Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
I met Rex Tillerson in Bonn last Thursday and Friday. We had some very good conversations, and I am sure we will have many more meetings in the weeks and months ahead to entrench and deepen a relationship that has been part of the foundation of global peace and prosperity for the past 70 years.
Boris Johnson
The right hon. Gentleman will know very well that the Government did not support the travel measures that were introduced by the Executive order. They were not something we would commend to this House and it was not the kind of policy we would like to see enacted in this country, and we made that very clear to our friends in America. It was by engaging constructively with the White House and others that we were able to secure the important clarification that the Executive order would make absolutely no difference to any British passport holder, irrespective of their country of birth.
Thangam Debbonaire
I am pleased to hear the Foreign Secretary’s reports of the discussions he had with the Secretary of State, but will he tell us a bit more about how he plans to manage the important tripartite relationship between the UK, the EU and the US, post-Brexit?
Boris Johnson
The hon. Lady asks a good question. Obviously, on some things we will differ from our American friends—we have just had an example of that—but on some areas we will perhaps wish to stiffen the spines of our European friends. I can think of issues such as sanctions over Ukraine, on which some EU members are not in quite the same space as we are. As would be expected, the policy of the United Kingdom would be to stick up for UK interests and values and—if I can use a bit of jargon—to triangulate dynamically between the two.
Bill Esterson
On standing up for British interests, Mr Trump’s track record suggests that any deals he agrees to are likely to be to our disadvantage. What will the Foreign Secretary do to ensure that British businesses benefit from any deals with the United States, not just American ones?
Boris Johnson
If I may say so, it is important to be clear-eyed about American power and success in negotiating trade agreements and to recognise that we will have to be on our mettle to get a good deal for this country. Nevertheless, I have absolutely no doubt that we will be able to do such a deal. It is a great shame that in 44 years of EU membership we have not been able to secure a free trade deal with the United States. That is now on the table.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
In his discussions with the American Secretary of State, did the Foreign Secretary discuss the best opportunity for a state visit by President Trump? Did he put forward my suggestion that the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim Fathers in 2020 would be a much better occasion for a state visit than one in the course of the next few months, which is likely to be a rallying point for every discontent in the United Kingdom?
Boris Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for his interesting suggestion; I am afraid to say that it is not one I had time to make to our American counterparts. Let us see how the matter of the state visit evolves. The invitation has been issued and accepted, and I am sure it will be a great success.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Next time he meets the Secretary of State, will my right hon. Friend tell him that if the current discussions between the US Department of Defence and the State Department lead to their recommending to President Trump that they put American ground troops in northern Syria to combat ISIS, the British Government will not be following them?
Boris Johnson
I have to tell my right hon. Friend that I am not aware of any such proposal. Nor do I think, having listened quite attentively to the language being used by the White House and the State Department, that we are going to see the imminent contribution of ground troops in that theatre. Nevertheless, the advent of the Trump Administration does offer the possibility of new thinking on Syria and the hope of a new way forward.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Last week, the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) and I went to Jordan as guests of Oxfam, and we met a number of Syrian refugees, notably Khalid who lives in the Zaatari refugee camp. He was due to start a new life in America literally within the next few weeks. It is difficult to put into words his sense of despair that all his hopes and dreams for a new life have been shattered by President Trump’s decision to ban all refugees from going to America. When my right hon. Friend next gets the opportunity, will he please not hesitate to tell President Trump that this ban on refugees brings great shame on his country and that he should lift it immediately?
Boris Johnson
My right hon. Friend will know full well that we have already expressed our disagreement with the travel ban and the policy on refugees. I think she was in the House when I explained the Government’s view on that policy. By contrast, this country can be extremely proud of the fact that it not only supports that particular camp in Jordan—indeed, we have recently agreed another £30 million to support that individual operation—but is the second biggest contributor to the humanitarian effort in the region, with £3.2 billion already pledged.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
But has policy triangulation not meant that the British Foreign Secretary is trying to anticipate what American policy will be and then to mimic it? Interpreting what American policy will be or who will be implementing it must be very difficult just now, so will he at least wait to see what the policy is before, for example, changing policies such as the two-state solution in the middle east?
Boris Johnson
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows very well that the policy on the two-state solution in the middle east remains unchanged not only for Her Majesty’s Government, but, so too, to the best of my knowledge, for the United States’ Government, to judge by the recent press conference. For the guidance of the House, let me just say that it is my general impression that the policy of the United States is migrating ever more towards a position of congruence with our policy rather than the reverse.
Alex Salmond
Was it the Foreign Secretary’s idea to offer a state visit to President Trump after seven days in office? Given that the Foreign Secretary once famously declared that he would not go to New York in case he was mistaken for Mr Trump, is there any chance that President Trump will not come to London on a state visit in case he is mistaken for the Foreign Secretary?
Boris Johnson
I am embarrassed to say that I was mistaken for Mr Trump in—I think—Newcastle, which rather took me aback. It also happened in New York, which was a very humbling experience for me. I cannot say who was the exact progenitor of the excellent idea to accord an invitation to the President to come on a state visit, but the invitation has been issued. It is a wholly appropriate thing for the British Government to do, and it will be a great success.
Sir Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that when there is fresh fighting in Ukraine and when Russia continues to carry out large-scale exercises close to the borders of the Baltic state, some of them with nuclear capable equipment, there has never been a time in recent years when our relationship with America and keeping NATO together have been so important for Europe as a whole?
Boris Johnson
My hon. Friend is completely right, which is why it was so important that our Prime Minister, on her very successful recent visit to the White House, secured from Donald Trump the 100% commitment to our NATO alliance, which has been the guarantor of peace in our times.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
We know that Trump’s Muslim ban adopts Daesh’s narrative, which is that it is the west against Islam. In fact, the Home Secretary said that it would bolster terrorists at home and abroad. What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence about the increased threat to UK national security as a result of Trump’s immoral and racist policies?
Boris Johnson
We remain constantly vigilant against the terror threat as a result of all international policies, but, as I have said before, the seven countries in question were previously singled out by the Obama Administration for particularly tough visa restrictions. The hon. Lady will be aware that this Government have already signalled their disapproval of the ban to which Opposition Members are rightly objecting.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Did Mr Tillerson quantify the length of the queue of countries seeking to do a free trade deal with the United States, and outline where Britain’s place was in that queue?
Boris Johnson
Rex Tillerson was absolutely clear that he regards the relationship with the United Kingdom as one of pivotal importance for his country. Indeed, NATO is of pivotal importance for the safety not just of European countries, but of the United States. He was also clear, of course, that the UK will be at the front of the queue for a new trade deal.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
President Trump boasts of running a finely tuned machine, but the truth is that American policy is under review when it comes to all the world’s major crises—from Ukraine to Syria, and Afghanistan to North Korea. I hear from the Secretary of State that there is new thinking, but we have yet to see anything coherent coming out of America. The finely tuned machine has not so much stalled as not yet got going. The resulting vacuum is being filled by the Russians, with peace talks on Syria and Afghanistan taking place without US or UK involvement. Is the Secretary of State happy to keep waiting for President Trump’s cue or is he capable of thinking for himself? Will we see a British initiative in any of these countries; and, if so, where is he going to start and what is the plan?
Boris Johnson
The finely tuned machine that is the Labour party is a fine one to offer any kind of political advice to the American Administration. As the right hon. Lady knows very well, the UK has, in fact, been in the lead in trying to find a solution in Yemen, and in trying to maintain the commitment to AMISOM, the African Union Mission in Somalia. She should recognise, in all fairness, that the current area of diplomacy being considered by the United States in respect of Syria is a course that the UK has principally advocated—one in which the Russians and the Iranians are separated in their interests, and we move towards a political solution and a transition away from the barbarism of the Assad regime.
Emily Thornberry
I have to say that if that’s a plan, I’m a monkey’s uncle. The fact is that the Government have been frozen out of negotiations on some of the most pressing issues we face. Take Afghanistan, where there have been 450 British fatalities over 15 years. The American army general on the ground, John Nicholson, describes the fighting as having reached a stalemate that may take several thousand more troops to break. In the meantime, Russian-led peace negotiations are going on in the absence of America, the United Kingdom and, in fact, every other NATO member, so I ask the Secretary of State again: when will we start seeing some leadership from this Government?
Boris Johnson
If the right hon. Lady is referring to Russian-led peace talks in Afghanistan, I think she is in error. Perhaps she is talking about the Astana talks on Syria. It is strongly our view and the view of all Syria-supporting countries that those negotiations should resume as soon as possible in Geneva.
The right hon. Lady talks about the UK’s contribution to Afghanistan, and I think that she and the whole House can be very proud of the sacrifice made by those 456 British troops who lost their lives over the past 15 years. Hundreds of thousands of women in Afghanistan are now being educated as a result of the sacrifice made by British troops and the investment in that country by the British people. There are people who are now getting food, water and sanitation, which they would not otherwise have received.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
The Foreign Secretary and I took part in the Geneva conference on the Cyprus settlement on 12 January. We welcome the Cypriot leaders’ commitment to resuming political level talks next month. We are keen to maintain momentum and stand ready to bring negotiations to a successful conclusion.
Mrs Villiers
Will my right hon. Friend agree that third-country guarantees should have no place in a new settlement for Cyprus, because Cypriots should be able to determine their own future without the threat of external military intervention?
Sir Alan Duncan
It is up to the two sides to decide what future security arrangements they want for a united Cyprus that will enable both communities to feel secure. As a guarantor power, the UK is playing a supportive role and is open to any arrangement that is acceptable to the two communities.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for that reply. He will know that Northern Ireland has had a partnership Government who have moved forward, bringing communities together. What has been done to offer advice from Northern Ireland to bring forward a political process that works, especially in relation to gas and oil exploitation, which could benefit all of Cyprus?
Sir Alan Duncan
I think the example of Northern Ireland is an example to the whole world, and it has been of benefit in the likes of Nepal and Colombia. The issue of Cyprus is slightly different, but I hope that the lessons from Northern Ireland can be taken into account and that they can help inform the progress we would like to see in Cyprus.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Does the Minister agree with the view of the all-party parliamentary group, which visited Cyprus last week, that the best hope for a solution is the dedication and courage of both Cypriot leaders, freely negotiating, and a realisation in the communities that the status quo of a divided Cyprus is untenable? Does he agree that we need to ensure that Turkey gets that when it comes to security and guarantees?
Sir Alan Duncan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think we all applaud the good faith and dedication of the two leaders, who are working tirelessly towards a solution. There are other ingredients that are necessary, such as the co-operation of the two main countries next door, Greece and Turkey, and—this is very important—successful referendums in each community.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
The last time negotiations in Cyprus seemed close to a deal, the effort collapsed when hackers broke into the UN’s computer systems and the documents were leaked to a pro-Russian Cypriot newspaper. The inflamed communal tensions that followed had a major role in scuppering the chance of a deal. What assurance can the Minister give that lessons have been learned from that experience and that proper safeguards are now in place to protect the negotiations from any undue influence from outside?
Sir Alan Duncan
We have a very close association with the UN special representative, Mr Espen Eide. I am confident that he will have thought of this possible intrusion into the successful negotiations, and I hope that those safeguards are properly in place.
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
Global Britain is a programme to help to explain to the world, but also to the people of this country, what I think they do not often suspect, which is the full range of Britain’s military, cultural, commercial and diplomatic influence in the world. It is important to do that now, particularly as we make our Brexit—or Bre-entry into the world, as we should perhaps call it—to help people to understand that a more global Britain will be a more prosperous Britain.
Marcus Fysh
Will my right hon. Friend tell us how the various initiatives on building a global Britain as we leave the EU will help the people of the Yeovil constituency and the south-west of England?
Boris Johnson
I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that over the next 10 years we will, for instance, be spending £178 billion on defence—we are one of the few countries in NATO to contribute 2% of our GDP to defence. As a result, there will be more funds available, for instance, to support companies in Yeovil, such as the helicopter company Leonardo MW, which, as far as I know, builds Wildcat submarine-hunting helicopters, among other vital bits of kit.
Mark Pawsey
Does the Secretary of State agree that, in addition to defence spending, soft power—including the effective use of aid and increasing levels of trade and investment, which are helping businesses to find the most suitable partners—remains an essential part of the UK’s approach to boosting security in some of the more dangerous parts of the world?
Boris Johnson
I quite agree. Perhaps I can just give Members one stunning fact, which should seldom be off their lips when selling UK universities, for instance, to the world: of the Kings, Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers in the world today, one in seven was educated in this country, and London has more international students than any other city in the world.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Could we have a note of honesty in terms of an assessment of the nasty little hard Brexit campaign? Will the Foreign Secretary, instead of insulting the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as he did last week, take seriously the danger to this country of a hard Brexit? The people of this country did not sign a blank cheque, and they want a real vote on how good the deal is with Europe as we leave it.
Boris Johnson
I do not think that anybody could seriously say that the former Prime Minister has been insulted by any remarks I made last week. What I was trying to get over was my strong feeling that the debate was had last year and everybody understands that we are going forward with a new approach for this country— a global approach. It will be a clean Brexit and, I think, a highly successful Brexit, as the Prime Minister has said.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Given that a famine has just been declared in South Sudan, will the Foreign Secretary confirm that a truly global Britain will respond to such crises rather than siphoning off the aid budget on diplomatic empowerment funds?
Boris Johnson
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that the UK is one of the only countries in the world to contribute 0.7% of GNI to overseas development. We have a fantastic record not just in Sudan but across Africa. He is right to draw attention to the approaching famine in South Sudan. We have sent 400 troops to help deal with that emergency.
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
We remain deeply concerned about the UK consular cases in Iran and continue to raise them with the Iranian Government at every opportunity, including when I visited Tehran last month and when the Foreign Secretary met his counterpart, Javad Zarif, in the margins of the Munich security conference.
Oliver Dowden
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. He is familiar with the case of Mr Foroughi, a 77-year-old father and grandfather to constituents of mine who has been detained in Iran’s notorious Evin prison for almost six years. Does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when Iran and the west’s relationships are under increasing scrutiny, the exercise of clemency in this case, and others like it, would demonstrate Iran’s commitment to constructive engagement with the international community?
Mr Ellwood
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I am grateful for the work that he has done in liaison with the family. I was able to meet Kamran Foroughi, the son, on 25 January. I spoke to Ambassador Baeidinejad about the case this morning and when I visited Tehran last month. I am pleased to see that Mr Foroughi is now going to receive the health test that he has been requesting, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a case for clemency there that I hope will be answered.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Is anyone in the British Government able to make direct contact with the Iranian revolutionary guard, because they are the people who are arresting and falsely imprisoning our nationals? Surely if we are speaking only to the puppets in Tehran, no one from Britain is going to be safe to visit that country.
Mr Ellwood
I think we should be careful in the language we use. The Iranians, like those in many countries, do not recognise dual nationality, and therefore we have to conduct these matters with diplomacy. Our avenue with the Iranians, which was not there a couple of years ago, is through the Iranian Foreign Ministry and our interlocutors there. We have had communications from our Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, as I said, and now me, with our embassy opening as well.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
The Prime Minister made clear on 17 January the high priority this Government place on their science relationship with Europe. The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), is in regular contact on this issue with his European counterparts, including the European commissioner.
Stephen Hammond
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there are no barriers to the UK joining future collaborative ventures, and that the UK intends to pursue those collaborative ventures with high-tech beacons around the world, including Hong Kong and Israel?
Sir Alan Duncan
The Government aim to secure the best possible outcome for UK science and research as we leave the European Union. The EU and the UK have publicly emphasised the importance of continuing to work together to produce high-quality research, so both at home and abroad we will remain at the forefront of science and research.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
In paragraph 10.14 of their White Paper, the Government tell us that they
“would welcome agreement…with our European partners”
on science and technology issues, but they give no indication of how that agreement will be achieved—no timetable, no detail and absolutely no guarantees. Will the Minister tell us what discussions have taken place, rather than simply telling us that the Government have had discussions?
Sir Alan Duncan
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leads on science, but this will be an essential part of the negotiations we conduct with the European Union after we have triggered article 50.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Sir Alan Duncan
I do not see why not, especially as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is living proof that the woolly mammoth can return from extinction.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
The Government are committed to strengthening our Commonwealth engagement, in continuing the theme of global Britain, and we look forward to hosting the Commonwealth Trade Ministers meeting in March and the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2018.
