example, that the age verification regulator—without naming that regulator—will have powers including,
“to require the provision of information … impose substantial civil penalties … take steps to direct internet service providers to block access to material … and … publish guidance”.
Of course, there is a quite a lot in the report that we have already discussed about how and under what conditions a body such as the regulator that will be appointed should be able to publish guidance, particularly if it is on behalf of the Secretary of State and has not been subject to discussion within Parliament.
Without having any expert knowledge of the work of the committee, I think that, had they known directly who the regulator would be, they might also have raised the issue in my amendment: the status and constitution of the body that is likely to be appointed. I assume that the comments made by the Minister earlier in this Committee session that the BBFC is to be appointed will be carried forward in due course. If I am wrong, obviously the points I make are still valid—although they may apply to a different regulator of a different nature.
The issue I want to pick up comes in paragraph 15 of the DPRRC report, which talks about a memorandum exchanged between it and the department in relation to the powers that would be applied to the regulator. It starts by saying where those powers are found: in Clause 17. It explains that the department feels that it is important to retain flexibility as to who is to be appointed to ensure that the right person or persons are appointed as a regulator. Of course, that point has probably now been overcome by time. It also makes the point that the functions could be regulated. Indeed, we had earlier recommendations that suggested quite persuasive arguments for the regulatory burden to be carried by more than one body. I hope that we will be able to make progress on this as we move through the Bill.
It is clear that if the regulator is to be the BBFC, the work of which is really the basis for the classification system that will be relied on in the legislation, it has a designation to do only part of its work under the Video Recordings Act 1984. It is important to pause here. The amendment that I am putting forward asks the Government to think hard about the correctness of a decision to appoint as a regulator a body that is only partially covered by statute at present. Does the Minister think it right that a private company over which the Secretary of State has limited powers in relation to who is appointed to that body should take on the sorts of responsibilities on civil penalties and the blocking of activity, as well as regulatory functions?
As the amendment suggests, does he not think that it might be more appropriate to look carefully at the body that takes on these responsibilities and to propose, as I do, that it should be either a body corporate or subject to more extensive powers of direction as to who is appointed and how any appointments are made? If that were the case, we could have more confidence in the ability of that body to make the right decisions in relation to all the functions that it has, which extend quite widely, and in particular to age verification, which is the subject of the Bill.
The British Board of Film Classification is a private company. Its number is 00117289. I checked today on the company’s register and, limited as the information is, it is quite revealing. It was first incorporated on 17 August 1911. So for nearly 107 years it has been a monopoly operator in a private capacity, acting in some senses on behalf of the Government in some of its functions. As I said, there are statutory functions in relation to video and now DVD, but none to any great extent in relation to film classification, which is the basis of the work that is being carried on in the Bill.
It is well known that, in its original form, the BBFC was called the Incorporated Association of Kinematograph Manufacturers Ltd. It was created by the then manufacturers of projection equipment to protect the investment that they made in cinemas up and down the country against the watch committees, which had sprung up before but were now displaying an active concern about the impact of films on the morals of the population. This still exists. Technically, films are licensed for exhibition in the United Kingdom only through the local authorities. They normally take the advice of the BBFC. That was a clever move by the manufacturers of the equipment, which was at risk, to ensure that they stepped in ahead of the possibility of moral outrage by creating a situation in which they said and alleged that people would not be shocked by the sorts of thing that might cause alarm and despondency around the country. At that stage they could not have anticipated that Life of Brian is still banned in Glasgow—I think that I am right in saying that. That may or may not be of interest to anybody in the Committee, though perhaps it woke your Lordships up a bit. That is the kind of thing that can come from this rather unfortunate arrangement.
I will recap slightly. This private company last year made a profit of approximately £1.5 million on a turnover of £5.4 million. It owns freehold property not a million miles from here worth quite a lot of money. It has a board appointed by itself and a membership that is not disclosed in the company’s records. It operates in an area of considerable complexity and certainly some moral concern—and it is about to be given additional statutory responsibilities. Those are the main points that I want to make in this amendment.
I do not know whether what I propose in this amendment is right. It is an issue that should be thought carefully about before we move further. For instance, within the BBFC structures at the moment there is no appeal system. The regulatory functions of the Secretary of State are limited; they are mainly related to video and not to film. The powers that are about to be referred to it are mentioned by the Delegated Powers Committee as being of concern, so we need to find a way through that. We have yet to see how that will happen because we have not yet had the Minister’s response. I beg to move.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I support the amendment but not necessarily for the reasons articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Our concern is that if the Government started to appoint members of the British Board of Film Classification and therefore it was not independent of government, we would have a situation in which the Government would potentially be involved in deciding which films or material should be censored or not, which is not a path we would like to go down, particularly in the current climate of populism and the historical issues that that raises.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has just given the speech that I was rather expecting the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to give. The amendment suggests that the Government should be completely out of the running of the BBFC, yet in his very interesting and important remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that he was a bit concerned that the Government should think it right for this private company, over which the Government have very little power, to have such responsibilities.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was right to say that the current position is that the BBFC appoints itself. The council of management is chosen from leading figures in the film industry; that council chooses the president and the director, and then they do this important work. If we are to change that, we need some evidence that either there is a risk of the Government interfering in these decisions or that these decisions are being got wrong in some respect. I am not aware that these decisions are being badly taken. As far as I can tell, the BBFC is doing a pretty good job, and until we are clear what regime we want to go to, I would rather leave the law as it is.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who contributed to this brief debate, especially the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who demonstrated his long experience in the world of film trivia.