Mr Ellwood
We should not forget that the network of 52 states is very important to Great Britain. It has a combined population of 2.2 billion people, including 1 billion people under the age of 25. In the post-Brexit environment, we are looking for trade deals. When we travel across Africa, and indeed the Commonwealth in general, the first question that is asked is, “What are the opportunities for Britain, now that you are liberated from doing business through Brussels?” The ministerial meeting that is coming up is a great opportunity for us to embark on looking towards the trade deals that we need for the future.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Will the Minister join me in welcoming the cross-party majority in the vote on the EU-Canada trade deal? What priority is the Minister giving to completing that deal and ensuring that similar arrangements are made with our Commonwealth Canadian friends and cousins post-Brexit?
Mr Ellwood
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We are contained until article 50 has gone through, but Canada is another example—along with the United States, of which the Foreign Secretary made mention—of where we can push forward trade deals to the benefit of the United Kingdom.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister, who has responsibility for Africa, on visiting nine countries on the continent along with three other Ministers over the recess. May I encourage him not just to look at the existing Commonwealth and at bringing in old players such as Gambia, but to get Zimbabwe back and, off the back of Mozambique and Rwanda, perhaps to look at inviting the Ivory Coast?
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend, with his experience, is absolutely right. The Foreign Secretary has been to Gambia, Ghana and Liberia, and I was in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Again, I stress the opportunities there. As we venture across Africa, there are huge opportunities for Great Britain to advance our trade deals post-Brexit.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Ind)
Does the Minister agree that increased assistance to promote democracy in countries such as Bangladesh is a vital part of strengthening ties between the UK and members of the Commonwealth?
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. These are countries with which we have a history and a relationship. We are trusted, and through organisations such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the British Council and our embassies, consulates and high commissions we can certainly do that work. We hope to embark on such projects with Bangladesh and other countries across the Commonwealth.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
With the Commonwealth encompassing 52 members and a third of the world’s population, is it not vital that we set out our stall for Britain by saying that we want a free trade deal with Commonwealth countries, and that the Government put forward a plan for achieving that—not least in tomorrow’s Westminster Hall debate on this subject, which I have secured?
Mr Ellwood
I am sure, after that advertisement, that Westminster Hall will be packed tomorrow. My hon. Friend is right: Commonwealth trade will surpass $1 trillion by 2020, and trade across the Commonwealth is estimated to be actually 20% cheaper because of common legal systems and language and, indeed, trust. Those are exactly the areas to which we need to aspire, given our leadership role in the Commonwealth.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
But 90% of those who live in the Commonwealth live in countries where homosexuality is illegal. Tanzania has, only this week, announced that it intends to publish lists of people in the public domain who are meant to be homosexual. That is a massive danger to those individuals, and it poses further risks to others because Tanzania is trying to close down all the HIV/AIDS units and to blame homosexuality for HIV. Do we not need to enter all our negotiations with our Commonwealth colleagues with our eyes wide open and making it very clear that we will not put up with this kind of thing?
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful point. I will be visiting Tanzania soon, and I will certainly take that message with me. It is important to understand that, in the trade advances we are making across Africa, we do not miss the opportunity to raise delicate matters such as this, so that 21st-century standards can be met.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alok Sharma)
We maintain excellent relations with Japan. We have close defence co-operation, and the recent visit by RAF Typhoons was a very visible demonstration of that co-operation. Japanese businesses employ 140,000 people in the UK, which shows our strong economic ties.
James Berry
Does my hon. Friend agree that North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, shows how important it is that we maintain strong military and security relationships with our friends in Japan and South Korea, as well as strong trade relationships?
Alok Sharma
The actions of North Korea are a direct violation of multiple Security Council resolutions and a threat to international peace and security, not least to our friends in Japan and South Korea. Last week, as the House will know, the North Korean ambassador was summoned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where we made clear the UK’s concerns. Japan is of course our closest security partner in Asia, but we also enjoy close co-operation with South Korea, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that the innovative technology sector is very important for trade between Japan and the United Kingdom, in which we in Northern Ireland excel? Will he ensure that the sector is promoted very heavily in Japanese-United Kingdom relationships for the benefit of the Japanese workforce, but particularly of those who are developing the sector here?
Alok Sharma
As I have said, we of course enjoy very close trade relations with Japan. When I was in Japan last year, I met Japanese companies. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the biggest ever acquisition in the UK out of Asia was the acquisition of ARM Holdings by SoftBank for £24 billion.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will the Minister engage with his Japanese counterpart to get the latest assessment of Japan’s attempts to resolve its dispute with Russia over the Kuril islands?
Alok Sharma
We of course maintain close links with Japan—and, in fact, with all our allies—on matters related to security, and we continue to have dialogues across a range of issues, including those that my hon. Friend has raised.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
Last week, the Scottish Government’s external affairs Minister visited Japan to boost foreign investment, but the hard Tory Brexit is causing a cloud of uncertainty. Given the pending EU-Japan free trade agreement, will the isolationist hard Brexit agenda leave the UK trailing behind?
Alok Sharma
Along with ministerial colleagues, I talk regularly to Japanese businesses to hear their views. May I just say that, since the date of the referendum, a huge amount of investment from Japan into the UK has been confirmed? I have referred to the ARM Holdings deal, but, as the hon. Lady will know, Nissan has reaffirmed the super-plant in Sunderland. If that is not a vote of confidence in the UK, I do not know what is.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
Yes, indeed. I met Prime Minister Netanyahu and repeated the historic UK position, which is that we believe the settlements on the west bank are illegal and constitute a barrier to a peaceful settlement in the region.
Martyn Day
President Trump has caused great concern for peace in the middle east by dismissing a 20-year US commitment to a two-state solution. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that the UK remains committed to a two-state solution and will redouble its efforts?
Boris Johnson
Yes, I certainly can—and, if I may say so, I think the hon. Gentleman misrepresents what the US President said.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Boris Johnson
We are aware of the preparations being made by Hamas in Gaza and we remain very concerned about the situation. It underscores the reality that while Israel is of course at fault for the expansion of settlements in the west bank—we have made that absolutely clear—on the other hand nobody should underestimate the very real security threat facing Israel. We are firmly on the side of the Israelis as they face that threat.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Is the Foreign Secretary aware that just two days ago dozens of stop-work orders, which are usually regarded as precursors to demolition orders, were distributed in the village of Khan al-Ahmar, including to a primary school that serves over 170 children from local Bedouin communities? He may or may not know that the school is being visited by a large number of hon. Members from this House, and that if demolitions take place there to make way for settlements the chances of a viable Palestinian state will disappear. Is he making representations on this matter, and what action will he take to ensure that Mr Netanyahu heeds those representations?
Boris Johnson
I, of course, deplore demolitions, although, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, there is a difference between settlements and demolitions taking place in the west bank and demolitions within green line Israel.
Sir Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend think that our opposition to settlements is somewhat diluted by treating all settlements equally? The Oslo accords and the late President Arafat recognised that there would be land swaps. Would it not be better, as the Prime Minister said, to concentrate on new settlements and leave the existing settlements for a final decision?
Boris Johnson
The Government’s policy is unchanged. We regard settlements as illegal insofar as they are in occupied Palestinian territories. Members will be absolutely clear that sooner or later—I hope sooner rather than later—there will be a deal and an understanding that involves land swaps. As my right hon. Friend rightly says, we will have to show some sense when it comes to doing that deal.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Boris Johnson
I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave a moment ago. My hon. Friend the Minister will be going to Israel very shortly. When we have got to the bottom of the exact complaint she is making, I am sure he will raise it.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Alongside concerns about the rearmament of Hamas and the rebuilding of its network of cross-border terror tunnels, does my right hon. Friend share the growing alarm at the new activities of Daesh in the Sinai desert, which, together with the activities of Hamas, point to the prospect of further violence in the region and a new wave of terror attacks on innocent Israeli citizens?
Boris Johnson
My right hon. Friend is completely right. What he says underscores the need for a regional solution that brings together all the states surrounding Israel to do a deal that brings the Palestinians, finally, to the table, and brings concessions from the Israelis.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is not the truth of the matter that the Israeli authorities have at no stage over the years ever wanted a viable independent Palestinian state? President Trump’s inane comments have strengthened the ultras in Israel. What encouragement can one give to the Palestinian people in view of the continuing destruction of their homes and the building of settlements by Israelis?
Boris Johnson
Every Israeli Prime Minister in the last 20 years has supported a two-state solution, and that is the right way forward. It is the policy of the UK Government and remains the policy of the US Government. The difficulty will be to get a deal that not only allows the creation of the Palestinian state that I think everybody wants to achieve, but protects the security of the state of Israel.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
But last week President Trump said very clearly on televisions across the world that he could “live with either one” of a two-state or one-state solution. I am sure the Foreign Secretary agrees it is deeply disappointing that the President could casually disregard so many years of international consensus on a possible peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people. Did Mr Netanyahu give any hint at his recent meeting with the Prime Minister that he too was prepared to live with a one-state solution? If so, what was her response?
Boris Johnson
Let us be absolutely clear. As both the President and Prime Minister Netanyahu, and indeed the Palestinians, have said, there needs to be dialogue, but at the moment I do not think that the Palestinians are committing to dialogue in the way they could and should be. It takes two to negotiate. We have seen no progress over the last eight years. Let us not rule out the possibility of progress today.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
We are strongly committed to European scrutiny and will remain so after we leave the EU. NATO remains the cornerstone of our defence, and we will continue to play our full part in supporting European security, particularly in eastern Europe.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to NATO, but does he not find it as depressing as I do that while other EU countries are completely obsessed with creating an EU defence identity, they are failing miserably to meet their NATO requirement of spending a minimum of 2% of their GDP on defence? Is not the foot-dragging by Germany, the richest country in Europe, and its refusal to honour that commitment until 2024 particularly perverse?
Sir Alan Duncan
We continue to make it clear that nothing should cut across NATO’s role as the cornerstone of European defence. Other parties’ contributions being fairly distributed to NATO would make sure that NATO can remain the force it needs to be.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary mentioned the sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Will the Minister confirm that even when we leave the EU it will be open to us to democratically agree such sanctions with the rest of the EU where it is in our mutual interest?
Sir Alan Duncan
That is not specifically a question about defence policy, as on the Order Paper, but none the less I can reassure the hon. Lady that the answer is yes. Some kind of parallel structure for implementing sanctions will be required and I am sure will be agreed.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alok Sharma)
Burma has made welcome progress towards democracy since embarking on reforms in 2011. It has lifted media censorship and released political prisoners, and held legitimate elections in 2015. The military remains powerful, however, and under the constitution is granted 25% of the seats in Parliament. Clearly, we want to see a transition to full democracy.
Yasmin Qureshi
The National League for Democracy, in power at the moment, continues to lock up those of its own activists who have spoken against the excesses of Burma’s military and its treatment of ethnic minorities. Will the Minister make it clear to the Burmese Government that it cannot be recognised as genuinely democratic if it keeps putting its critics behind bars?
Alok Sharma
Human rights are vital, of course, and we always ask any Government to make sure that they are observed. More broadly, the issues right now are stopping the violations, securing humanitarian access and delivering accountability in parts of Burma where it is lacking, and those are precisely the points my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary pressed the Burmese Government and the military on when he visited Burma last month.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Burma’s Rohingya Muslims were banned from voting in last year’s elections, and have since been excluded from dialogue between the military and other ethnic minority groups. Endemic violence against the Rohingya has recently been described by UN officials as ethnic cleansing that may amount to crimes against humanity. Did the Foreign Secretary raise the plight of the Rohingya with Daw Suu and the generals on his recent trip to Burma?
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
By the next time I answer questions in the House, the Government will have invoked article 50. My priority for the rest of the year therefore will be to ensure the smoothest and cleanest possible departure from the EU consistent with maintaining close co-operation with our European friends. I shall also strive—the Opposition can never achieve this—to work alongside the new US Administration as we deal with common challenges posed by Russia and the crises in the middle east.
Rob Marris
In July 2015, the highest court in Colombia decided that Her Majesty’s Government had discriminated against its embassy employee, Mr Darwin Ayrton Moreno-Hurtado, on the basis of his ethnic identity and religious convictions. The court ordered his immediate reinstatement, yet Her Majesty’s Government stubbornly continue to refuse to obey the court in Colombia. Does the UK Government not take seriously the judicial decisions of courts in Colombia, or do they not take seriously the need to cease ethnic and religious discrimination against their employees in Columbia?
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
As the hon. Gentleman well knows—I have written to him in detail—it is impossible to reinstate that person as the job no longer exists.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Boris Johnson
My hon. Friend will know that we have a programme to support the return of children whose parents are stuck in the wrong country. We do it through our—oh, what is it? We do it through our proper processes in making use of all our consular services.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
I am sure the whole House will welcome the recent positive political developments in the Gambia. The Gambian authorities are already investigating allegations that the former President Jammeh smuggled millions of dollars’ worth of assets out of the country before his departure last month. What steps are the Government taking to help track down any missing assets, including any that might have ended up in the UK, and to make sure that any proceeds of corruption are returned to the Gambia without delay?
Boris Johnson
We are doing everything we can to support the Gambia’s judicial system. The hon. Lady will know that the new President Barrow has indicated that he would like the UK to be the Gambia’s principal partner of choice in tackling corruption in that country and putting the Gambia back on an even keel. I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that when I recently went to the Gambia, there were crowds in the street dancing—[Interruption.] Not necessarily because they were pleased to see me—perhaps they were—but because they were delighted that the Gambia was being welcomed back into the Commonwealth. I can say that their joy was unconfined.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
Boris Johnson
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I hesitate to advise the British public what to watch on television, but I have to say that I think they will exercise their infinite sagacity and wisdom in not heeding the siren voices of those who try to overturn the democratic decision of this country’s people last year to embark on a course that I think will lead us not only to democratic emancipation, but to a new course of global prosperity.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alok Sharma)
We discuss a wide range of issues with the Indian authorities. As for the specific issue raised by the hon. Lady, earlier in the year the state Government of Jammu and Kashmir ordered the establishment of special investigating teams to look into deaths of civilians and the involvement of police personnel during the five-month-long unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir, and we will of course monitor their reports closely.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
There were also crowds of people to welcome us when we arrived in Ghana a week or two ago. Although we could not quite work out whether the welcome was for us or for the Minister for Trade and Investment, it was thoroughly enjoyable nevertheless.
It seems to me that the greater the number of trading connections that we forge, particularly in west Africa, the stronger the foundation on which to build good international relations will be. Does my right hon. Friend agree that withdrawal from the European customs union will give us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to boost our diplomatic relations worldwide?
Boris Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for his work as trade envoy to Ghana. Indeed, I thank all our trade envoys, who do a fantastic job around the world. It is thanks to the efforts of my colleague the Minister for Trade and Investment and others that we are seeing increased trade with countries such as Ghana, and I was very proud to see British firms operating there. I believe that the largest single private sector employer in Ghana is a firm run by a Brit. We should all be proud of the contribution that those firms are making.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Boris Johnson
The House gave a clear mandate, 6:1, to give the people the decision on whether to stay in the European Union. All sorts of threats and all sorts of blandishments were made to the people of this country to persuade them to vote to stay in. Those threats and those warnings have proved to be fallacious, and I think that all future such threats will be taken with a pinch of salt.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Boris Johnson
I fully accept that we need to give all the 3.2 million EU nationals in this country the maximum possible certainty, and that we should do it as fast as we possibly can. Unfortunately, however, I do not think it is reasonable to do it before giving certainty to UK nationals in other EU countries. We would like to get on with that as fast as possible, and it is up to our friends and colleagues abroad to join us.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Boris Johnson
I really must accuse the hon. Gentleman of failing to listen to the answer that I gave a few moments ago. I am not here to defend or explain what the American President said, but he made it very clear that there should be dialogue, and he also made it very clear that he thought that the illegal settlements should no longer continue. The solution is a deal between the two parties, and that is what everyone in the House believes and wants.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Today, once again, the ghastly prospect of famine stalks the world in four countries with which Britain has very close and long-standing historical connections: Yemen, north-east Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia. Will the Foreign Secretary ensure, perhaps through the co-ordinating mechanism of the National Security Council, that every sinew of government is bent to address and combat this unconscionable situation?
Boris Johnson
Yes, I can certainly give my right hon. Friend that assurance. The whole House can be very proud of the work being done by the Department for International Development, and the huge contribution this country makes through UK aid to all four of the regions he identifies. He has recently been to Yemen, and he will know that this is a very difficult and intractable problem, but it is the UK who is trying to knock heads together and get a deal.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Boris Johnson
If the hon. Lady is suggesting that we should boycott Israeli goods, I must say that I completely reject her advice.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that any global Britain strategy should include the whole of the global British family, which means the British overseas territories and the Crown dependencies? What guarantees will the Government give that they will be included in any new arrangements post-Brexit?
Sir Alan Duncan
I am certain I can give my hon. Friend the assurance he seeks. I know that one prime focus of his thoughts is Gibraltar, and I can assure him that the sovereignty position remains totally unchanged. Gibraltar is fully involved in the preparations for the process of leaving the European Union.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Alok Sharma
The UN high commissioner for human rights has issued a substantive report on the widespread human rights violations, and of course the UN special rapporteur also referred to violations in her recent press briefing. A full report is due in March. In the light of these two reports, the UK will consider, with international partners, the scope for further enhancing scrutiny of the military’s actions in Rakhine. I can confirm that I will be attending the Human Rights Council.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
Brexit provides an opportunity to review the role of the FCO, which has been woefully under-resourced for far too long. Does my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary agree that there should be a moratorium on any asset disposals until such a review is complete, and that such a review should also examine how finally to bring other Departments with overseas representatives under the control of the respective heads of mission?
Boris Johnson
I am delighted for the support from my right hon. Friend in campaigning for proper funding for our diplomatic missions overseas. It is true that we have an absolutely unparalleled network around the world, and it is also true that the missions will be needed more than ever as we forge a new global future. That point will be heard loud and clear by the current occupant of the Treasury, who was, after all, the previous Foreign Secretary.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
The hon. Lady raises an important point. I will be visiting Riyadh this week and having discussions with President Hadi and, indeed, Adel al-Jubair. We are concerned that we need to move towards a political resolution, and we want the military component that has been taking place to end.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
The Israeli Prime Minister has recently spoken about coming together with the Gulf Co-operation Council on security issues. Countries such as Jordan and Egypt have played a significant role in previous peace processes. Does the Foreign Secretary think that the GCC has a significant role to play in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
Boris Johnson
My hon. Friend brings a wealth of knowledge to this subject. I do think that the GCC and the Arab countries more generally hold the key, and that a variant of what used to be called the Arab peace plan is indeed where we will end up. What it will take now is for both sides to see that, and to make progress.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The announcement by Toshiba last week regarding NuGen will mean that new foreign investment will be required for the Moorside nuclear development. Does this not place a new question mark over the UK’s decision to pull out of Euratom, which will create more instability for the industry?
Sir Alan Duncan
We shall remain a full member of Euratom while we remain part of the European Union, and we intend to make sure that all our research into nuclear fusion will continue after we leave.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
We all look forward to the day when a sovereign Palestinian state exists alongside a safe and secure Israel. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that can be achieved only through face-to-face negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis?
Boris Johnson
I certainly agree with that, and those negotiations should take place as fast as possible and without preconditions.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
With Iran testing missiles, Russia plotting coups and North Korea murdering dissidents, does the Foreign Secretary agree that now is the time to renew western resolve and leadership, which has sometimes been lacking during the past eight years?
Boris Johnson
I completely agree. One of the interesting phenomena of the global reaction to the new US President is how much it is at variance with some of the commentary I have heard from the Opposition Benches this morning. When I go around the world, I find that many people in foreign ministries and other Governments are hopeful that they will see American leadership again where it has been lacking. They are particularly encouraged by the role of the United Kingdom in helping to transmit and improve American policy.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Last week I led a delegation to Kosovo, and I can tell my right hon. Friend that the President, the Prime Minister and others that we met there greatly appreciated his visit. May I invite him to reaffirm our continued support for Kosovo and to take part in any future initiatives to help it?
Boris Johnson
Yes, I certainly shall. I much enjoyed my time in Kosovo. All those on the Labour Benches who have sprung to the defence of their former Prime Minister today should know that he is memorialised, at least in Kosovo, in that no fewer than eight 16-year-olds there have been christened Tony Blair.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
President Putin might be President Trump’s new best buddy, but he is certainly not ours. Will the Foreign Secretary give his full support to the Magnitsky amendments that we are going to debate in a few minutes, which would allow the assets of any Russians involved in the murder of Magnitsky to be seized in the UK?
Boris Johnson
We will be looking very carefully at that debate as it unfolds, and at the arguments that are made. We think that we have good provision in our statutes at the moment, but we will take account of the debate as it evolves.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
I recently had a meeting in my constituency surgery with a delegation from Cameroon regarding the lack of democracy in that country. They described fear, brutality and a lack of education in English-speaking Cameroon. What role can the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the conflict, stability and security fund play in supporting democracy in that area?
Mr Ellwood
First, I want to pay tribute to the diasporas based in the UK that provide us with an understanding of what is going on in their countries. I also pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend is doing, and I absolutely agree with the concerns that she has raised about Cameroon. She is right to point to the conflict, stability and security fund as a way for us to provide funds to achieve that security, and we will be doing just that.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
A few moments ago, the Secretary of State confirmed as Government policy something that this House resolved without a Division on 9 February—that there should be a halt to the planning and construction of residential settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Given that that is the case, why is the UK permitted to trade specifically with those illegal settlements?
Boris Johnson
It is the policy of the UK, and I think of many of our friends and partners, to continue to trade on the grounds that that is the best way to support the economy of the region. Many workers in the region come from populations within the occupied Palestinian territories, and their livelihoods depend on that industry. That policy is widely understood and supported, and we will continue with it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary and to colleagues. We must move on.
The future of nursery schools
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on the future of our state-run nursery schools. It is the petition of the many parents and supporters of schools such as the Fields Children’s Centre in Cambridge. Those schools do brilliant work that is now threatened by funding changes.
The petition reads:
The petition of residents of Cambridge,
Declares that nursery schools have very good outcomes with regard to closing the achievement gap as well as supporting children with complex educational or medical needs; further that the petitioners are concerned by the Government’s proposals for early years funding that would mean that local authorities would pass on 95% of early years funding from central government directly to early year providers; further that should the proposals be accepted all nursery schools in Cambridgeshire will find themselves in dire financial difficulties; and further that the proposals would lead to a loss of early years provision as well as job losses for nursery staff.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to drop their proposal that would require local authorities to pass on 95% of early years funding from central government directly to early year providers.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002014]
Closure of bank in Odiham
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Banks are more than a utility; they provide a service to communities up and down the land. Today banks are changing definitions and moving the goalposts so that they can close more branches, including in my constituency. This is being done by all banks, at a time when they are seeking to rebuild trust. The people of Odiham want to make it clear to this House—they have done so well into their four figures—that they want their local bank to remain.
The petition reads:
The Humble Petition of the people of North East Hampshire,
Sheweth,
That Lloyds Bank have proposals to close the Odiham High Street branch on 8th March 2017; that this high street branch is particularly highly valued; especially by older residents and small business owners who often pop in to manage their finances; and that if accounts are moved to Fleet, this becomes a four hour return journey by public transport, which is clearly not in the best interests of our community
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges HM Government to take all possible steps to urge Lloyds Bank to reconsider this decision and to make sure that the banking industry considers the social implications of their actions
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
[P002016]
Points of Order
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for taking this point of order. Notwithstanding the underwhelming support for my vote of no confidence in you, have the Government or indeed the Backbench Business Committee contacted you in any way to allocate time for this unresolved matter to be debated and, indeed, voted on?
Mr Speaker
The short answer is no, and there is absolutely no reason why they should have done, a point which I can say from my own head and heart fortified in the knowledge that it is also the sound advice of the experienced Clerk of the House, who has been working in the service of the House for 40 years.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. While the Foreign Secretary is still in the Chamber, I want to ask for clarification. He said from the Dispatch Box during Question Time that the Trump travel ban order would not affect UK passport holders. Is he aware of the case of the teacher from Swansea who has been—[Interruption.] I am giving the Foreign Secretary the opportunity to clarify that he is aware of the matter and that it is in hand.
Mr Speaker
That is not specifically a matter for the Chair. If the Foreign Secretary wants to respond on the Floor of the House, he is free to do so, but he is under no obligation. I get the impression that the hon. Lady will be contacted.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
If the case that the hon. Lady is referring to is the one that I am thinking of, I have written to her about it.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You quite rightly apologised to the Lord Speaker for unilaterally seeking to ban the President of the United States from speaking in Westminster Hall. When can we expect an apology in this Chamber?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I treated of that matter very fully both on the day in question, when I responded to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and on the following day, when there were points of order. I cannot recall whether the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) was in his place at that time, but I responded to points of order and the matter was addressed fully, so we shall leave it there. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his interest.
Government Services (Telecommunication Charges)
Tuesday 21st February 2017
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberGovernment Services (Telecommunication Charges) Bill 2016-17 View all Government Services (Telecommunication Charges) Bill 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to restrict charges for using telecommunications to contact certain government advice services; and for connected purposes.
The Bill that I am proposing would regulate the provision of telecommunications advice lines by all Government Departments so that call charges to citizens would be restricted or, for the most vulnerable, eliminated. It would ask Government Departments to conduct an assessment for each local authority area of the provision of public computer equipment capable of being used by Department for Work and Pensions claimants, for example, and to publish the results. If that assessment were to demonstrates that the total number of units of public computer equipment was less than one for every 20 claimants, all Secretaries of States would have to make provision for a dedicated telephone number that could be accessed at zero cost, including without having to use coins or cards at a public telephone. I also propose that if Departments were unable to take a call within a reasonable period, such as five minutes, the caller should be given a regularly updated estimate of the likely waiting time, with the offer of an immediate call-back facility. That is an essential courtesy.
MPs often encounter examples of unfairness and injustice when, through no fault of their own, people seem to be punished for finding themselves in need, and where rules and regulations actively harm, not help, the average citizen who is simply seeking what they are entitled to. A key part of the role of an elected Member is to help people to navigate their way through the system, but since being elected, I have been shocked by the in-built unfairness and the costs of claiming.
Take the Department for Work and Pensions. Although an initial inquiry to the DWP is free, follow-up inquiries about a claim, queries about benefits sanctions, or even reporting that a benefit has not been paid on time all come with call charges. Constituents have told me that those calls can be very expensive—as much as £9 or £16 a time—and that long waiting times to speak to an adviser bump up that cost even further.
Other examples of services that charge for access are the child maintenance helpline and the Home Office helpline for inquiries about spousal visas, which costs £1.37 a minute over and above network charges. There can be no justification for the Home Office imposing charges on anyone for a genuine inquiry service. Dealing with telephone inquiries must be treated as a valid overhead cost that is covered by the fees levied for the application process itself.
Telephone network charges vary and, again, they can be seen to discriminate against the least well-off. All providers include 03 numbers in their inclusive call packages, but calls to such numbers are often presented as if they are available only to those who are well off. That even applies to pay-as-you-go arrangements, which are more likely to be used by low-income households. They may be unaware of the bundles that enable calls to be made at no more than 7p a minute, rather than the range of 10p a minute to 55p a minute suggested on the Government website, as updated on 7 February.
I thank David Hickson of the fair telecoms campaign for providing me with information as I prepared this Bill. David tells me that the campaign fully supports the use of 0800 numbers, and the consequent bonanza for telephone companies, in cases when it is essential that nobody pays for a call. He is, however, concerned that greater use of 0800 numbers would do nothing to help constituents who get ripped off when calling friends, or their MP, on ordinary numbers. There is therefore a strong case for us all to push the point that it is essential to ensure that everybody chooses the most appropriate telephone call plan for their needs. Those of us who are well-off, smart consumers do that anyway, but there is a need for greater assistance and guidance to be given to all.
Last July, the Social Security Advisory Committee recommended that all telephone calls to the DWP should be free via 0800 numbers. The Government’s response was that that would cost £7 million, which is not a lot in the context of the overall budget. The roll-out of universal credit threatens to extend call times and costs to claimants due to the nature of the new benefit, which will require frequent contact from claimants to update the DWP on their circumstances. A ministerial written answer last year revealed that the average length of a call to the universal credit helpline is seven minutes and 29 seconds, which is equivalent to £4.40 at one major phone operator’s rates. Universal credit is a replacement for jobseeker’s allowance, and the weekly equivalent is £73.34, so claimants will already have less to live on than they are allocated simply for calling a helpline.
The push over the edge into poverty should not be administered by the DWP and other Government Departments through charging for inquiry lines. When the safety net becomes a trap, it is time to ask what sort of Government boost telephone company profits on the backs of the poor.
Far from working to create a society that is fair for all, the Government have not responded positively so far to the campaign to remove telephone helpline charges, which can be up to 55p a minute. When I have queried the cost of calling, the ministerial response has inevitably mentioned the alternative of online access for inquiries and claims. That is fine for those who are digitally literate, who can afford broadband and who live in an area with good connectivity, but it is not so great otherwise and a further in-built barrier that stops people from accessing the support to which they are entitled. Although there has been some funding for public access terminals and digital learning, if all the people who seek advice on claims were to switch from phoning to the use of public internet access terminals, libraries and community centres would be unable to cope with the demand.
When I was researching this issue, I was particularly struck by a DWP spokesperson’s response to the telephone tax campaign last year, which was that online access is widely available through the network of jobcentres. I pause for a moment as we reflect on the proposed closure programme for the DWP estate. It should not be too difficult to conduct an audit, in conjunction with local authorities, to identify the availability of free online access terminals to our constituents, or the lack thereof. In fact, I am inclined to conduct one in my constituency of Glasgow South West and to compare that with the claimant count. I strongly suspect that that would reveal a mismatch.
The other stock ministerial response to questions about phone charges for inquirers is the use of a call-back, but it is rather difficult for an inquirer who is on hold if a call-back is not offered routinely. A call-back also requires the caller to self-identify as vulnerable. That in-built humiliation within the system is familiar to those of us who have watched “I, Daniel Blake”.
Ministers have promised a review of telephone charges, but I ask the Government to act on the recommendations of the 2016 Social Security Advisory Committee report “Telephony in DWP and HMRC: an update” as part of the review, introduce a more effective call-back system for vulnerable customers, and bring in an information system that advises customers of possible wait times. That should be adopted across all Government services as best practice. The need for reform is pressing with regard to benefit claims, but over-the-top charging for information, through a lack of recognition of the least well-off’s limited access to the range of phone packages available and a lack of digital inclusion, excludes and discriminates against far too many of our citizens.
As Mr David McAuley from the Trussell Trust put it:
“When incomes are extremely tight, we could see people being forced to choose between phoning to make a…claim and buying essential food supplies”.
Unless people have been in that position, or have a case load from a constituency like mine, it might be difficult for them to understand how disempowering or discriminatory the system can be, and that every penny spent on a phone call ramps up stress and anxiety for people who simply want access to information, support and the benefits to which they are entitled. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Chris Stephens, Mhairi Black, Jonathan Edwards, Neil Gray, Dr Philippa Whitford, Drew Hendry, Ms Margaret Ritchie, Mr Alistair Carmichael, Ian Blackford, Mr Jim Cunningham, Grahame M. Morris and Mark Durkan present the Bill.
Chris Stephens accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed (Bill 141).
Criminal Finances Bill
Tuesday 21st February 2017
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberCriminal Finances Act 2017 View all Criminal Finances Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 21 February 2017 - (21 Feb 2017)
17:18 - The House divided: - Ayes: 180 / Noes: 301 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:32 - The House divided: - Ayes: 241 / Noes: 300 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 1—Civil recovery: gross abuse of human rights—
‘(1) Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (civil recovery of the proceeds etc. of unlawful conduct) is amended as follows.
(2) In section 241 (which defines unlawful conduct), after subsection (2), insert—
“(2A) Conduct which—
(a) occurs in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom and has been designated as conduct by a person connected to a gross human rights abuse in accordance with the provisions of section 241B, and
(b) if it occurred in a part of the United Kingdom, would be or would have been unlawful under the criminal law of that part at the relevant time,
is also unlawful conduct.”
(3) After section 241 (which defines unlawful conduct), insert—
“241A Conduct connected to a gross human rights abuse
(1) “Conduct connected to a gross human rights abuse” means—
(a) involvement by a Person (“A”) in torture or other serious breaches of human rights and fundamental freedoms against a Person (“B”) where B sought or seeks—
(i) to expose illegal activity carried out by foreign public officials, or
(ii) to obtain, exercise, defend or promote human rights and fundamental freedoms,
(b) activities by a Person (“C”) as an agent in a matter relating to an activity by A described in paragraph (a),
(c) activities by a Person (“D”) to profit from, materially assist, sponsor, or provide financial, material or technological support for, or goods and services in support of, an activity by A described in paragraph (a),
(d) commission by a Person (“E”), whether or not a foreign public official, of the illegal activity described in paragraph (a)(i).