The BBFC is an independent, not-for-profit, non-governmental body which classifies films and videos. The BBFC operates a transparent, trusted classification regime based on years of expertise and published guidelines that reflect public opinion. It is self-financed through fees from industry for the work it carries out on classification. It protects children and other vulnerable groups from harm through its classification work, which is legally enforceable and empowers consumers, particularly parents and children, through content information and education. In addition, it is the independent regulator of content delivered via the UK’s mobile networks. Using the standards in the BBFC’s classification guidelines, content which would be age-rated 18 or R18 by the BBFC is placed behind access controls and internet filters to restrict access to that content by those under 18 on all non-age-verified phones.
Amendment 71A introduces a new clause which seeks to clarify the position of the BBFC as an organisation independent of the Government. This proposed new clause also seeks that all appointments made by the BBFC be subject to fair and open competition. I am afraid we do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that it is necessary to make provision for the independence of the BBFC. The role of age-verification regulator will be one that the BBFC carries out alongside its other independent roles. We do not seek this requirement for its work under the Video Recordings Act, where BBFC officials are also designated by the Secretary of State via notification through Parliament.
The Bill sets out clearly the powers of the regulator, and where it is thought appropriate that the Secretary of State should have a role, this is made clear. For example, in relation to ISP blocking it will be important that the Government and the BBFC work together on a deconfliction process. The Bill provides for a parliamentary procedure for the designation of the regulator, as it is right that Parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinise this important appointment. As we have already covered, the DPRRC has made a recommendation on the designation of the regulator and I assure noble Lords that we are currently considering this carefully before responding.
The other requirement in this proposed new clause is that any appointments made by the BBFC should be subject to fair and open competition. The BBFC is an independent body, and it is not the place for government to set prescriptive guidelines on its recruitment practice in a Bill. The BBFC is a well-respected organisation, as my noble friend mentioned, and has unparalleled expertise in classifying content. I have every confidence the BBFC will deliver on its aims.
With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment this afternoon.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank those who have contributed to the debate. I should make it very clear that I was not in any sense suggesting that the Government should take a closer or more direct action in relation to the work that we are talking about. The Minister made it very clear that the case was for an independent body. I had in mind a not dissimilar situation that arose in a Bill that the noble Lord and I debated only recently, when it was decided that an organisation set up as a private company, which was operating in the public interest, should move from that position and be given company status under a royal charter. The National Citizen Service Trust emerges very shortly from that chrysalis, and it struck me that there were parallels—the Minister is smiling, so I think he gets the point I am making.
The response was also interesting in that the Minister was making the same point that I was making, but from a slightly different direction. It is inevitable that the Government and the regulator so appointed—probably the BBFC—will have to think very closely together about these matters. I think the Minister said they had to be on a “deconfliction” basis—a new word that I have not heard before, although I think I get the message. I think it also means that they have to be of similar mind and aiming in the same direction. In time, the need to ensure that this work is done properly and effectively, in accordance with broad principles already set out in statute law elsewhere, will inevitably mean that the Government should take the steps I am suggesting here, even if it may not be appropriate yet to do so. In saying that, I am not aware of any evidence that would convince the noble Lord who spoke from the other Benches that there is need for urgent action here. I just feel uncomfortable about any body that has responsibilities of a statutory nature not being subject to statutory control. That is really the basis of this, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) In section 107 (criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles, etc.), after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) A person commits an offence who—(a) manufactures for sale or hire,(b) imports into the United Kingdom otherwise than for his private and domestic use,(c) in the course of a business—(i) sells or lets for hire;(ii) offers or exposes for sale or hire;(iii) advertises for sale or hire or otherwise promotes;(iv) possesses in the course of business with a view to committing any act infringing copyright;(v) installs, maintains or replaces;(vi) distributes; or(d) distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the copyright owner,any article or related software which is primarily designed, produced, or adapted for, or which is primarily used for, the purpose of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement and which he knows or has reason to believe will be used (whether alone or in conjunction with another article or service) to infringe copyright.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, this moves us into Part 4 and intellectual property. We start with rather a narrow but quite important point about the way technology is moving forward in this area and the need to make sure that the statutory basis under which we look at issues relating to broadcasting and television is kept up to speed. I am joined in Amendment 71B by the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Foster, for which I am very grateful. I am sure they will give more examples of and more detail on the topic that we are discussing in this group, about devices and services that infringe copyright.
These amendments look at digital TV piracy, which is a relatively new phenomenon but has come about because of the growing amount of close-to-live retransmission of broadcasts—and indeed of live broadcasts themselves—and the services that provide on-demand access to films, television series and other audio-visual content, including music. The categories are slightly different, but they are both very damaging to rights holders. Devices normally feature a mixture of both categories of services, and you can buy them readily on the open market and install them yourself, so it is a growing problem for those who control content and wish to make sure that rights holders earn from it.
These amendments suggest changing two sections of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Amendment 79A relates to Section 297A and transmissions, while Amendment 71B relates to Section 107 and on-demand services. I beg to move.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has said, we strongly support this amendment and I am grateful to him for having tabled it. I shall go into a little more detail than he was able to do in order to illustrate some aspects that very much concern the creative industries. A substantial and growing threat is posed to the creative industries by a combination of faster broadband speeds and the widespread availability of cheap plug-and-play devices offering access to infringing software. These devices can be simply plugged into TV sets, offering viewers increasingly easy access to pirated digital content. The Government’s IP enforcement strategy recognises this threat.
The creative industries are deeply concerned about the growing scale of digital TV piracy and have noted a significant increase in the levels of illegal streaming, which inevitably undermines business models within these industries and threatens investment in new content creation. Clearly, the challenge needs to be met on multiple levels, including education campaigns, use of technology, increased enforcement activity and, crucially, clearer laws which are simpler to enforce.