(2) For the purposes of this section, it is immaterial where the conduct occurred.
(3) In this section “human rights and fundamental freedoms” means the “Convention rights” as defined in section 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998.
241B Designation of conduct connected to a gross human rights abuse
‘(1) The High Court may make an order designating that the actions of the respondent constitute conduct connected to a gross human rights abuse and, if considered appropriate, that—
(a) a person is prohibited from dealing with property, funds or economic resources owned, held or controlled by the respondent if the person knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that the person is dealing with such property, funds or economic resources,
(b) a person is prohibited from making property, funds or financial services available (directly or indirectly) to the respondent if the person knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect that the person is making the funds or financial services so available,
(c) a person is prohibited from making funds or financial services available to any person for the benefit of the respondent if the person knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that the person is making the funds or financial services so available.
(2) An order under subsection (1) may only be made on application.
(3) An application for an order under subsection (1) may be made by—
(a) the Secretary of State,
(b) an individual, or
(c) an entity, including a non-governmental organisation.
(4) An application for an order under subsection (1) must be supported by a statement of information which addresses—
(a) the circumstances surrounding the respondent’s conduct connected to a gross human rights abuse, and
(b) the nature and extent of the respondent’s involvement.
(5) An application for an order under subsection (1) may be made without notice to the respondent to a judge in chambers.
(6) The Court must be satisfied that it is in the public interest to make an order under subsection (1).
(7) The Court shall reach a decision on an order under subsection (1) on the balance of probabilities.
241C Duration, extension, variation and discharge of an order
‘(1) The High Court shall specify the duration of an order under section 241B(1) which shall not exceed two years.
(2) In determining the duration of an order, the Court shall have regard to the likely duration of consequential proceedings under this Part.
(3) The Court may extend an order for a maximum period to two years at any time before it expires, if it is satisfied that the requirements of a designation order continue to be met.
(4) An extension application may be made without the need for a hearing if the court considers it appropriate.
(5) An application to extend, vary or discharge an order may be made to the court by—
(a) the Secretary of State,
(b) the applicant,
(c) the respondent, or
(d) any person affected by the order.
(6) An application to discharge a designation order must be made by the applicant as soon as reasonably practicable in circumstances where the requirements of an order are no longer satisfied.
241D Appeals, etc.
‘(1) The following persons may appeal to the Court of Appeal in respect of the High Court’s decision on matters falling to be decided under sections 241B and 241C—
(a) the applicant,
(b) the respondent, or
(c) any person affected by the order.
(2) On an appeal under subsection (1) the Court of Appeal may—
(a) confirm the decision, or
(b) make such orders as it believes appropriate.
(3) An appeal lies to the Supreme Court from a decision of the Court of Appeal on an appeal under this section.
(4) An appeal under this section lies at the instance of any person who was a party to the proceedings before the Court of Appeal.
(5) On an appeal under this section the Supreme Court may—
(a) confirm the decision of the Court of Appeal, or
(b) make such order as it believes is appropriate.
241E Standard to be applied
All matters to be determined by a court under sections 241B to 241D are to be decided on the balance of probabilities.
241F Costs
In the exercise of its discretion, a court may, on application, make a costs capping order in respect of proceedings under sections 241B to 241D.
241G Duties in respect of gross abuse of human rights
‘(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to apply for an order under section 241B where the Secretary of State is satisfied that—
(a) the requirements for the making of an order are met; and
(b) it is in the public interest to make the application.
(2) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to maintain a public register of—
(a) individuals in respect of whom orders have been made under section 241B(1),
(b) the circumstances giving rise to the making of such orders, and
(c) any decisions of a court under sections 241C and 241D in relation to such orders.
(3) In any case where a relevant authority considers that evidence is available of property being held by a person in respect of whom an order has been made under section 241B which may represent property obtained through unlawful conduct, it shall be the duty of the relevant authority to seek to initiate proceedings for civil recovery under this Part.”
(4) In section 304 (which defines recoverable property), after subsection (1), insert—
“(1A) Property of a person who is the subject of a designation order under section 241B is presumed to have been obtained through unlawful conduct unless the contrary is shown by the respondent.””
This new clause extends the scope of unlawful conduct for the purposes of Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to cover to certain actions connected to a gross human rights abuse which has taken place abroad.
Government amendments 58 and 59.
Mr Wallace
Some time has passed since we last considered this Bill. There was, as hon. Members will recall, a great deal of cross-party consensus on it, both on Second Reading and in Committee, and I hope that we will be able to continue in that same spirit of constructive debate and healthy scrutiny today.
This first group of amendments concerns the extremely grave matter of gross human rights abuses or violations. The Government are committed to promoting and strengthening universal rights globally, and I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue. In particular, these amendments have been prompted by the harrowing case of Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky was not a serious criminal; he was a lawyer who tried to blow the whistle on large-scale tax fraud in Russia, and he believed that he would be protected by the law. Unfortunately, he died in state custody in 2009 after suffering both mistreatment and assault, and being denied medical attention. I share the strong feelings of many hon. Members about this case, and I want to reassure the House that the Government have expressed, both publicly and to the Russian Government, our serious concerns about Mr Magnitsky’s death. Of course, we must also remember that his case is only one of many atrocious human rights violations committed globally each year.
As I am sure that hon. Members will highlight, the US has legislated to prohibit the entry of certain named individuals to the US and to forbid them use of the US banking system. Less than two months ago, President Obama’s Administration extended the legislation so that it could be applied to those involved in human rights violations, wherever in the world they have taken place. That sends an important signal that perpetrators of gross human rights violations will face consequences. However, we have an entirely different legal system, which merits a different approach.
I pay tribute to those hon. Members who have raised this issue by tabling new clause 1—in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), the right hon. Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). I am grateful to hon. Members for giving me advance notice of the amendment, and am pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss it with many of its signatories.
It has always been the Government’s position that for further legislation to be warranted on this issue, there would need to be a real case that existing powers were insufficient. I hope that hon. Members will agree that we should avoid doing anything that might have an impact on the effectiveness of our existing sanctions and civil recovery powers. The National Crime Agency has confirmed that it has considered all the material provided to it on the Magnitsky case. It concluded that the individuals whom we believe to be connected to the case do not reside in the UK, and it has identified no assets of value in the United Kingdom that are connected to the case, so the additional powers proposed in new clause 1 would have no obvious material effect on the individuals involved in this case.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
The point about the Magnitsky Act in the US is that it pulls together the visa ban, the ban on using American banks and the inability to trade there; the advantage is that it is all pulled together. I appreciate that the scenario is different in this country, but will the Minister please explain how he intends to pull the links together in this country, using the different pieces of existing legislation?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. I will get to that later in my speech, but we have to recognise this difference between the United States and the UK: here, most of our sanctions regimes are under the European Union umbrella. Of course, there will be time to discuss those sanctions, and the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit arrangements, at a later date. When it comes to sanctions, we have slightly different dispersals of authority and power from the United States, which often can, and does, act entirely unilaterally in this area; we should point that out.
One problem with new clause 1 is that we think it would be non-compliant with our domestic human rights law, because it contains no derogations. It would freeze all the assets of a designated individual, so they would not have any funds for living expenses or medical treatment, or to pay for legal representation. The reversal of the burden of proof, so that it would be assumed that all assets owned by designated individuals were the proceeds of their unlawful conduct, would also be an unprecedented step. That is incongruous with the existing civil recovery regime and could be judged by the courts to be disproportionate.
However, we recognise the strength of feeling on this matter, and understand the deterrent effect that such an amendment would have on those who seek to profit from the gross abuse or violation of human rights overseas.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Minister is clearly very well informed on this issue, and I know that he has had meetings on the subject. If assets connected to the case were identified in the UK—I know that there is a dispute with Bill Browder, who believes that there are such assets here—is the Minister confident that existing legislation or his new clause 7 would enable them to be frozen?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point. I have to respect the boundaries of our law enforcement agencies. As a Minister, I cannot direct them to take action; they have an operational freedom and independence that we value greatly in this country. They have said to me that should actionable evidence be presented to them, they would be free to follow that up and enforce the law. Speaking as the Minister, where actionable evidence of gross human rights abuses or other criminal offences is presented, of course we would like to see action taken. This is not about trying to shelter people who have been involved in those offences; it is about trying to make sure that the appropriate action is taken when the correct evidence is presented. I absolutely concur with the right hon. Gentleman’s point: it is important to understand that we need to act on the evidence. If there is evidence, we could take action, even without this legislation. I certainly urge our law enforcement agencies to take action to make sure that people are held to account for the atrocious murder in Russia of Mr Magnitsky.
We have tried to come some way towards meeting many of the concerns of hon. Members by tabling new clause 7 and the consequential amendments 58 and 59. They would widen the definition of “unlawful conduct” in part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to include torture or
“the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”
of those exposing corruption, or obtaining, exercising, defending or promoting human rights, including in cases where that conduct was not an offence in the jurisdiction in which it took place. That would allow any assets held in the UK that were deemed to be the proceeds of such activity to be recovered under the provisions in part 5.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Government’s new clause 7 contains no duty on the Government to act at all; they can simply ignore the provisions. That is one of the key differences between new clause 7 and new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab).
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman talks about duty, but there are lots of criminal offences on the statute books on which the Government do not have a duty to act. We leave it to the interpretation and freedom of our law enforcement agencies to act. Are we to say that the duty in this case is greater than the duty on the police to act on burglary or on a whole range of other criminal offences? The fundamental issue is that the hon. Gentleman wants to put a duty on the Government for one specific type of criminal offence, which would, I am afraid, hinder the freedom of our law enforcement agencies to take the appropriate action when the evidence was presented to them.
Chris Bryant
But in the Government’s new clause, as opposed to new clause 1, there is no provision for third parties to bring a case to the courts to allow the seizure of assets, so, yet again, the Government are closing off the options for tackling money laundering in London and the UK.
Mr Wallace
I am afraid we are not. The National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are not full of people who do not want to do their job. They want to enforce the law: they want to go out and catch the criminals and stop money laundering. It is slightly insulting to imply that if we did not put a duty on them, they would not do it. They would do it. The problem with new clause 1 is that it would allow non-governmental organisations and individuals—it does not define whether those NGOs or individuals are foreign or from the UK—to go to the court, with limited liability, to force the Government to take action, without a high threshold at all.
For example, under new clause 1 a Cuban exile living in Florida who does not like the rapprochement with the Cuban Government could come to our courts to allege human rights abuse and make an application against the Cuban ambassador’s assets in this country, and actually confiscate or freeze those assets. It would not only preclude us from making peace or moving on with some countries, but would allow massive amounts of vexatious claims based on gimmick politics. That is why we have to respect the professionalism and independence of our law enforcement agencies and allow them to make the case based on the evidence presented to them.
Chris Bryant
That is simply not the case. For example, we already regularly have lots of vexatious applications from Russia for the extradition of Russians who are now resident in the United Kingdom, but the court decides. New clause 1 would not allow an individual to decide that somebody’s assets must be frozen; a court would decide.
Mr Wallace
First, the hon. Gentleman misses the point that courts do not like vexatious complaints. They do not like time-wasting applications with what would be in the case of new clause 1 limited liability for those people who want to use the court’s time to make a statement. Secondly, applications for deportation are often made by the state. The hon. Gentleman would open it up to individuals all over the world to come to our courts, without liability, to make the case for or to make a gesture out of freezing individuals’ assets, without any recourse to the state or even necessarily to evidence. That would open up a whole can of worms for countries around the world.
I shall give another example. We have sponsored and supported the peace deal in Colombia. Should the Colombian Government at some stage choose to send somebody with a background in the FARC to represent them or to be a cultural attaché in their embassy or something, and somebody in Colombia does not like that, under new clause 1 they could, as an individual, come to a court here and make a tokenistic application. The judiciary might throw it out, but there is capped liability, so the court’s time could be wasted writ large by lots of people making statements and blocking the courts.
Mr Djanogly
Have the Government considered whether any application should go first to the Attorney General before being allowed to proceed? That might stop the abuse that the Minister is suggesting.
Mr Wallace
We did consider that in consultation with the office of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, but it was felt that there was not the appropriate need for that, so we progressed with new clause 7 as it is drafted. We should remember that we are putting on the statute book a new power to take action based on gross human rights abuse, torture and degrading treatment. We have not done that before and it is a major step. It is a major signal to countries around the world that if evidence is presented, we could interdict with their assets. That sends the powerful message that London and the United Kingdom are not bases for them to put their assets or ill-gotten gains from such behaviour.
Sir Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Surely that is the substantive point. The concern would be that we would get not only vexatious complaints, but complaints designed for publicity, in the almost certain knowledge that such complaints would not be seen through by the courts and there would be virtually no cost to the people making the complaint. New clause 7 provides the opportunity to nab the guilty, and it says to people that bloodstained dictators have no place putting their money in this country.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that it sends a message, but it also respects the independence of our law enforcement agencies so that they can apply the law and take action when they are presented with evidence, which will ensure that the courts’ time is not wasted and that we get successful results when we deal with these individuals. It will also ensure that it is done in a way such that the Executive retains the initiative to carry out the process and prevent vexatious complaints. Judges will tell us that they do not want their courtrooms to become public relations arenas in which people can make vexatious applications; they want their courts to be able to decide on the basis of evidence. Under new clause 7, they will be able to do that, but we respect the operational independence of our law enforcement agencies.
All that explains why we tabled the new clause. As I have said, it would allow any assets held in the UK that were deemed to be the proceeds of the activities I outlined to be recovered under the provisions in part 5. Of course, any civil recovery would be subject to all the existing processes and legal safeguards in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The court would need to be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the property in question was the proceeds of crime, or was likely to be used to fund further criminal activity. Law enforcement agencies would, as ever, need to consider which of their powers to utilise on a case-by-case basis.
I hope Members will agree that the new clause would send a clear statement that the UK will not stand by and allow those who have committed gross abuses or violations around the world to launder their money here. I have been the Minister in charge of the Bill from the beginning, and when colleagues from either side of the House have tabled amendments, I have asked my officials, “Do they have a point?” I have asked my officials about the evidence set against Mr Magnitsky’s killers and to find out whether we have actually done the work we say we are doing. I make sure; I do not just take things at face value. It is important to say that I am confident that we have not taken action in this case because we have not yet had the evidence to do so or the assets have not been located in the right place. I have checked that out and verified it.
I have come to the House today with an attempt to put a compromise in statute—to put gross human rights abuse on record for the first time. I hope we can send the right message to the regimes, criminals and individuals around the world, while at the same time respecting the law enforcement agencies so that they can carry out their job unhindered by political interference, or by third-party groups or anyone else who might want to use publicity rather than actual evidence to further their cause. That is really important. I shall pause my comments there and wait to hear from other Members, and then respond at the end of the debate.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
It is not fair for us to live in a world in which criminals are free to generate cash and spend it without fear of repercussion. Given what I have learned during the progress of the Bill, I think all Members on both sides of the House would agree with that sentiment. There simply must be a level playing field for the vast majority in society who chose to play by the rules.
Until now, provisions on financial crime have been focused on anti-money laundering regulations and proceeds of crime legislation, which have been specifically geared towards dealing with the proceeds of drug traffickers and bank robbers. In many senses, it has worked. It is not as easy to launder money in 2017 as it used to be, although, sadly, it is not impossible. It used to be the perception of criminals that if they could evade capture and not flash the cash, they could eventually spend their ill-gotten gains. In many cases, criminals looked forward to spending the gains when they were released.
Thankfully, the world has moved on, and this Bill is an attempt to move us another step ahead of the criminals, so that we as a society are fit to attack the finances of criminals in 2017 and beyond. We cannot buy into the rule of law unless we can agree to the evolution of regulations surrounding the financial industry that has happened over the years. Today, we face the threat of grand corruption, particularly in relation to politically exposed people, which is facilitated for the most part—perhaps unwittingly—by the City of London.
Last year, The Guardian revealed, through the Panama papers, how a powerful member of Gaddafi’s inner circle had built a multi-million pound portfolio of boutique hotels in Scotland and luxury homes in Mayfair, Marylebone and Hampstead in London. He was head of Libya’s infrastructure fund for a decade and has been accused by Government prosecutors in Tripoli of plundering money intended for schools, hospitals and infrastructure projects.
Scottish police have confirmed that they are investigating the matter. Libya has made a request for an asset freeze, but, as far as I understand it, the freeze has not been implemented. With the powers contained in the Bill, we could have dealt with such an injustice much more swiftly, so, in general terms, we welcome its provisions. However, as I intimated earlier in this process, our issue is not with what is in the Bill, but with what is not in the Bill. None the less, that list has narrowed as this process has continued.
The Bill does not satisfactorily address corporate economic crime—which we will discuss in the third group of new clauses, which includes proposals on Scottish limited partnerships, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) has done so much to campaign—and the real facilitator of criminal finances: the profit-seeking, responsibility-shedding and self-serving banking culture that we have in the UK and the wider western world. Until we challenge the attitude of the banks that house these moneys, we will never absolutely deal with the criminality. The Bill attempts to deal with the symptoms of the criminality—getting at the assets and seizing them—but it does not deal with the facilitators, the banks, which is a great shame.
New clauses 1 and 7 have been touched on by the Minister, and much of the talk has been about the scope for applicants to bring an application under these provisions. In general terms, those new clauses seek to extend the scope of unlawful conduct. That makes sense in that a public official—or someone acting with the consent or acquiescence of a public official—who is depositing funds in the UK should not be safe on account of that criminality having occurred abroad. I think that most people would agree with that sentiment; it is a sensible and logical step, and one that we support in principle.
The protection of human rights is a profoundly good thing. Violations of human rights should not be allowed to remain hidden behind international borders—they should be there for the world to see—and the consequences of such violations should be global consequences. With the adoption of either new clause 1 or new clause 7, the UK will no longer be a hiding place in that respect, and that is worth lauding.
What are the differences between the new clauses? As has been suggested, there is wider scope for more applicants to make applications under new clause 1. The Government say that that is not necessary, as the judiciary would vet those claims; it would be up to the court, not the applicant, to decide their merits. One other difference is that the ambit of new clause 1 is wider with regard to potential respondents, as it includes more people connected to criminality. Will the Minister touch on the scope of respondents as well as the scope of applicants and the differences between new clauses 1 and 7?
Furthermore, new clause 7 contains a provision, which is mirrored in amendments 58 and 59, to set the limitation period for actions under unlawful conduct to 20 years. In one sense, we welcome that, because without it the standard limitation periods of five and six years would apply. However, given that we are talking about gross violations of human rights—torture and the like—should a perpetrator ever be free from those crimes? Are we saying that, 20 years after someone has committed a gross violation of human rights, their money should be safe? Given that some of these abuses take years to come to light, are there unintended consequences that could let some of the criminals off the hook?
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 1, which is known as the Magnitsky amendment, and to touch on the Government’s new clause 7 in the process.
New clause 1 was tabled by me, the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and 50 hon. Members representing eight different political parties across the House. That is testimony to the cross-party nature of our ambition, which was kindled by the tragic murder, on the instructions of the Russian state, of the young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. In November 2008, Magnitsky was arrested and detained. His crime was to identify the perpetrators of the biggest tax fraud in Russian history, which was committed by the Russian Government against the investment firm, Hermitage Capital, that employed Magnitsky and against the Russian taxpayer to the tune of a mind-boggling $230 million.
For his courage, Sergei Magnitsky was jailed and tortured for almost a year, and then ultimately murdered. The crime was perpetrated by some of the very officials whom Magnitsky had identified. Although those appalling crimes were documented by two Russian investigations, no one has ever been brought to justice in Russia. Perversely, it was Magnitsky who was convicted, posthumously, of fraud—a sickening snapshot of the corrupt and venal state of the Russian justice system today.
Large amounts of the stolen money were subsequently laundered out of Russia, and Hermitage Capital submitted to all the relevant UK authorities detailed evidence of $30 million that was sent to the UK between 2008 and 2012, including to firms run or owned by the Russian mafia. Despite receiving that evidence, the Metropolitan police, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office, HMRC and the National Crime Agency have never opened a single investigation. Notwithstanding the Minister’s comments, this case also shines a light on the weaknesses of our own justice system, which is what we are here to address today. We should be clear in this House that, although Magnitsky has been the standard-bearing case for reform, it is by no means an isolated case. According to the Home Affairs Committee’s 2016 report on the proceeds of crime, an astonishing £100 billion is laundered through UK banks alone each year, and we know from the NCA that only around 0.2% of that figure is currently frozen.
No one wants Britain to be a competitive global hub that attracts investment and is open to international talent more than I do, but I also want us to be known the world over for our integrity, our commitment to the rule of law and our adherence to the most basic of moral principles. We therefore have to stop turning a blind eye to the blood money of butchers and despots that, frankly, flows all too freely through some UK businesses, banks and property. New clause 1 is designed to address the weaknesses in the current UK asset-freezing regime. I pay tribute to Jonathan Fisher QC, the expert in this field—one of the leading experts in public law and human rights law—who carefully helped us to craft the mechanism.
New clause 1 would enable the Secretary of State, an individual or a non-governmental organisation to convince the High Court to make an order to empower the UK authorities to freeze assets where it can be demonstrated, on the balance of probabilities, to a senior judge that those assets relate to an individual involved in, or profiting from, gross human rights abuses. The clause would put a duty on the Secretary of State to pursue such an order when there is sufficient evidence and when it is in the public interest to do so—there is a measure of flexibility—and would establish a public register of those who are subject to such orders, all against the backdrop of appropriate safeguards and due process in law.
The Government have responded with their own proposal, new clause 7. In fairness, it is only right and proper to pay tribute to the Security Minister and the Foreign Secretary for engaging so seriously with the issue and, ultimately, for being willing to act. New clause 7 would, indeed, mark a significant step forward, principally because it would provide specific statutory grounds for an asset-freezing order based on gross human rights abuses and would target individuals responsible for, or profiting from, such crimes against whistleblowers and defenders of human rights abroad.
My view is that new clause 7 is not as robust as new clause 1, mainly because it does not impose a duty on UK law enforcement agencies to act subject to the flexibility I described, and it omits the third-party application procedure and removes the public register. In each of those three cases, I understand and recognise the Minister’s reasons why that is the Government’s position—it is probably to be expected—and I do not want to let the best be the enemy of the good, but I retain at least a measure of underlying concern. My concern touches on something that is so often the case with criminal justice legislation: the extent to which the new power will be enforced in practice. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) touched on that, and the concern is probably shared across the House.
If I may be so bold, I would like to elicit some further reassurances from the Minister—which he may feel free to indicate during my speech or his winding-up speech—on the issue of enforcement. First, will he commit to the Government to collecting data on the exercise of the new clause, say, annually, so that the House and the public can properly scrutinise the extent to which it is being exercised in practice? I recognise and understand the Minister’s point that the success of the clause should not be judged only by how many times it is exercised but by its deterrent effect, but I still think that would be a valuable source of reassurance.
Mr Wallace
I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that I will commit to collecting those stats and ensuring that they are published annually alongside other stats on the proceeds of crime.
Mr Raab
I thank the Minister for such an immediate, swift and decisive acceptance and provision of assurance. That would be extremely useful. There is only one other aspect on which it would be useful to have some reassurance. I understand that there is a wider ongoing review of UK-wide asset-freezing powers. I can well appreciate why the Government may be reticent about reinventing a bespoke procedural mechanism for one new power, given its relationship with other wider proposals that may be forthcoming, but I hope that the Minister will undertake to factor the proposals made in new clause 1 into the review process and to ensure that any future new proposals on enforcement include the most robust and rigorous mechanism available under UK law applying to new clause 7. If the Minister can give that assurance on top of the one he has just given, I am inclined to accept new clause 7 and to not press new clause 1, heartened by the Government’s commitment to strive to make the new power work as effectively as possible in practice.
For those of us who have campaigned for change, there remains the further issue of visa bans, but that is for another day. Today, the House has the opportunity to lay down some moral red lines in UK foreign policy and to take a lead in denying safe haven to the dirty money of those profiting from the most appalling of international crimes.
Mr Djanogly
My hon. Friend says that visa bans are for another day, but of course visa bans already exist as a possibility. Would it not be helpful to know how the existing visa ban system will complement the new proposal?
Mr Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will need a separate legislative vehicle to address the wider question of visa bans, but he makes his point and has been tenacious in powerfully campaigning for this. We will want to move on to that issue at the appropriate time. Today is really about the asset-freezing side of things. We have in this last analysis the opportunity to send a message of solidarity to those who are fighting for the liberty that we in this country hold so dear. We have the opportunity to nurture the flame of freedom on behalf of those brave souls, such as Sergei Magnitsky, who suffered the very worst crimes when standing up for the very highest principles.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
As I rise to speak to this group of amendments, it looks as though new clause 1 might not be moved in favour of Government new clause 7. The Minister started by saying that the Bill has so far enjoyed a degree of cross-party consensus in its parliamentary passage, so I would like to say that Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will not stand in the way of new clause 7 and will not stand in the way of new clause 1 if it is moved.
I welcome new clauses targeting asset seizure for those guilty of human rights abuses outside Britain who seek to use the UK to conceal their wealth. New clause 1 has become known colloquially as the Magnitsky amendment, and we have heard some of the tragic details of that case. It would bolster the Bill’s aim to tackle the growing concern about money laundering, terrorist financing and corruption. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank estimate that the annual loss through money laundered globally is between 2% to 5% of global GDP—a staggering $800 billion to $2 trillion. We do not know the true figures because this is all hidden, white-collar crime.
It is estimated that serious and organised crime on our own doorstep costs the UK economy at least £24 billion annually. The amount of money laundered here every year is between £36 billion and £90 billion. That is a loss to our Exchequer, so it is only right that we tighten up the legislation with this Bill, and such an amendment would tighten them up further. Quite simply, those who have blood on their hands from the worst human rights abuses should not be able to funnel their dirty money through our country. In a recent article in The New York Times, the journalist Ben Judah uses quite colourful language to attest:
“Just because there aren’t bodies on the streets of London doesn’t mean London isn’t abetting those who pile them up elsewhere. The British establishment has long feigned ignorance of the business, but the London Laundromat is destroying the country’s reputation.”
Under new clause 1, the names of individuals who have been involved in or profited from human rights abuses would be published, and Ministers would be obliged to apply for a freezing order of up to two years if they are presented with compelling evidence of abuse and it is in the public interest to do so. That would make dictators and despots think twice about using the UK as a safe place to stash their dirty cash. By creating personal costs for the perpetrators of human rights abuses, we can protect whistleblowers around the world, which would be a fitting tribute to the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky.
Mr Djanogly
I am pleased to be given the opportunity to speak to this significant legislation, which will certainly help the overall objective of stopping the UK being used as a safe harbour for illegal proceeds, as it currently is all too frequently.
Mr Wallace
Perhaps I can inform my hon. Friend and the rest of the House on the visa issue. We can refuse a visa to a person who does not meet the immigration rules. Evidence that a person has been involved in organised crime or in human rights abuses or violations would be taken into account when considering a visa application. We can already do that; the power is there with the Government, and we have exercised it in the past.
Mr Djanogly
I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification. It would be helpful if he could say that it is the Government’s position that, when a prosecution is taken under these new provisions, the court should consider a visa exclusion automatically and not as a possible add-on.
Clearly, if the sanctioned person had his or her assets confiscated but could then go on to buy more assets or to conduct business in the UK, new clause 7 may lack the required teeth.
New clause 7(5) refers to proceedings needing to be brought within 20 years, which seems like a short period in any event. Furthermore, it looks to be 20 years from the commission of the gross human rights abuse. Why is it not from the end of the abuse? In other words, if someone has been abused for 20 years plus one day, would the right to prosecute the abuser fail?
Would the court be required to connect the human rights abuse to the assets being seized? For instance, where the individual is accused of organising the torture of three people but steals from only one of the three and then moves the stolen goods into the UK, would the seizure have to be tied to the one incidence of torture that relates to the stolen goods?
My final question is this: after the legislation is put in place, do the Government actually intend to act? Many foreign nationals—not least Russians—really want to live here, rather than in, say, the US, so we have significant influence in setting the standards of civilised behaviour we expect from people who live or stay here. I ask the Minister, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton did, whether we are now going to say to those who have been merciless in their own countries and who then look to store their ill-gotten gains in the UK, “We do not want you here. We do not want your money here”, and, importantly, “If you do come here, we will act.” If that is the Minister’s position—I think he said it was, but perhaps he could clarify that—I am minded to support Government new clause 7 rather than new clause 1.
Chris Bryant
I want to pay tribute to two people, the first of whom is the Minister for introducing this Bill. I think we all accept, in all parts of the House, that the corrupt money that swishes around in the British financial system is part of a type of crime and corruption across the whole world. Unfortunately, it also has a very detrimental effect on the housing market in the UK in that large numbers of houses are bought not to live in but as an investment vehicle and a means of laundering money. While some of those properties are at the high end of the market and there might be no effect on the majority of our constituents, in some cases these people have been buying property portfolios all the way down the housing market—and by increasing the value of the top end of the market they are affecting the whole market. If we want to get serious about the housing market in this country, we have to tackle the issue of corrupt money in the British system coming from overseas. I welcome the main provisions of the Bill. I applaud the Minister for trying to get some way towards a provision that might be termed the Magnitsky clause, as he suggests in his new clause 7.
I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). He and I have had very many conversations on this subject for a long time, but we still have not managed to decide how to say the name “Sergei”. One of the most depressing things to add to the long list that he outlined is that Sergei Magnitsky was prosecuted posthumously, which must be a new low in putting two fingers up to the normal standards of criminal prosecution around the world.
I am absolutely certain that significant numbers of the people who are prohibited from entering the United States of America under the Magnitsky list have entered the United Kingdom since his death. That is why the Minister really needs to think again about visa bans. I do look to the United States of America in this regard. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), have already said that the United States of America has gone much further than we have. The Minister tried to argue that the Americans have a very different legal system. Yes, they do, but it is based on the same fundamental principles as ours and, I would have thought, on the same values as ours. That is why we ought to be going at least as far as the United States of America. When the Commons debated this on 13 December 2010, the motion stating that we should proceed with a Magnitsky Act was carried unanimously. The Minister at the time, who is a thoroughly charming chap, said that we had to wait to see what the United States of America does. Well, I think we have all decided that we are not going to wait to see what the United States of America does on anything at the moment, and we might choose to set our own path in relation to these matters. I sometimes feel as though the UK is dragging its heels on this issue.
Sergei Magnitsky was killed just before 2010, when I was Minister for Europe in the Foreign Office, and most of the debate about this has happened since then. My personal perception was that both David Cameron and President Obama were very reluctant to show a strong arm to Russia because they thought that by pressing the reset button—this was Obama’s view—we would somehow manage to get major concessions out of Putin. That has not proved to be an effective strategy. In every single regard, Putin has simply taken those moments as a sign of weakness and proceeded to use force to a greater degree. On the day that David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party, the first thing he did was to go to Georgia to stand with the Georgians against Putin’s invasion of that country. Yet there are still Russian troops in Georgia, and since then we have had the issues in Ukraine.
There is now clear evidence of direct Russian corrupt involvement in elections in France, in Germany, in the United States of America, and, I would argue, in this country. Many believe that some of the highest-level decisions affecting security in the United Kingdom, in Germany, in France and in the United States of America are now compromised by Russian infiltration. The murder of Sergei Magnitsky and his then being posthumously put on trial shows that Russia is, in effect, a kleptocracy—a country ruled by people who have stolen from the people and used every means in their power to protect themselves and guard their position with jealousy. It is, in essence, the politics of jealousy writ large. I fear that this has infected the United Kingdom, and also one of our closest allies in Europe, Cyprus, where much Russian money is currently stored away corruptly and laundered illegally.
Sir Eric Pickles
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I agred with much of what he said—some I did not, but we will put that to one side for a moment.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab)—never forget Walton in his patch—because he has achieved enormous progress. When he started this process, I did not think that he had a chance of getting his measure through, but the Government have made quite an unusual concession, if the Minister does not mind my saying so. Usually concessions arise out of panic about defeat, but I do not think that there was any possibility of that. This concession is due to the power of my hon. Friend’s arguments about righting a wrong and including in British law something that I think will make a difference. I am sure that the House is grateful for what he has done.
I stand before you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as the UK Government’s champion on anti-corruption. When I was appointed by David Cameron, I came out to find that he had described me as the anti-corruption tsar. The Daily Mirror shortened that to corruption tsar, and I felt that that was one step too close to the Romanovs, so I am happy to use the word “champion”.
In that capacity, I went to an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe anti-corruption conference in Paris. One of the speakers talked about taking a lorry full of time-sensitive goods through customs and being asked for a private facilitation payment. They asked how many of the people present would make such a payment. To my amazement—and, I suspect, to the greater amazement of the person who asked the question—a good 60% of hands went up. I was proud to say that if that lorry driver had been British, not only would he have committed a crime, but he would have been prosecuted for it on his return to the UK and so would his company.