There are a variety of ways that users access infringing content. Typically, this involves a device such as a USB stick or small android box which is plugged into a TV set using a standard connection. The device can be “fully loaded”, meaning it has software and add-ons preconfigured, giving access to thousands of streams, or users can purchase boxes with software such as Kodi installed—an open-source software platform—and then source and configure their own illegal add-ons. The Government’s own statistics highlight the significant growth in the use of this technology, and research by the Industry Trust for IP Awareness shows worrying signs that such behaviour is becoming normalised and socially acceptable.
The scale of the problem is very significant. Listings on Amazon give the boxes a legitimacy—the Industry Trust study revealed that 44% of people assume that if they buy a box or stick from a retailer such as Amazon, it must be legal. An Amazon search for “Kodi” just yesterday auto-completed with “Kodi box fully loaded” and “Kodi fully loaded TV box with Sky Sports and Movies”. That “Kodi” search produces 4,554 results. The first listing is highlighted as an Amazon best-seller and is on offer through Amazon Prime, despite the Q&A under it saying rather different things. IPTV boxes, as they are called, are widely available, with more than 14,000 listings across 511 online marketplaces, equating to more than 4 million items in stock globally. There are more than 200,000 videos on YouTube providing a step-by-step guide on how to install and use Kodi add-ons in order to stream free TV.
Given the rapid growth of such devices, it is not unreasonable to suggest that illegal IPTV boxes could become the second largest pay-TV operator in the UK within 18 months. Despite the IP enforcement strategy identifying the problem, there appears to be a reluctance to make the law simpler and more effective. At present, law enforcement has to rely on general provisions, such as aiding and abetting offences under the Fraud Act, or encouraging offences under the Serious Crime Act. This is because the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act does not address today’s or future issues, and the various offences in it do not include what is by far the most prevalent offence today: the supply of devices intended to commit digital piracy. A specific offence is much needed and was proposed in the other place as an amendment to the Bill.
There are examples of law enforcement agencies such as trading standards and PIPCU being unable to pursue strong cases due to the lack of an appropriate offence. As a result, despite the industry dedicating considerable resources over a long period to protecting its intellectual property through existing enforcement mechanisms, there has been insufficient success and what limited progress has been made has taken far too long. Now, a fit-for-purpose enforcement regime is needed which is kept up to date with technological advancements and new risks posed. This requires the creation in the CDPA of a specific offence relating to devices used for IP infringement.
We have been told that over the past year, the Sky security team has identified more than 100 cases involving digital TV piracy, but they have been extremely difficult to pursue through trading standards or, indeed, through PIPCU. The industry has gone to the extent of seeking counsel’s advice on whether anything in existing law adequately covers the offences involved. It is clear that, while there has been a recent successful five-week private prosecution of a complex case involving pan-European organised crime, this is not the most efficient way to deal with a new challenge. The CDPA, originally written in 1988, needs to be updated to reflect new technology and the subsequent risks posed. New legislation would help trading standards to prosecute those preloading and distributing IP devices.
I very much hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to support this important amendment.
Baroness Kidron
I too support Amendments 71B and 79A. It is perhaps worth reiterating my interests as a film maker and, therefore, often a rights holder. I share the concerns of broadcasters about the challenges of piracy and the implications for future financing of original content. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has done justice to that point.
This is also a generational issue, as 11 to 15 year-olds are the biggest users of these devices, which are plugged directly into television sets. Technical studies of IPTV use recently conducted by the Industry Trust revealed that they often include unauthorised apps, add-ons and advertising, and totally bypass the current systems of parental control, age rating and BBFC guidance. They are not subject to the usual protections that apply to content that we normally view on our television screens. If they can be bought from legitimate retailers and paid for through legitimate payment providers, we can hardly blame people for not really understanding that they are illegal.
Contrary to the Minister’s previous suggestion that I might like to shut down Twitter—far from it. By what other means would I know what the American President was thinking day and night? I am not a huge fan of blocking or censorship.
I beg noble Lords’ patience, as I want to go back to something that we may have gone through. It is about consistency. My argument is all about consistency. I was disappointed by what the Minister said about social media companies, which seem to have picked up very few responsibilities this afternoon.
I wonder whether we have done the maths right. Surely, even a small slice of these huge companies with their billions of daily interactions is comparable with the large sites entirely dedicated to pornography. I have listened very carefully to the debate and wonder whether, if we had been using the word monetise rather than commercial, we might have got a little closer to where we need to go. I hope I will be forgiven for going back to Part 3, but I have risen to speak about consistency.
Given the ambition of Part 3 of the Bill, it seems inappropriate that unregulated content is being delivered to TV screens outside of Ofcom or BBFC oversight. I feel that every child, parent or carer should have access to the technical and regulatory protections while streaming content on their TV screens, should they elect to use them. The current legislative framework is out of date and does not make it sufficiently clear that devices adapted for digital TV piracy should not be sold by legitimate online retailers. As a result, children are watching content in an unregulated context. That should be a factor when considering the merits of these amendments.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane
Very briefly and anecdotally, I had a briefing session with Sky and the Motion Picture Association and, as somebody who is in the wrong age group for being able to use these kinds of things, I was absolutely appalled at how easy it is to get hold of a pirated film. I agree with the wording of the amendments; they are sufficiently vague that they will, hopefully, future-proof us. If they were too detailed, we would run the risk of having something that the criminal classes would find it all too easy to evade. I urge the Minister to give this consideration.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I, too, will be brief, but I think it is important that we keep pointing out the number of problems that are currently not being addressed. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has given some figures, as have the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and others, but it is worth recalling, for example, that in the second quarter of 2016 alone, no fewer than 51 million pieces of film and TV content were accessed illegally online, according to the Intellectual Property Office.