New clause 7 and the excellent new clause 1 have to be seen in that context. We have been gradually triangulating this crime. I am old enough to remember listening to a Minister—a Conservative Minister, I am ashamed to say—saying on the radio a number of years ago, “I want British companies to bribe. Everybody bribes, and I want Britain to be among those that do so.” That was a ludicrous thing to say, but it was the kind of reaction that we got to the Bribery Act 2010. People said, “Everybody’s doing it. All we are doing is putting British companies at peculiar risk.” That has not been the case. Because of the Bribery Act, board members have put in place due diligence to ensure that they do not face that problem. That was part of the process of triangulating the crime, and I do not think that there has been any drop-off for British business. The new clauses have to be seen in the context of the call for consultation on economic crimes and the place of boards in relation to economic crimes. They should be seen in the context of transparency over beneficial ownership of property in this country by those who want to trade with the Government, and I hope to see something positive come out of that.
Given the degree of consensus that seems to be breaking out about the proposals, I will make a slightly shorter speech than I intended. New clause 7 should help us to deal with bloodstained dictators and those on the take in kleptocracies around the world. I entirely agree that a posthumous conviction for dishonesty and theft is as ridiculous as the practice during the French revolution of putting animals on trial. We have to understand that there are parts of the world in which Governments and private business move hand in hand, and they make the Tudor court look like the epitome of puritan restraint. To those people, we are sending out a clear message that their assets will be seized and their lives interrupted, and that those who seek to buy expensive flats and jewellery will face a problem.
We have dealt with the worry about third parties making vexatious claims. I will not go over that again, but a further point needs to be emphasised. Non-governmental organisations, especially, often play an enormous part in getting prosecutions together and bringing evidence to the authorities. I have had the privilege, as I suspect the Minister has, of seeing how the Serious Fraud Office works. A lot of its cases are complex and take a lot of time, and there is a risk that if third parties were allowed to make applications, they might actively tip off those involved in an ongoing investigation. That is another compelling reason why states, and more particularly prosecution authorities, should bring such cases.
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) for putting together the proposal in new clause 1 and the Minister for responding positively. I have been in the House for long enough to know that Ministers rarely respond positively to approaches, even cross-party ones, so it is welcome that the Minister has taken on board the spirit of the proposal. I also pay tribute to Bill Browder—many Members in the Chamber will have met him—who has really led the charge on this issue. However, I am sure that Bill wants not a tribute but action.
I share some of the reservations of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). In other countries, assets have been seized in relation to the Magnitsky case, but it seems that that is not so in London. Many Members would accept that London is a place where many Russians, sometimes of rather dubious backgrounds, like to put their assets, so it seems strange, while assets are being seized almost everywhere else around the world in relation to this case, for London to be the one place where they have not been seized.
The Minister reassured us that the prosecuting authorities—of course he cannot put pressure on them, but he has confirmed this—would prosecute if there was evidence. I assure Bill Browder and others that they will have the support of the House if evidence—or further or more detailed evidence—is forthcoming, as the Minister for one endorsed the need for very firm action. He said that action might be taken under existing legislation, but that it could be taken even more effectively under Government new clause 7.
Like other Members, I would prefer new clause 1 to the Government’s proposal, but I understand why the Minister preferred to table his own new clause. Unfortunately, I suspect that we would not have the numbers in the House to win a Division today on cross-party new clause 1. We will therefore have to follow the matter very closely, and I welcome the fact that the Minister will publish statistics.
Several hon. Members referred to the Magnitsky Act. If they want to see the list of names, they could read my early-day motion 1344—it has been signed by a number of Members—which lists Russian citizens subject to the Magnitsky Act in America. The hon. Member for Rhondda reminded me that I need to retable my early-day motion because, as he said, new names have been added to the American list. The information is there if Members need to refer to it.
I welcome the fact that the Government have moved on this issue, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. If evidence is forthcoming that such assets are in this country, in the way that Bill Browder and others believe is the case, the Government must ensure that those responsible are prosecuted and brought to justice for the gross human rights violations they have committed.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I, as a signatory of new clause 1, can be very brief because my right hon. and hon. Friends, and indeed Opposition Members, have made the case with such eloquence on what is known as the Magnitsky amendment. It seems to me, as such a signatory, that the Government have listened. The Minister has quite rightly heard the cross-party voice on these issues and tabled new clause 7, and I certainly congratulate him on having achieved that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who has done such a good job on this issue, pointed out, in accepting the Government new clause, that we must not allow the best to be the enemy of the good. The story that my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), the anti-corruption tsar, told us about his Paris meeting reminds me of just how complex is the attack on corruption, of which we must all be a part.
I remember a very eminent New York anti-corruption lawyer, who had been involved in a variety of anti-corruption mechanisms, telling me that he was once invited to Afghanistan to give a lecture on how to tackle corruption, and a vast number of Afghan officials turned up in the auditorium. To his horror, observing the Rolex watches on the wrists of so many of those officials, he suddenly realised halfway through the lecture that they had turned up to learn not how to tackle corruption, but how to evade the tackling of corruption.
Corruption is a cancer: it is insidious in a whole variety of ways. One of the good things about the Bill is that it seeks, in a very complex area, to make progress on some very clear aspects of the issue. The former Prime Minister, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Government Members have also made a very big contribution in the fight to tackle corruption in this area.
I want to make two brief final points. The first is that in the Magnitsky case, as I think the Minister has recognised—I know Bill Browder and I was absolutely horrified to hear the tale of the experience he has undergone—it is clear that the British law enforcement agencies have shown, to put it no more strongly than this, a degree of confusion, delay and obfuscation in their handling of such matters. There are issues of administrative co-ordination and effectiveness, and I very much hope that the Minister ensures that tackling this issue remains clearly on his agenda.
My second and final point is that Britain needs to send a very clear signal about the approach we take to human rights abuses and money laundering. The failure to send a very clear signal—I hope that that will be ended by the decision the House will take this afternoon—damages our international relations. Britain’s relations and dealings with Russia are very complex. We need to work with Russia on a number of matters on which we have a common interest, but we also need to be absolutely clear where we stand on the issues—my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) set them out so eloquently in his speech—so that there is no misunderstanding about where the British Government stand on many of the horrific aspects of Russian governance and conduct. I have been a strong critic in this House of Russian abuses of human rights and, indeed, of war crimes in Syria. Given the other dimension of areas on which we must be able to work constructively with Russia, it is extremely important that we in this House are absolutely clear with the Government about where we stand on human rights issues.
Mr Wallace
We have had a very important and well-informed debate. I am very grateful to colleagues for their contributions, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). As Minister, I have done my best throughout the process to speak to as many colleagues as possible and to listen to their concerns. I have gone back to the law enforcement agencies and asked them tough questions. I cannot say whether my predecessors did that or not, but I take the view that our job as Ministers is to go beyond the briefing papers we all receive, test their resolve and send a very clear message. I have told the agencies that when the Bill is passed by Parliament and becomes an Act, we want to see prosecutions and we want the powers to be used. I will not interfere in how they choose to apply those powers, and I will not choose which powers they use to achieve the right effect.
The main aim is to ensure that we say loud and clear that we do not want money launderers in this country. We do not want organised criminals. We do not want those who abuse people through torture and inhumane treatment. We want to say, “You are not welcome in this country and nor is your dirty money. If you come to this country, we will try to have you and we will certainly try to have your money. If we can return that money back to the regimes it has been stolen from, we shall do that.” We have already started that process by returning £27 million to Macau recently and signing a memorandum of understanding with Nigeria. If we can do that, we will. Both Government new clause 7 and new clause 1—there are many things I agree with in the spirit of new clause 1—say that loud and clear. I think that our new clause will help to achieve that in relation to the people who want to exploit laws around the world, whether through immunities, state sponsorship, state umbrella or tacit support.
I highlighted to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton that annual reporting will cover the use of this provision. The Government have already agreed, in our response to the Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, to publish a set of annual asset recovery statistics. As I made clear in Committee, it will cover the annual use of unexplained wealth orders. I am also pleased to commit today that it will include the use of this provision.
Mr Djanogly
Will it also include the names and titles of people from whom the assets have been taken?
Mr Wallace
I will have to check and get back to my hon. Friend, but any court action is a matter of public record. If someone is prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 or has their assets frozen, that will become a matter of public record available to all—that is very important.
To reiterate the point about sanctions, the Government are undertaking an assessment of existing sanctions policy post-Brexit to ensure we can continue our proactive approach. It is right that any changes to our sanctions regime are considered in that context, rather than making changes at this point. We will of course continue a dialogue with parliamentary colleagues on this work, and I will absolutely ensure that the spirit of new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton, is carried forward in those discussions. The time to do that, however, is not with this legislation; it is when an assessment is made post-Brexit to consider sanctions in the wider picture.
I want to talk about the duty of law enforcement agencies to use the powers. Part of the rule of law and the strength of our system, as opposed to perhaps some other regimes we have talked about today, is that our agencies are operationally independent. As a Minister, I do not sit behind a desk and use the agencies to pick on people or political rivals I do not like. We leave the agencies, as much as possible, to be operationally independent. That is a part of the balance and safeguards in our society.
Chris Bryant
But if the prosecuting authorities were, for a corrupt reason, to choose not to prosecute, there are powers, through the courts, to ensure that they do so.
Mr Wallace
I am afraid I have too positive a view of the integrity of our law enforcement agencies to say—or even allude to the fact—that there could be some corrupt reason they may not use their powers. We all have constituents who write to us and say, “I made a complaint to the police and they didn’t take any action.” Sometimes that is valid and we try to get a better result for them. Hon. Members who have met Bill Browder have brought their evidence to this House and made representations to the National Crime Agency. They cross-examined a National Crime Agency witness in Committee. However, we also have constituents who do not like the outcome of their complaint—that a crime has not been judged to have been committed. That is a disappointment they sometimes have to live with and it is our job as Members of Parliament to tell them, “I’m afraid it does not constitute a crime.” Sometimes the police have to make that case. Sometimes constituents may seek to deal with that by changing the law to create a crime that may be appropriate or up to date. However, it is important to respect operational independence, tempting as it may be sometimes to wish to reprioritise their priorities to suit the issue of the day.
Mr Wallace
I really do have to press on. Hon. Members have made a considerable number of valid queries and I have a small book, handed to me from the Box, to get through.
The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) raised a number of issues relating to the unlimited nature of retrospective offences. Torture is an offence where the UK applies universal jurisdiction. On that basis, the provisions are retrospective in so far as they relate to torture, even where it occurs prior to the enactment of the Bill. However, the Government new clause would cover conduct constituting cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment only after the Act comes into force.
We have already taken significant legal steps to suspend the requirement for dual criminality; that is, providing for civil recovery to be pursued against property not necessarily unlawfully obtained in the country in which the conduct took place. We think this is a suitably proportionate approach. We have already gone further than we do in some other areas. We can take action where the unlawful event took place when it was not in this country. That is something we have to balance.
The recovery of proceeds of crime is generally subject to a 20-year limitation period under the Limitation Act 1980. The hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Dumfries and Galloway asked about the timescale for claiming the proceeds of crime. Under POCA, it starts when the property is obtained through unlawful conduct. Under new clause 1 it seems to run from the date of the conduct itself, so that could possibly mean a shorter timescale than that under Government new clause 7. I reassure the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway that new clause 7 covers conduct linked to torture, such as: assisting it, directing it, facilitating it or profiting from it even when that linked conduct is not conducted by a public official. It therefore goes wider than some have feared.
We must also consider what evidence is needed to allow for assets to be recovered. Any civil recovery would be subject to all existing processes and legal safeguards in the Proceeds of Crime Act. The court would need to be satisfied, on the balance of probability, that the property in question was the proceeds of crime or was likely to be used to fund further criminal activity. Law enforcement agencies would, as ever, need to consider which of their powers to utilise on a case-by-case basis. It would also apply to inherited wealth. That would not be excluded. Inherited wealth would be covered by the ability to recover assets, so I hope I can reassure the hon. Member for Rhondda on that point.
I reiterate to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton that the Government agree with the spirit of his new clause. We want to say loud and clear that organised criminals, crooks and corrupt individuals are not welcome in this country, and neither is their money. I was pleased to contribute to the implementation of the Bribery Act 2010, introduced by the last Labour Government, and its statutory guidance, under the previous Conservative Government. That is part of this whole package: the Bill comes alongside the Bribery Act and some other measures. I do not want London and the UK to be fuelled by dirty money, and I do not want people to be profiting from it. One of the best ways of making London and the UK open for business is through the rule of law—and, I would say, a competitive tax base. People should want to come to the UK for those reasons, not because they can hide or launder their money. It does not make us a better host for these individuals. I hope that the new powers in the Bill will help us tackle the problem, and I am keen to ensure that upon its enactment we start to deal with these individuals and get the money back to where it belongs.
There was little in the well-articulated speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) that I did not agree with. He is absolutely right about sending a message. There are regimes around the world that deliberately take advantage of Britain’s openness, the quality of places to live and what we have to offer, and they need to be sent a message that we are serious and that they should go elsewhere—although we would like to catch them first and put them in prison, to be brutally honest.
I think I have clarified the point from the hon. Member for Rhondda about inherited wealth. On the worries about the London property market, I must add that it is not just nice townhouses in Knightsbridge being bought up, but huge portfolios up and down the country, and it does not just apply to overseas citizens either. For instance, other parts of the Bill deal with drug dealers, including those in my part of the world, in the north-west, the north-east and Northern Ireland, funnelling money into property.
As part of the Government’s work on the implementation of the fourth anti-money laundering directive, they have consulted on whether estate agents should carry out checks on the buyers of properties as well as the sellers. I was surprised, as I suspect were colleagues, to find out that currently they only carry out such checks on sellers. We intend to publish the response to the consultation “imminently”—that is what my note says—and I think that we will all be looking at it carefully.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about freezing orders and people quickly moving the money. Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 provides for interim freezing orders, allowing for the freezing of property while the courts consider the case. I recognise that the Home Affairs Committee report on the proceeds of crime and the recovery of assets pointed out some valid problems in the system, however, and I have asked that the Department set about being timely when making cases for the confiscation of funds and assets so that the gaps do not allow criminals and bad people to move the money beforehand.
The hon. Member for Rhondda and my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), the anti-corruption tsar, will recognise that within Government we always have to satisfy the competing concerns of Departments. They will both know—the hon. Gentleman was a Foreign Office Minister and my right hon. Friend is a former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—of the competing interests within Government when it comes to legislating, and inevitably amendments have to walk a fine line between several challenging diplomatic and political issues, but I trust that the House agrees that the Government have taken a constructive approach. I have been determined to listen to colleagues and produce something that sends a strong message while also providing powers to allow us to act against people who abuse human rights.
I want to finish by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton on tabling new clause 1. It was important that we have this debate. He is a formidable campaigner and has successfully articulated the case and imbued the Bill with the spirit of his new clause. I hope that the House will support Government new clause 7.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 7 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 8
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs: removal of restrictions
‘(1) The following provisions, which impose restrictions on the exercise of certain powers conferred on officers of Revenue and Customs, are amended as follows.
(2) In section 23A of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 (investigation of offences by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs), omit the following—
(a) in subsection (2), the words “Subject to subsection (3) below,” and the words from “other than” to the end of the subsection;
(b) subsection (3).
(3) In section 307 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (interpretation), omit the following—
(a) in subsection (1), in paragraph (ba) of the definition of “officer of law”, the words “subject to subsection (1A) below,”;
(b) subsection (1A).
(4) In the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 omit the following—
(a) in section 289 (searches), subsections (5)(ba) and (5A);
(b) in section 294 (seizure of cash), subsections (2A), (2B) and (2C);
(c) section 375C (restriction on exercise of certain powers conferred on officers of Revenue and Customs);
(d) section 408C (restriction on exercise of certain powers conferred on officers of Revenue and Customs).
(5) In the Finance Act 2007, in section 84 (sections 82 and 83: supplementary), omit subsection (3).”
This new clause, together with amendments 20, 25 and 28, removes restrictions on the exercise of certain powers by HMRC officers. The restrictions prevented the powers being exercised in relation to certain former Inland Revenue functions.—(Mr Wallace.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 5—Unexplained Wealth Orders: award of costs—
“In Chapter 2 of Part 8 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, after section 362H insert—
‘362HB Unexplained Wealth Orders: award of costs
(1) Pursuant to Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules (The Court’s Case Management Powers) the High Court must make a costs capping order, in respect of—
(a) unexplained wealth orders under section 362A of this Act;
(b) interim freezing orders under section 262I of this Act.