The case has already been made that this is damaging very seriously the commercial ability of the legal providers of content. We know from another survey that one in five people who are using this illegal approach has now either completely cancelled or cut down their subscription to legal platforms. As has been pointed out, any attempt at enforcement has so far found itself in difficulty because of the inadequacy of the existing legislation—hence the call in both Amendments 71B and 79A that we put in place a fit and proper enforcement regime and definitions of specific offences.
The noble Lord pointed to the briefing he had from Sky—and no doubt he will have heard from Sky about the number of times that it has been able to identify illegal activity going on, whether it is with local trading standards or the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, but has had difficulty taking prosecutions through to the final stages. People have got away when perhaps, if we had had fit and proper legislation as is being proposed here, that would not have been the case.
Sky gave one example:
“Following an investigation … where live sport was being streamed and made available on IPTV boxes via two websites, a referral was made to PIPCU in September 2014. Search and seizures were made in July 2015 … the pirate was remanded in custody, he was later released following an appeal. Two years later, the pirate has re-opened his site with the same name but moved from .net to .biz with the Crown Prosecution Service still considering”—
how it might go about prosecution. It is for this sort of reason that we need these amendments, or something like them.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 71B and 79A seek to expand the existing criminal liability for making or dealing with copyright-infringing articles and the restrictions on unlawful decoders to include the supply of devices and software—such as set-top boxes or IPTV boxes and illicit software apps or extensions—intended to be used for copyright infringement.
An amendment with the same or a similar ambition was first tabled in the other place and then withdrawn. The Government are still of the view, as they were then, that illicit streaming and the infrastructure and devices that enable it pose a very serious threat to legitimate copyright owners and service providers. We share the wish of those behind these amendments to ensure that this harmful activity is properly tackled. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that this poses a real threat to the creative industries.
That does not mean, however, that we should jump immediately to introduce new criminal provisions to copyright law. As previously discussed in debate in another place, the Government believe that this activity is already covered by existing offences. Relevant provisions include those contained in the Fraud Act 2006, the inchoate offences in the Serious Crime Act 2007, and other provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
In December a supplier of IPTV systems that enabled viewers to watch unauthorised content was convicted for conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. A second supplier received a two-year suspended sentence. This conviction shows that the courts agree that this behaviour is already illegal and must be tackled appropriately. But we recognise that court cases take time and cost money, and that this is a complex area of law where enforcement agencies may not feel well equipped to take on investigations and carry them through to prosecution. That is why we are working on a range of interventions to tackle this behaviour.
Officials at the Intellectual Property Office are working with the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to develop guidance on how the existing offences may be effectively applied, and we will be running a public call for views over the coming few weeks to ask investigators, prosecutors and industry representatives whether they think the existing legislation is providing all the tools that are needed.
IPO officials have also been meeting intermediaries, especially those platforms where these devices are sold, and others whose legitimate businesses facilitate, however unknowingly or unwillingly, this criminal behaviour. We need to work together with a broad coalition to tackle illicit streaming, and everyone in the supply chain has a part to play. This is very much an area where we want to make progress. We believe that we are making progress on a number of fronts. The Minister for Digital and Culture committed in the other place to bring forward legislation if the evidence shows that it is needed—but that case has not been made yet.
With reference to what the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, said, I think it is right to emphasise that the ever-changing nature of how criminals operate means that they will quickly circumvent technology-specific legislation. We have to be careful when we talk about primary legislation. The changing way in which content is consumed means that specific legislation such as that proposed may be rendered obsolete, unprosecutable or both. I hope that with this explanation, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Clement-Jones
Before the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, expresses his view of the Minister’s response, may I ask her a few questions? She gave a bit of a “curate’s egg” response, giving with one hand and taking away with the other. At the end of the day it might be considered that a criminal offence is appropriate—but as to the call for evidence, does the Minister have a timetable that she can reveal to the House for this to take place? Will it include the role of intermediaries?
I think that the Minister can understand some of our impatience in this area: legislative opportunities to deal with this kind of infringement are few and far between, and this is a major problem. The percentage of people using this software and these boxes is rising inexorably, and that is having a very bad impact on the business models of many in these industries. We urge urgency on the Government.
Baroness Buscombe
I respect what the noble Lord has just asked, but I did say—maybe I was not clear—that we would run a public call for views over the coming few weeks.
Baroness Buscombe
Absolutely—weeks. We will ask investigators, prosecutors and industry representatives whether they think the existing legislation provides all the tools needed. IPO officials have also been meeting intermediaries, and I am sure that they would welcome more such meetings to see that we get this right.
Lord Maxton
That does not include material that would not be shown otherwise on either a tablet, a computer or on television. I am wearing the tie of Hamilton Rugby Club, and I can watch the games on YouTube the week after.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, we are talking about taking on the seriously important issue of all illegal access. That is part of the problem with primary legislation, as it is very often not otiose but an anachronism before it has even begun. So often primary legislation leads to us being behind the curve. In fact, I remember so well sitting where noble Lords opposite are sitting when the then Communications Bill was taken through the House in 2003. I remember asking officials why there was no mention of the internet in 2003 given that a certain person called Mark Zuckerberg was developing Facebook and the new world of social media. I was told privately, “Because it’s too difficult”. We are dealing with complex areas of law but I have history in this regard. I look at the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, who, of course, was sitting on this side of the House in those days. I think he will attest to the fact that we were grappling then with issues which almost immediately turned out to be behind the curve when that enormous piece of legislation was introduced. I hope noble Lords will accept that it is much more important to try to get these issues right than enshrine our hopes of tackling these serious problems in primary legislation in ways that will not work almost immediately.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
This has been a very useful exchange and I think that we have moved forward a little. I think the noble Baroness would accept that the point on which we ended was really the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, made—that there is a way of getting into this argument which tries to embrace that point about the technology. We may not have the flexibility or the ability to work the technology as well as our children and grandchildren do. It may be a generational issue. The problem may lie more in enforcement than in changing the law because, as the noble Baroness pointed out, the Fraud Act, the inchoate offences legislation and the CDP Act all contain provisions which can probably be used to tackle this issue. However, there is a lack of fit with that movement forward and the technology and the use being made of it by younger generations who do not see the issue in quite the same terms as we do.