(2) The High Court shall not have power to make an award for costs on the indemnity basis against enforcement authorities who bring an unsuccessful application for—
(a) unexplained wealth orders under section 362A of this Act;
(b) interim freezing orders under section 262I of this Act.
(3) For the purposes of this section “enforcement agencies” has the same meaning as in subsection 362A(7).’”
This new clause would prevent the courts from awarding uncapped costs on the indemnity basis against enforcement agencies where they have brought unsuccessful applications for unexplained wealth orders or interim freezing orders. It seeks to define such civil actions as within “exceptional circumstances” required for the purposes of Practice Direction 3F to Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules under which the court has the power to make a cost capping order.
Amendment 1, page 3, clause 1, leave out line 29.
This amendment would allow unexplained wealth orders to be issued to politically exposed persons in the United Kingdom and EEA States.
Government amendments 2 to 19.
Motion to transfer clause 12(3).
Government amendments 20 to 57 and 60 to 72.
Mr Wallace
We now come to a group of amendments relating to law enforcement investigative and recovery powers. It is primarily composed of Government amendments that I hope the House will agree are, for the most part, technical and uncontroversial. I therefore do not intend to linger on each of them, but I will quickly summarise the key amendments for the benefit of hon. Members.
New clause 8 and other consequential amendments remove the restriction on HMRC’s criminal powers being used for former revenue functions. This ring fence arose following the merger of Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue in 2005. In the intervening period, legislative changes have brought most major taxes within the scope of HMRC’s criminal justice powers, but there remain some anomalies. For example, investigators cannot use certain powers to fight stamp duty tax fraud. Fraud is a crime, regardless of which function of HMRC it is committed against, and the amendments will ensure that the necessary powers are available in all such cases. They do not provide HMRC with any new criminal justice powers.
Amendments 2 to 15, 70 and 71 relate to the power in clause 9 to allow an extension of the moratorium period in which law enforcement agencies can investigate a suspicious activity report before a transaction is allowed to proceed. These amendments will deliver a number of minor and technical improvements to this provision: they will allow an automatic extension to the moratorium period while a court hearing is awaited to make a decision on an application; they will help to ensure that a company does not provide any information to the customer whose transaction is subject to a suspicious activity report, other than the fact that an SAR has been made; they will allow immigration officers to apply for an extension; and they will allow for an explicit right of appeal in Northern Ireland.
The majority of the remaining amendments in this group—amendments 22 to 24, 26, 27, 29 to 38, 46, 47, 49 to 57, 60 to 69 and 72—clarify the operation of the seizure and forfeiture powers that the Bill adds to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Many of these changes are extremely technical in nature, but I will highlight a few of the more significant ones. They will allow the director general of the National Crime Agency to designate the level of senior officer that can authorise the use of certain powers—unlike in the police, no such designation currently exists in law. They will ensure that any interest accrued on forfeited funds while in the agency’s account is returned to the owner of the funds if that person successfully appeals against the forfeiture. They provide that, where the NCA has used the powers, and a court determines compensation should be paid, the NCA will be responsible for paying that compensation. They will introduce a duty on the police and others to consult the Treasury to ensure that the full range of terrorist asset-freezing powers are considered before exercising the related power provided by the Bill. They will require consultation with the devolved Administrations before the provisions in clause 12 relating to the seizure of gaming vouchers and betting slips are commenced. This will ensure that the provisions are implemented effectively in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
On the devolved Administrations, we hope the Scottish Parliament will approve their legislative consent motion on the Bill shortly. Although the Government assert that none of the provisions are devolved with respect to Wales, I note that the Assembly has already provided such a motion. The Government have had extensive discussions with the Northern Ireland Executive about the Bill, and plans were in place for a legislative consent motion to be considered by the Assembly—law enforcement authorities in Northern Ireland are keen to ensure they have access to the powers in the Bill—but the suspension of the Assembly prior to elections has prevented the motion from being pursued at this time. These are clearly extremely unusual circumstances, but the Government remain committed to the central principles of the Sewel convention. We will therefore commit not to commence provisions on matters devolved to Northern Ireland without the appropriate consents having been obtained. It is our intention to pick this up with the Executive, following those elections. It may not be possible to resolve this before the Bill receives Royal Assent. We are most likely to make further amendments to the Bill in the House of Lords to put beyond doubt that all the relevant provisions can be commenced at separate times for different areas of the United Kingdom.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that although the aspiration is to see an early return to the Stormont Executive, the likelihood of that happening in the immediate future is somewhat fraught. Given that the Bill will inevitably conclude before we see the return to the institutions of Stormont, will he outline what steps will be taken to regularise issues, once the Assembly has been restored?
Mr Wallace
We are in ongoing discussions with the Northern Ireland Assembly, and we hope that the Northern Ireland Assembly elections are completed and that Stormont takes up the reins again, so that devolution returns to Northern Ireland. That is our starting-point, and it is what we all wish. There was a good cross-party consensus for these provisions for Northern Ireland in the Assembly earlier. I cannot remember the exact date of the election—the hon. Gentleman might have to remind me. Let us plan for normality in Northern Ireland and make sure that we get to a good position.
Gavin Robinson
The election is planned for 2 March. I agree with the aspiration to see a return to Stormont as soon as possible, but does the Minister believe that there would be some merit in at least corresponding with the leaders of each political party to attain affirmation of the measures at this stage, for fear that we do not see a return in a reasonable period?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I will certainly put that suggestion to officials. My view would be that pre-suspension of the Assembly is the place we are at, and although there has been a change of a leader, I am not sure that we have had any signal that it has gone backwards. The date of 2 March gives me some good hope. I have never known the other place move at the speed of light, so I hope we shall have time to make sure that this gets through.
Finally, this group includes two proposals concerning unexplained wealth orders: new clause 5, in the name of a number of the officers of the all-party parliamentary groups on anti-corruption and responsible tax, and Opposition amendment 1. I will allow hon. Members the opportunity to speak to those amendments and will respond to them in my closing remarks.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
The Opposition support the spirit of the Bill and broadly support this group of amendments. We welcome new provisions to prosecute those professionals who fail to prevent tax evasion, as well as welcoming unexplained wealth orders, under which assets can be seized if owners are unable to explain how they were funded. We, of course, support the Government’s effort to tighten up state powers against white-collar crime, but we have concerns that they are squandering the opportunity that the Bill provides to stamp out the everyday corruption of the super-rich who are getting a free ride at the expense of the wider society, thereby fuelling inequality.
Another problem is that, amid the Government’s cuts to public services, the Bill could be very difficult to enforce. Although I understand the giving of new powers to HMRC, are the Government not concerned about how HMRC will carry out its new duties? Given that the coalition Government decimated HMRC’s budgets by £100 million and that HMRC is set to lose 137 of its offices by 2027, there seems little point in creating laws that cannot be enforced—unless, of course, it is to give the impression that the Government are doing something. This, I fear, is a theme that has sadly run through our proceedings on the Bill so far.
We Opposition Members argue that it is crucial for the agencies involved in civil recovery powers to have sufficient resources to do their jobs properly. We therefore request a distinct and clear annual report that details the resources allocated to the agencies that are concerned solely with the task of carrying out these recovery powers.
In previous stages, the Government objected on the grounds that the asset recovery incentivisation scheme would allow frontline agencies to keep 100% of what they recover, but this argument is seriously flawed. In theory, yes, the agencies could retain the total value recovered, but as the Public Accounts Committee made clear in its progress review of confiscation orders and as the Home Affairs Select Committee made clear in its review of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, these agencies’ recovery rates have been typically poor. Consequently, it remains to be seen how these agencies will improve their rate of recovery to benefit from the new incentivisation scheme.
Another reason that the Government gave is that anyone who wanted to find out this information could in theory obtain it by going to a number of different sources. Yet again, this is flawed. We previously argued for a detailed reporting of resources, specifically for these agencies, in the exercise of the powers laid down in the Bill and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
The Government have already blocked a number of measures that Labour has proposed to make this a meaningful and effective Bill. We proposed a corporate probation order. If a company was found to have committed a failure to prevent offence, it would have been subject to an independent review of its compliance procedures and it would have had to pay the full costs of such a review. This was coupled with allowing for the removal of directors from companies who failed to ensure that proper procedures were in place to prevent UK and foreign tax evasion offences from taking place. The Government believed that this was unnecessary because UK law could already deal with such cases of negligence. Although there may be a case for some UK law to be used to a similar effect, it would not be an identical effect.
While there is an implied threat to the EU that the Government could change the UK’s economic model into one of a tax haven, there is a strong case for legislation to protect both UK citizens and citizens from around the world. With the potential for a race to the bottom and the destruction of workers’ rights and the slashing of corporation tax, it could be argued that a Brexiteer Government would foster an environment where tax evasion was implicitly encouraged.
As my colleagues have said, and will no doubt say again, the Bill must do more to tackle the deeply entrenched and extraordinarily costly phenomenon of tax avoidance. Tax avoidance is, in effect, living to the letter of the law, but not in the spirit of the law. Repeated investigations of companies that sail close to the wind but know that they have bought the lawyers and accountants to make their tax abuse legal is both very frustrating and extremely costly. As the UK general anti-abuse rules show, there are ways to minimise the risk of corporate abuse of the tax system, and these should be absorbed into the Bill.
Spain, Canada and Australia each have a single agency responsible for supervising and enforcing anti-money laundering regulations—Britain has 22. Worse still, according to Transparency International UK, 15 of these 22 supervisors also lobby on behalf of the interests of their sector, creating clear conflicts of interest and a system inefficient to its core. The Government raised this problem in their action plan that preceded the Bill, but they were not concerned enough to convert this into proposed legislation. The system needs reform and the Bill needs to reflect this. Unless the Government accept all these concerns and indeed all the changes suggested in the Opposition amendments, the Bill is likely to fail on the intention to clean up money laundering and tax evasion.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak to new clause 5, which, as the Minister said, stands in my name and those of colleagues in the all-party parliamentary anti-corruption group. The reason for tabling new clause 5 was to probe the Government on the issue and make sure that we make full use of the unexplained wealth orders and the interim freezing orders that we envisage in passing this Bill. I fear that if we are not careful, the various authorities that can use the orders may be a little concerned about the possibility that the people against whom they want to use them—who, in some cases, will no doubt be very rich and powerful and will not take the freezing or restriction of their wealth lightly—will seek to frustrate the process and oppose the orders with every means available to them. They might, for instance, incur huge costs—perhaps well above what could be considered reasonable in the circumstances—and try to force them on to the taxpayer at a later date if they succeeded in resisting the orders.
Although it is absolutely right for people to be able to recover reasonable costs if the state tries to impose orders and fails, it would be unreasonable for them to engage numerous very highly paid barristers and incur costs that were wholly disproportionate, which the taxpayer would end up having to pay. The real risk is that bodies trying to use these powers would be deterred from doing so, because they would fear that very rich people might take large chunks of their budgets for a long period while resisting the orders.
The aim of new clause 5 is to establish whether the existing powers for the courts to restrict the amount of costs recovered can be described as applying to efforts to obtain the orders that are specified in the Bill, so that it is plain to everyone that the various state authorities, acting competently and reasonably clearly in trying to use the orders, cannot be unreasonably opposed and end up with excessive costs. It would be helpful if the Minister explained how he thinks the orders would work and what he thinks about the interaction with the existing capping rules for the courts.
This is not an entirely theoretical issue. In the past, very significant costs have been awarded against the Serious Fraud Office. I am not pretending that the circumstances were similar to those that we are discussing in this instance—I think that that may not have been the finest hour of the Serious Fraud Office—but there is clearly evidence that the sort of people with whom we are dealing might try to obtain costs that would have a deterrent effect on the use of the orders. It would be useful to hear from the Minister whether he thinks that the courts can and should use various cost-capping measures to ensure that we are not unreasonably exposed to very high costs.
Richard Arkless
I want to talk briefly about what I must admit is probably my favourite section of the Bill—the part that deals with unexplained wealth orders. I think it is an excellent provision, which is likely to drive a Trojan horse right through the assets of criminals who choose to lodge them in the United Kingdom.
The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) made some very valid points about new clause 5. Indemnity costs can be easily translated to mean, in layman’s terms, full costs. In other words, every single hour and every penny of the expense on the file can be charged to the losing party, with no assessment of whether those costs are reasonable. Given that we are talking about politically exposed people, potentially in other jurisdictions, we can imagine the number of officials travelling back and forth on flights. All that will find its way on to a costs sheet, and all of it will be recoverable to the payee in indemnity costs. We could end up with an inequality of arms, not in favour of the Government but in favour of the respondents, which I think would be very dangerous.
The threat of indemnity costs acts as a major litigation risk for the claimants or pursuers, or, in this case, the applicants. If they know that they are likely to be in for a bigger bill, they will think twice about making applications. These are our law enforcement agencies, and I believe that they should be able to pursue their applications with determination, without fear or favour, and without the risk of incurring indemnity costs which would be deeply disproportionate. That would be very bizarre and counterproductive.
I thank the hon. Member for Amber Valley for tabling his probing new clause, and I shall be pleased to hear what the Government have to say about it. As a boring, pedantic lawyer, I think it worth mentioning that indemnity costs are very rare, and arguably arise only in proportionate circumstances. However, we are talking about politically exposed people with potentially limitless funds. The better they can make their case in court, the more likely it is that they will be awarded indemnity costs if they are successful, and I think that we should take that risk out of the equation.
As I have said, the unexplained wealth orders provision is an excellent feature of the Bill. Let me explain exactly how the orders would work. The Bill will enable a court in Scotland—the Court of Session—on application by Scottish Ministers to make an unexplained wealth order. Such orders will require individuals or organisations to explain the origin of their assets if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that they may have been involved in criminality, or intend to use that wealth for criminal purposes, and if the value of the assets exceeds £100,000. During earlier stages of the Bill, the Minister and I discussed that threshold, and I should be pleased if he could update me on his thoughts about it.
Mr Wallace
In response to what has been said about the issue, and the sensible suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman, we are considering options for potentially lower thresholds, to be dealt with in the other place. We will of course inform him when there is agreement across the Government.
Richard Arkless
That is very co-operative of the Minister, and I greatly appreciate it. I may not have his confidence in the other place, but we will wait with bated breath.
Unexplained wealth orders will be available to the courts when assets appear disproportionate to known legitimate income. For example, it was reported recently that a taxi driver owned a £1 million fish tank. That is not to say that taxi driving is not a potentially lucrative trade, but the asset could certainly be disproportionate to that person’s income. Failure to provide a response to an order and explain the legitimate source of funds would give rise to a presumption that the property was recoverable, which would make any subsequent civil recovery action much easier.
I must say, as a lawyer, that the notion of reversing the burden of proof does not automatically sit very comfortably with me, but, as in other areas, I consider it to be proportionate to the issue at stake. Sound legal principles such as the presumption of innocence, and the burden of proof being on the Crown, should not inadvertently protect criminals, which I suspect may have been the case thus far. The key aspect of this provision is that a criminal conviction will no longer be necessary before law enforcement can pierce the criminal’s veil that camouflages his wealth. Getting away with the crime itself will no longer protect a criminal’s wealth. The Bill will allow this power to be applied to foreign politicians and officials or those associated with them, known as politically exposed people. That will enable the issue to be tackled substantively and determinedly for the first time.
I agree with some of what was said by the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) about resources. Part of the reason for introducing provisions for unexplained wealth orders is the fact that many law enforcement agencies think that there is a raft of applications, ready to be made immediately. There are properties and asset groups and accumulations in this country, and in some cases we do not know where they come from. If the Act receives Royal Assent, this power will land on the desks of law enforcement agencies that potentially have applications piled up. I think that, in those circumstances, resources are a very viable concern.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance, which unfortunately he has not been able to give thus far during the Bill’s passage, that enough resources will be allocated to make unexplained wealth orders work. This is probably the best part of the Bill, and it needs to work. If it does work, we shall make huge strides in ensuring that this country cannot be used as a safe haven for dirty money.
Mr Wallace
This has been a short and helpful part of our proceedings today. I am pleased that Members in all parts of the House agree in principle with the concept of the unexplained wealth order. I think that it will be an incredibly useful tool. The first group of amendments dealt with another tool that could be used to ask people to explain where their wealth came from, even without the evidence or the intelligence that would link them to the offence of gross human rights abuse that we are seeking to introduce.