Intellectual property as a business model is not well served by traditional models involving traditional economics. The whole point about a patent is that it gives you the monopoly that most of competition law seeks to remove, albeit for a limited period. Copyright is no different in that sense. This is not perhaps the time to argue this, certainly not at this stage in the proceedings, but it could be argued that by going to a “life plus 70 years” model for copyright—noble Lords who are earning money out of this should close their ears—we are probably making a mistake which future generations will want to come back to, because the incentive to invest in innovation has to be matched against the right to exploit that at some point. Arguably, life plus 70, particularly as people live longer, is probably not the appropriate model and a more restricted term, which would also be subject to additional requirements to make material available, might be the way forward. In that sense, some of this stuff might not therefore be a problem today as opposed to when we are a long way into it.
However, I welcome the investigation that the noble Baroness mentioned. The timing seems rather rapid for government; I was surprised to hear it but, if that is the case, who are we to say no to it? If the commitment is there and the Government are prepared to bring forward legislation to tackle this issue—I am sure that she said this, as I wrote it down—we could not be more happy. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Clement-Jones
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, in moving Amendment 73 I wish to speak also to Amendment 235. It has been a longish road towards Clause 29. I seem to remember putting down an amendment similar to this clause on two previous occasions, when we had considerable debate about its merits. I am delighted that Clause 29 has finally, after much debate and discussion within government and outside, seen the light of day. I welcome the Government’s saying that they are seeking to implement repeal soon. However, there is considerable concern that they may attempt to delay effective repeal through transitional arrangements for up to two years. There is a very strong view within the television industry that Section 73 should be repealed as soon as possible in order to provide certainty for PSBs and to ensure that investment by public service broadcasters in UK content is protected.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I must advise the Committee that if Amendment 73 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 73A by reason of pre-emption.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a director and producer of television programmes for public service broadcasters. I have put my name to Amendments 73 and 235 because I want the public service broadcasters in this country to benefit as soon as possible from the repeal of Section 73. I also support Amendment 73A, which seems a very sensible use of any money the PSBs might garner. The question of whether there should be a transitional period after the repeal of Section 73 seems to revolve around the issues of whether underlying rights need to be worked out as part of the retransmission negotiations and whether it will take time to introduce a new structure for negotiating licensing arrangements between PSBs and cable providers.
At the moment, all channels, including the PSB channels, routinely buy the rights for “traditional” cable retransmission if they anticipate content being carried on cable, so rights should not be a problem. Therefore, any negotiations will focus on the licensing arrangements between the PSBs and the cable providers. As there is already a structure in place for the licensing arrangements of the PSBs’ non-core digital channels, this surely cannot be an excuse to put off the introduction of a similar framework for the core channels the moment Section 73 is repealed. I, too, am saddened by the extraordinary amounts of money that seem to be made by the streaming catch-up websites, such as TVCatchup and FilmOn. The litigation appears to suggest that millions of pounds has been made by these websites and therefore lost by the PSBs. The sooner we can stop that loophole, the better.
There is a genuine need to give extra financial support to the PSBs in this country. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, they are the major customers for original UK content in all genres. They are threatened by the success of BSkyB and, in the BBC’s case, threatened with a 20% cut in funding as it takes on the burden of the concessionary TV licence fees. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said that huge amounts of money would not be made by the repeal. However, the 2013 NERA report in the US noted that the free-to-air American broadcasters received $3.3 billion in retransmission payments, while the fees accounted for less than 3% of the cable operators’ cost. Therefore it seems that while UK PSBs will be able to raise extra money from new retransmission fees to invest in new content, the repeal will not have much impact on the price charged to the viewer. The removal of Clause 29(3) and the rapid introduction of the repeal of Section 73 will benefit both the PSB content providers and the creative industries across this country.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I should like to say a few words in support of Amendments 73 and 235, to which I have added my name, and in doing so draw attention to my media interests as listed in the register. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, whose summary of the issues was excellent and which I wholeheartedly endorse, I warmly welcome Clause 29 and the Government’s decision to scrap Section 73, but I urge them to get on with it straightaway rather than having any form of transitional period, as time really is of the essence.
There is a good reason for that. No one can be in any doubt about the speed of change right across the media. A technological tsunami is overwhelming all those involved in content production, while the pace of development in the sector is relentless and punishing. It is the clear responsibility of any Government who believe in the creative economy—and this Government certainly do—to do all they can to support them through it, in this case by allowing the commercial television sector to invest more in world-class content. The question of retransmission fees is one where the Government can be a real help or, indeed, a real hindrance.
The legislation that is being repealed is nearly 30 years old. When it was put on the statute book, the fax machine was a technological novelty and there is simply no rationale for it continuing a day longer than it has to. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I cannot see any reason for there to be a transitional regime, especially as all those involved have had fair warning of something which, as he said, we have been discussing since 2008. A further delay of up to two years is a lifetime in the creative industries and Section 73 is doing real harm now. If we are committed to a successful commercial public sector broadcasting industry and want to see investment in brilliant content, we should make sure that Section 73 goes as soon as the ink is dry on this legislation. Any law that is out of date and doing positive harm should go straightaway and not linger. It would be a real boost right across the whole of the UK’s creative economy and ensure that it gets an immediate benefit from this very important Bill.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, this has been a good debate on a topic that has been well rehearsed in this House. I have stood at this Dispatch Box and in the Moses Room trying to support the Government in their attempts to get to the root of this issue over a number of years and I sense that we are reaching the end of a journey. At this stage I am not opposing the decision by the Government that is reflected in the Bill to remove Section 73, but when the noble Baroness responds I hope she will be very clear about some of the thinking behind it. I do not think the issue is as uncomplicated as some other contributors to the debate have said.
In the first place, I understand that the primary reason is the abuse that has been exercised by non-cable operators in recent years, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in relation to using Section 73 to try to gain access to PSB material for retransmission on iPad and other devices, but not on cable. Obviously, the review carried out by the Government was important, but the conclusions seem to reflect the fact that the thinking is still that the “must offer, must carry” provision will interpose itself into any negotiations about value. That is because if you must offer and there is a “must carry”, that will not make it a free and open negotiation about what the price should be. So I shall be interested to hear what the noble Baroness thinks. I understand that the Government have decided that although the repeal should go ahead, it should not result in significant fees flowing from cable operators to PSBs so, as I say, I should like to know what the thinking is on that.
While I agree with the way the Government are going forward, I worry about the risk of blank screens. If negotiations are to take place but result in a failure to agree, a very large number of people who have signed up in good faith to cable channels might not be able to watch the programmes that primarily drove them to sign up; that is, those of the PSB channels. In that sense it is important that we get absolutely the right story on that.
Our Amendment 73A, which I am delighted to hear is supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the feeling is that if money is to be paid for carrying this material, it is important that it should be recirculated into original British production and not used simply to repay shareholders and others.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate on the issue of retransmission fees. A number of noble Lords have tabled amendments urging the Government to get on with the repeal of Section 73 as quickly as possible.
The Government, through the Intellectual Property Office, consulted on the technical aspects of the repeal, including on the question of a transition period. The Government will, hopefully very shortly—and I say that with some strength—be publishing their response to this consultation, and I believe that the noble Lords will find this response enlightening and helpful. I therefore suggest that we return to this issue on Report, where I can fully set out the details of how the repeal will be conducted.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also tabled an amendment that would require any new fees which may flow to the public service broadcasters to be reinvested in original British content. I believe it is premature to legislate on this issue. We need to see how this new market develops after the repeal of Section 73. The British broadcasting landscape, with its steady flow of high-quality output, is envied around the world. The public service broadcasters are already pulling their weight here and face content requirements set by Ofcom. I do not believe that it would be necessary or desirable to legislate in this area that works so manifestly well for British audiences.
Clause 29 will repeal Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which currently provides that copyright in a broadcast of public service broadcasting services—and any work in the broadcast—retransmitted by cable is not infringed where the broadcast is receivable in the area in which it is retransmitted. In effect, cable TV platforms are currently not required to provide copyright fees in relation to the core public service broadcaster channels. Last year, the Government consulted on the repeal of Section 73 and the balance of payments between public service broadcasters and TV platforms. The conclusion reached was that Section 73, as noble Lords have said tonight, is no longer relevant.
Today, a wide variety of platforms ensure that virtually everyone in the UK is able to receive public service broadcasts. Following digital switchover, completed in 2012, digital television services are now available for over 99% of consumers through a combination of digital terrestrial television, satellite and cable platforms. The cable market has now moved from a large number of local providers in the 1980s to one big provider and a few—very small—local platforms, and from 130,000 subscribers to over 4.5 million to date. The Government are satisfied that the objective of ensuring that public service broadcast services—as well as other TV services—are available throughout the UK has been met, and therefore Section 73 is no longer required to achieve that objective.
Moreover, the repeal of Section 73 will close a loophole used by providers of internetbased live streaming services of broadcast television programmes. These providers are relying on Section 73 to exploit PSB content by retransmitting channels and selling advertising around the service, without any benefit flowing to the PSBs.
I hope that, on that basis, noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lord, Lord Black, for their comments and support for these amendments.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, talked about underlying rights and, of course, there should not be any anxiety about whether these have been obtained sufficiently for retransmission. Channel 4 tells us that it has a multiyear contractual arrangement in place with Virgin Media for which all the rights are cleared, so there is no impediment. The noble Viscount also made the point that the money involved in retransmission fees is a large amount for public service broadcasters but relatively small for cable operators. That is another factor.
The noble Lord, Lord Black, stressed the point about time being of the essence. I am delighted that the Minister responded to that, because we are in a context where the creation of world-class content to be competitive on the world stage could never be more important. He described further delay of two years as being a lifetime in this industry. That is absolutely true.
In the circumstances, and compared with many ministerial responses, I thought the Minister’s response extremely positive. I do not think I have ever had such a tantalising response about revealing all on Report. That is quite something.
I may be getting this wrong and the Minister can correct me, but I assume there will be some sort of revelation on Report about the timetable. I am perfectly happy to table a probing amendment to get the full benefit of her response on timing, but if she is going to table an amendment that would move things towards the kind of timing we are looking for in this amendment, as a result of the technical consultation finally being determined by the IPO, I will not quarrel with that. I am very happy to suspend judgment, but a nod is as good as a wink in Committee. If the Minister would like to say anything further about what precisely she meant by what she might do on Report, I would be open to suggestion.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I will not be tempted at this stage, but I repeat that, when we get to Report, I think noble Lords will find my response enlightening and helpful.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, that is even more positive than the first time around. In those circumstances, we will suspend judgment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Clement-Jones
“Remote e-lending
(1) Section 5 of the Public Lending Right Act 1979 (citation, etc.) is amended as follows.(2) In subsection (2)—(a) in the definition of “book”—(i) after “(an “audio book”)” insert “which has been licensed by the publisher on agreed terms for library lending”,(ii) after “(an “e-book”)” insert “which has been licensed by the publisher on agreed terms for library lending”;(b) in the definition of “lent out”, for paragraph (b) substitute—“(b) includes communicating by means of electronic transmission to a place other than library premises”.”
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I am very conscious of the time and I will try to be as brief as I can. The amendment is designed to amend the Bill to extend the public lending right to remote e-book lending.
The way we access books is increasingly changing as technology offers new ways to access the written word. Libraries are now lending many e-books: 2.3 million e-book loans were made in 2015 alone and the figure in 2016 was more than 3 million. But authors are not being remunerated for those loans, despite the Government having committed in principle as long ago as March 2013 to extending PLR payments to e-books when a suitable opportunity arose.
The public lending right allows authors to be fairly paid for each loan when their work is lent through public libraries. It is designed to balance the social need for free public access to books against an author’s right to be remunerated for the use of their work. The scheme provides authors with a modest payment of around 7p each time one of their books—written or audio—is borrowed from a public library. More than 22,000 writers, illustrators, photographers, translators and editors receive PLR payments each year under the Public Lending Right Act 1979 and subsequent amendments. There is a minimum payment threshold of £1 and a maximum of £6,600. Although this does not replace the royalties authors would receive if their book had been purchased by each borrower, PLR provides a significant and much-valued part of many authors’ incomes, particularly for authors whose books are sold mainly to libraries and for those whose books are no longer in print but are still being read.
While the Digital Economy Act 2010’s extension of PLR to audiobooks was a useful and overdue reform—I remember well when we passed it—the extension to on-site loans of e-books was nugatory, as no such loans are made. By contrast, remote e-book lending has increased significantly and is increasing much faster than physical lending, particularly since reduced opening hours and the regrettable extensive library closures that the Government have taken no action to prevent mean that it is more and more difficult for readers physically to visit a local library.
Writers are keen to see the Government develop the public lending right to reflect modern media. I should stress that even though the precise wording of the amendment is not agreed across the board, its spirit is strongly supported by a range of bodies, including the ALCS, CILIP, the Booksellers Association, the Society of Authors, the Association of Authors’ Agents, the SCL Leading & Managing Public Libraries and the Publishers Association. So it has extensive support in principle.
The amendment would amend the Digital Economy Act to ensure that remuneration is received by writers for remote e-lending at the same rate per loan as for physical books. It is vital that authors receive remuneration for loans of their works, irrespective of format. The principle of remuneration that enables authors to work should not be unfairly obstructed by technical and technological change. I know that Europe is not fashionable in some quarters, but a recent opinion of the Advocate-General relating to a case on rental and lending in respect of copyright works currently before the Court of Justice of the European Union supports this view. He said:
“The lending of electronic books is the modern equivalent of the lending of printed books”.
This removes the Government’s previously expressed concern that such a change may not be compatible with the copyright directive—it clearly is.
The ability to access e-books facilitated by public libraries is a service valued by the public, and remuneration for public lending is a requirement of European law under the rental and lending directive. The current situation where millions of e-book loans receive zero remuneration is unlawful and creates significant prejudice to writers. It also places libraries in a position where works lent regularly may infringe authors’ rights.
The changes needed are achieved simply by taking measures to amend the Digital Economy Act 2010 by removing Section 43(2)(b), which sets remote loans outside the definition of lending under PLR. It would also be necessary to add a sentence to make sure that the commercial market was protected and that e-lending was put on a par with physical lending. The jargon in the trade, used by the Sieghart report which recommended that PLR be extended to remote e-lending, is “frictions”—which basically are the conditions under which digital books can be loaned to one reader at a time, just as with a physical book.
Other conditions are that a digital copy of a book can be loaned only for a limited period and that digital copies of books should be deemed to deteriorate, ensuring their repurchase after a certain number of loans. Those conditions are broadly accepted by the industry, but there was no desire to incorporate them in primary legislation so that they might be taken on board in the commercial arrangements made between publishers, authors and libraries.
The cost of this measure would be negligible, but the principle is extremely important—as was recognised by the Government in 2013. I hope that they will take this on board, because it is long overdue. It would do proper justice to our authors and writers. I beg to move.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading. I want, however, to speak to Amendment 74, to which I have put my name, and to Amendment 79B.
I very much support Amendment 74, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, although I am delighted that there is now a firm agreement between the interested parties—including CILIP, ALCS and the Society of Authors, among others—for an amendment which is almost but not quite the same as Amendment 74. I hope that this tweaked amendment, which clarifies the nature of what is being loaned, or an amendment equally acceptable to all parties, can be brought forward by the Government and accepted on Report.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
My Lords, conscious as I am of the time, I shall simply say that I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to this for the very good reasons given by both noble Lords who have just spoken. It is a matter of natural fairness; it reflects the convergence issues which have been spoken about in this Committee already; it reflects the technological tsunami that my noble friend Lord Black has spoken about; and it reflects what the Minister Matt Hancock has said in another place.
Lord Maxton
My Lords, I too support this amendment, but—there is a “but” to it—there are of course two types of e-books. There are those physical books which have been transferred over and copied into an e-system, but there are also increasingly a number of authors who write an e-book directly; they do not publish them at all in written form. I am not sure that this amendment takes account of the fact that there are increasingly these two different types of e-books.
Secondly, the fact is that Amazon which, rightly or wrongly, is the major contributor to the e-book revolution—I have a Kindle in my own pocket, which I read, and I have never picked up a book since I bought it—does not take part in the British national library system at all, as far as I am aware, although it does in America. Increasingly, Amazon is setting up its own lending system, where you can borrow an e-book from Amazon for a relatively small sum of money. You can only borrow it for three or four weeks at a time, but you can borrow it directly from Amazon. I have just a quick question to the Minister. Is there any progress in terms of Amazon becoming part of the system? I gather that one of the problems is that it uses a different type of e-book to the one that is used by the public libraries in this country.
The Duke of Somerset (CB)
My Lords, I intervene briefly to support this amendment, which seeks to rebalance the need for public access to all types of books against authors’ rights to some modest payment for their work. The PLR gives authors a small income where their books are sold mainly to libraries. The main point is that the PLR was extended to audiobooks in the 2010 Act for on-site loans but the need here is to extend it to remote loans, an area quickly increasing in popularity where items are downloaded to a computer situated away from the library.
We heard that zero remuneration is now illegal after the European Court of Justice ruling last November, so I expect that the Minister will have no difficulty in accepting this simple but important amendment. However, that ruling also drew attention to the difficulty of ensuring that only one copy is downloaded and that after expiration of the lending period no further listening can be enabled. Could the Minister indicate how this might be enforced or will it probably just be ignored?
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, briefly, I apologise to the House for the brevity of our Amendment 79B. We ran out of time and did not have the skills or ability to write an amendment that should properly have been in the Budget. We also lacked the temerity to do that. It is an aspiration not a probing amendment; it does not even qualify for that. It is a flag-waving exercise as we ought to think harder about the tax on knowledge. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said absolutely rightly, it is ridiculous that we believe that books in physical form somehow transmit knowledge and are worthy of having a VAT-exempt regime but when they are downloaded they must be subject to VAT. That seems unfair. We support Amendment 74 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and look forward to hearing the responses from the noble Baroness.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for this important debate and for this proposed new clause. It seeks to extend the public lending right to include remote lending of e-books and e-audiobooks by public libraries. This would allow authors of these to receive payments from the public lending right fund, as they do for public lending of printed and audiobooks. It would also amend the definitions of e-books and e-audiobooks so that these works could be lent by public libraries only if they have been licensed by publishers on agreed terms for library lending.
The Government support recognising authors for e-lending by libraries. We committed in our manifesto to work with libraries to ensure the public can access e-lending, and to appropriate compensation for authors that enhances the public lending right scheme. As the Minister in another place confirmed, we intend to legislate to extend the public lending right to include remote e-lending. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, I say that our intention is to include all e-books regardless of technology.
This proposal is supported across the sector, including by libraries, authors, publishers and booksellers. I am therefore pleased our commitment is also supported by noble Lords in this House. Public libraries increasingly provide e-lending to support reading and literacy in response to the needs of their communities. Most library loans remain of printed books, with over 200 million such loans in Great Britain in 2015-16—so not everyone has given up the printed word, as has the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. However, e-lending is growing, with 4 million e-book and 1 million e-audiobook loans in Great Britain in the same period.
In considering how to legislate to extend the public lending right to include e-lending, we are engaging with representatives of authors, libraries, publishers and booksellers to understand their views. A number of these have raised points that need careful thought before the Government table their own clause.
One point made by representatives of authors and publishers is that an amendment to the legislation should include protections for the commercial market. The proposed new clause seeks to do this by specifying that e-books and audiobooks could be lent out from public libraries only if they had been licensed by publishers on agreed terms for library lending. However, others had raised concerns about whether such a provision might impact on public libraries’ ability to acquire and lend e-books.
This is an important issue. Officials have therefore met sector representatives to allow us to consider carefully the views and decide on the appropriate way to proceed with our commitment. I understand that the discussions in recent days have been promising and that the respective parties have been considering whether they can agree a settled view on the issues. We want to continue to work together to support a strong book sector that helps promote opportunities for reading and learning by the public, so we intend to table our own proposals for the necessary legislative changes as soon as possible. We will carefully consider these views in deciding how to proceed. I hope therefore that noble Lords will not press this proposed new clause.
Amendment 79B requests that e-books be exempt from VAT. Issues affecting taxation are a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It would therefore be inappropriate to include this amendment in this Bill. There are other difficulties, however, in accepting such an amendment. VAT is an EU-wide tax and is applied by member states within agreed structures. While we remain in the EU we are bound by our international obligations. This amendment would cut across those obligations in respect of VAT. EU VAT law, agreed unanimously by member states, currently specifically requires the standard rate to be applied to all electronically supplied services. This includes e-books, which are services, not goods. Because of this, if we accepted the amendment we would be in breach of our obligations. To make the change proposed in this amendment a change of EU law will be necessary, supported by all 28 member states. While a proposal is currently on the table there have been a variety of different reactions from member states and no unanimous agreement. I hope that the noble Lord will therefore not move his amendment.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I thank those who have taken part in the debate. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has throughout been a doughty campaigner for the arts and for authors. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, for his contribution, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in particular for an amendment that we would all support if only it were practical. Who knows? There may be some silver lining to Brexit at the end of the day. I do not think that that is quite substantial enough for many of us but it is certainly a little glimmer. I thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset, as well. Of course we always bow to the superior technological knowledge in these matters of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. I agree with the Minister: I am still an aficionado of the printed book, and am one of the digital book. There is a place for both in one’s library.
I welcome what the Minister said. In a way she performed a political ju-jitsu on us by thanking us for supporting her government line on this, which I thought was magnificent. I accept that it is in the Conservative manifesto. The Minister in the Commons pledged to come up with a solution to this. All that we have done really is to give the Government a bit of a push today. This wording is not the agreed wording. Agreement was reached, at the final hour—not in time to include in Committee today—between the various parties involved, particularly CILIP. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, I am delighted that there has been agreement reached between the parties and the wording about which I have been told will perhaps be the wording to which the Minister will return, having performed her ju-jitsu at Report. Perhaps I have her in an armlock now to come back at Report with a suitable amendment. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.