The use of unexplained wealth orders to put the onus on individuals to tell us where they acquired their wealth will obviously be a strong step towards clearing the United Kingdom of people who seek to harbour their ill-gotten gains here, but we should not forget that it will also deal with criminals in the UK who are “washing” their wealth and depositing it elsewhere in the community. Such people sometimes hide in plain sight.
What I am about to say is no different from what I have said to the National Crime Agency. I would like to see this provision used sooner rather than later. We in Parliament always get lobbied for new offences—lots of people come along and lobby us, and there is always either a Home Office Bill or a Ministry of Justice Bill going through this House—and a lesson I have learned in my 12 years in Parliament is that if offences are not used sooner rather than later, many of them just sit on shelves. It is therefore important that the law enforcement agencies hear Parliament today say, “We are—hopefully—going to give you these powers; we want them to be used.”
Richard Arkless
Given that we want to start using these orders immediately, resource is a key issue. It is difficult to put a price on this, but has any assessment been made within Government of what this is going to cost in the next two to three months after Royal Assent, because there are a lot of applications ready to be made and we need the resources to make them?
Mr Wallace
I can reassure the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) that one part of government that has not seen a significant reduction in its budgets is the area of the regional organised crime units, the national crime agencies and the security and intelligence agencies, which assist us in tackling organised crime and money laundering. The National Crime Agency has a capital budget of £50 million this year, with £427 million of funding. It is supported in England and Wales by the regional organised crime units, which have got £519 million of funding. The figures for the Serious Fraud Office are £45 million, with £5 million of capital this year, and the figures for HMRC are £3.8 billion in resource and £242 million in capital. Of course, in terms of crime-fighting, the question is, “How long is a piece of string?”
Dr Huq
I am listening intently to what the Minister is saying, and I am reminded of an Evening Standard report—from earlier this year, I think—headed: “Home Office reveals new Criminal Finances Bill will target just 20 tycoons a year.” The report says that is based on the Home Office’s own impact assessment which
“predicts that the power will remain unused in its first year ‘as part of the learning curve’, and thereafter will be used in only 20 cases each year.”
That is because of resource implications, which is precisely the point raised by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless). Does the Minister have any comment to make on that?
Mr Wallace
The impact assessment is not linked to access to funds. The impact assessment is a judgment as to how it would see these powers being used. Probably like the hon. Lady, I would like to see them used an awful lot more, but that is an impact assessment, and the NCA does not follow the impact assessment. If the evidence is presented or the cases are put before it that allow it to do 100, it will do 100. It is not restricted by the impact assessment. I would therefore not be too distracted by the London Evening Standard and the impact assessment.
Instead, I would focus on the fact that we have well resourced our law enforcement agencies to tackle this, and this Bill will give them the power. They have the political support of both sides of the House to exercise that power, so let us see how far we go. However, I would be delighted to join the hon. Lady in asking, in 12 months’ time or whenever the Bill goes through, why we have not used them more; I will be asking the NCA and all the other organisations to try to make sure they have done so.
The hon. Member for Swansea East made a point about the asset recovery incentivisation scheme, or ARIS, funding for the recovery of assets not really being worth the paper it was printed on—I think that was what she was trying to say, if she will forgive me for putting words in her mouth. However, since 2006, under an arrangement under her last Government, £764 million has gone into funding those law enforcement agencies, and in the last three years £257 million has gone in. Hopefully, with the new arrangement, above the baseline of, I think, £146 million—I will correct that in writing if it is not £146 million—100% will be kept.
We are also following on from the excellent reports from the Home Affairs Committee and the Public Accounts Committee looking into why we have not achieved enough in terms of confiscation orders and recovery of assets. I have told officials I am particularly concerned that it was suggested in one of those reports that the focus seemed to be on small assets—the collection rate was higher for smaller amounts of money, but lower among millionaires—and I have specifically directed officials that we must look at turning the tables. I want all assets collected that are subject to confiscation, but those reports are a good guideline and we did not ignore that specific point. We will certainly make sure that we build on it and improve on it, because there is money in it for us all, should we do it, and I am very keen that we should.
New clause 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), seeks to prevent the courts from awarding uncapped costs against enforcement agencies when they have brought unsuccessful applications for unexplained wealth orders or related interim freezing orders. I appreciate that this is to ensure that law enforcement agencies do not feel constrained in their ability to apply for an unexplained wealth order, for fear of incurring financial liability. But, as law enforcement representatives told the Public Bill Committee in November, this is a natural part of the state wielding its investigative powers, and they are certainly not pressing for a provision of this type. It is a well-established principle that the losing party pays the winning party’s legal costs. This is an important check and balance on parties bringing spurious claims, or the state using its powers erroneously.
At the same time, the civil procedure rules do already allow for capping in exceptional circumstances, so law enforcement agencies would be able, as things stand, to apply for a cost-capping order in appropriate cases. I undertake to ensure that this point is included in the code of practice that will support the use of these orders. I trust that Members will agree that this is a far more sensible way forward than a blanket rule for all unexplained wealth order cases.
It is crucial that the initial cases are thoroughly developed to ensure that the orders have the greatest possible impact. We are already actively engaging with law enforcement officers and prosecutors to encourage the use of the new powers being introduced by the Bill. Ultimately, it will be for the enforcement authorities to decide when to use them, but we will—as, no doubt, will Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition—monitor and review the use of the orders once they have been introduced. This will inform future support or changes that may be needed to ensure that they are being used to maximum effect.
The hon. Member for Swansea East explained from the Opposition Front Bench the objective behind her amendment 1. However, as I explained when this issue arose in Committee, politically exposed persons in the UK and European economic area can, in fact, already be made subject to an unexplained wealth order. These orders can be made in two situations: first, where an individual is suspected of involvement in serious crime; and secondly, in relation to non-EEA politically exposed persons. An unexplained wealth order can thus be made in relation to politicians and senior officials in Europe, when they are suspected of being involved in serious criminality. In such an investigation, if evidence exists of links to serious organised crime, it should be available, obtainable and readily provided, and it would be unreasonable and disproportionate, for example, for Members of this House to be made subject to an order without any evidence of criminality.
However, for investigations into grand corruption involving countries outside Europe, including the developing world, that evidence is far less likely to be available. It will be much harder in some countries where corruption is endemic to get the evidence to bring to the court at first about wealth hidden in London. That is why we have chosen to have a lower threshold for evidence when applied to countries outside the EEA.
We should not forget that unexplained wealth orders are not an end in themselves; they are part of a process leading eventually, should those concerned not be able to give satisfactory answers, to another action in court to confiscate the assets. As I said when I met the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) to discuss this, I do not want unexplained wealth orders also to produce a lot of derelict empty buildings that are caught up in legal dispute and sitting around London being no good for anyone. I want them to be used and be placed on people whom we have linked to serious crime, and then, should they not be able to satisfy the court, for us then to go to the next step and recover that asset, so that the houses and the housing market are freed up, and any money is returned to whoever it has been stolen from—a country, or other people. An order is therefore a step in the process, not an end in itself.
I hope that I have sufficiently reassured the House on these points, and that the Opposition will feel inclined to not press their amendment.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 8 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 2
Failure to Prevent an Economic Criminal Offence
“(1) A relevant body (B) is guilty of an offence if a person commits an economic criminal offence when acting in the capacity of a person associated with (B).
(2) For the criminal purposes of this clause—
“economic criminal offence” means any of the offences listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
“relevant body” and “acting in the capacity of a person associated with B” has the same meaning as in section 39.
(3) It is a defence for B to prove that, when the economic criminal offence was committed—
(a) B had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have in place, or
(b) it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have any prevention procedures in place.
(4) In subsection (2) “prevention procedures” means procedures designed to prevent persons acting in the capacity of a person associated with B from committing an economic criminal offence.
(5) A relevant body guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine,
(b) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to a fine,
(c) on summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.
(6) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether—
(a) any relevant conduct of a relevant body, or
(b) any conduct which constitutes part of a relevant criminal financial offence takes place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
(7) The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State must prepare and publish guidance about procedures that relevant bodies can put in place to prevent persons acting in the capacity of an associated person from committing an economic criminal offence.”—(Sir Edward Garnier.)
This new clause would create a corporate offence of failing to prevent economic crime, defined by reference to the offences listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 3—Failure to Prevent an Economic Criminal Offence (No. 2)—
“(1) A relevant body (B) is guilty of an offence if a person commits a economic criminal offence when acting in the capacity of a person associated with (B).
(2) For the purposes of this clause—
“economic criminal offence” means one of the following—
(a) a common law offence of conspiracy to defraud;
(b) an offence under section 1, 5 or 7 of Fraud Act 2006;
(c) an offence under section 1, 17 or 20 of the Theft Act 1968 (theft, false accounting and destruction of documents);
(d) an offence under section 993 of the Companies Act 2006 (fraudulent trading);
(e) an offence under sections 346, 397 and 398 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (providing false statements to auditors, misleading statements, and misleading the FCA);
(f) an offence under section 327, 328 and 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (concealing criminal property, facilitating acquisition, acquisition and use of criminal property).
“relevant body” and “acting in the capacity of a person associated with B” has the same meaning as in section 39.
(3) It is a defence for B to prove that, when the economic criminal offence was committed—
(a) B had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have in place, or
(b) it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have any prevention procedures in place.
(4) In subsection (2) “prevention procedures” means procedures designed to prevent persons acting in the capacity of a person associated with B from committing an economic criminal offence.
(5) A relevant body guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine,
(b) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to a fine,
(c) on summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.
(6) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether—
(a) any relevant conduct of a relevant body, or
(b) any conduct which constitutes part of a relevant criminal financial offence takes place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
(7) The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State must prepare and publish guidance about procedures that relevant bodies can put in place to prevent persons acting in the capacity of an associated person from committing an economic criminal offence.”
This new clause would create a corporate offence of failing to prevent economic crime, defined by reference to certain offences listed in subsection (2).
New clause 4—Failure to prevent criminal financial offences in the UK—
“(1) A relevant body (B) is guilty of an offence if a person commits a criminal financial offence when acting in the capacity of a person associated with B.
(2) It is a defence for B to prove that, when the criminal financial offence was committed—
(a) B had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have in place, or
(b) it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have any prevention procedures in place.
(3) In subsection (2) “prevention procedures” means procedures designed to prevent persons acting in the capacity of a person associated with B from committing criminal financial offences.
(4) For the purposes of this clause—
“criminal financial offence” means an offence listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013 [that could not be prosecuted under the offences created by sections 7 and 38 of this Act],
or, one of the offences listed below—
(a) an offence under section 1, 6 or 7 of the Fraud Act 2006;
(b) an offence under section 1, 17 or 20 of the Theft Act 1968;
(c) an offence under section 993 of the Companies Act 2006;
(d) an offence under section 327, 328 and 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002;
(e) the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud;
“relevant body” has the same meaning as in section 36.
(5) A relevant body guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine,
(b) on summary conviction in England, to a fine,
(c) on summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.
(6) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether—
(a) any relevant conduct of a relevant body, or
(b) any conduct which constitutes part of a relevant criminal financial offence takes place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.”
This New Clause would create an offence of failing to prevent any financial offence listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
New clause 6—Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies registered in the Overseas Territories—
“(1) In Part 1 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (introductory), after section 2A, insert—
“2AA Duty of Secretary of State: Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies registered in Overseas Territories
(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, in furtherance of the purposes of—
(a) this Act; and
(b) Part 3 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017
to take the steps set out in this section.
(2) The first step is, no later than 31 December 2018, to provide all reasonable assistance to the Governments of the UK’s Overseas Territories to enable each of those Governments to establish a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in that Government’s jurisdiction.
(3) The second step is, no later than 31 December 2019, to prepare an Order in Council and take all reasonable steps to ensure its implementation, in respect of any Overseas Territory that has not yet introduced a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies within their jurisdiction. This Order would require the Overseas Territory to adopt such a register.
(4) In this section “a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies” means a register which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, provides information broadly equivalent to that available in accordance with the provisions of Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006.””
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to take steps to provide that Overseas Territories establish publicly accessible registers of the beneficial ownership of companies, for the purposes of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Part 3 of the Bill (corporate offences of failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion).
New clause 10—Duty to prevent use of new Limited Partnerships for financial criminal activity—
“(1) The Treasury may not lay regulations before Parliament on new Limited Partnerships before the Secretary of State has completed and published a review of the proposed regulations.
(2) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to review draft regulations which would allow the creations of new Limited Partnerships, in order to prevent the use of new Limited Partnerships for financial criminal activity.
(3) In performing that duty the Secretary of State must, in particular, have regard to the contribution transparency may make in tackling tax evasion, money laundering, national and cross border criminality, and terrorist financing.
(4) Following any review under subsection (2) the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on what steps the Government will take to prevent new Limited Partnerships being used for criminal purposes.
(5) In conducting the review the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Scottish Government,
(b) the National Crime Agency,
(c) the Serious Fraud Office,
(d) the Financial Conduct Authority,
(e) HMRC,
(f) interested third sector organisations, and
(g) any other persons the Secretary of State deems relevant.”
This new clause sets a duty on the Secretary of State to review Treasury proposals for new Limited Partnerships to prevent their use for financial criminal activity, including tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing. In carrying out the review the Secretary of State will be required to consult those groups listed in subsection (5) and lay a report before Parliament.
New clause 11—Failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion offences: consultation on other jurisdictions—
“(1) Within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must conduct a public consultation on the issues listed in subsection (2).
(2) The issues are—
(a) the desirability of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories introducing equivalent offences to those introduced by sections 40 and 41 of this Act; and
(b) the steps that would need to be taken for the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories to introduce equivalent offences to those introduced by sections 40 and 41 of this Act.
(3) As part of this consultation the Secretary of State must seek views from—
(a) the governments of the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories,
(b) such bodies as the Secretary of State or the governments specified in subsection (3)(a) consider appropriate,
(c) any other person or body who the Secretary of State deems relevant, with particular regard to non-governmental bodies and private sector entities.
(4) The Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out the outcome of this consultation within 24 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.”
New clause 12—Failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion offences: publication of convictions—
“(1) The Secretary of State must publish an annual report listing all bodies and organisations that have been found guilty of a failure to prevent facilitation of a UK foreign tax evasion offence within the previous five years.”
New clause 13—Failure to prevent tax evasion offences: sentencing guideline—
“(1) The Secretary of State must produce sentencing guidelines for the level of fine to be imposed on bodies found guilty of failure to prevent facilitation of a UK foreign tax evasion offence.
(2) Such guidance must stipulate that the maximum level of the fine cannot be greater than the total value of the tax whose evasion was facilitated.”
New clause 14—Failure to Prevent an Economic Criminal Offence (No. 3)—
“(1) A relevant body (B) is guilty of an offence if a person commits an economic criminal offence when acting in the capacity of a person associated with (B).
(2) For the criminal purposes of this clause—
“economic criminal offence” means any of the offences listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
“relevant body” and “acting in the capacity of a person associated with B” have the same meaning as in section 39.
(3) B is guilty of an offence under this section if a person associated with B commits an economic criminal offence intending—
(a) to obtain or retain business for B; or
(b) to obtain or retain an advantage in the conduct of business for B or otherwise for the financial benefit of B.
(4) It is a defence for B to prove that, when the economic criminal offence was committed—
(a) B had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have in place, or
(b) it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have any prevention procedures in place.
(5) In subsection (2) “prevention procedures” means procedures designed to prevent persons acting in the capacity of a person associated with B from committing an economic criminal offence.
(6) A relevant body guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine,
(b) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to a fine,
(c) on summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.
(7) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether—
(a) any relevant conduct of a relevant body, or
(b) any conduct which constitutes part of a relevant criminal financial offence takes place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
(8) The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State must prepare and publish guidance about procedures that relevant bodies can put in place to prevent persons acting in the capacity of an associated person from committing an economic criminal offence.”
This new clause would create a corporate offence of failing to prevent economic crime, defined by reference to the offences listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
New clause 15—Failure to Prevent an Economic Criminal Offence (No. 4)—
“(1) A relevant body (B) is guilty of an offence if a person commits an economic criminal offence when acting in the capacity of a person associated with (B).
(2) For the criminal purposes of this clause—
“economic criminal offence” means one of the following—
(a) a common law offence of conspiracy to defraud;
(b) an offence under section 1, 5 or 7 of Fraud Act 2006;
(c) an offence under section 1, 17 or 20 of the Theft Act 1968 (theft, false accounting and destruction of documents);
(d) an offence under section 993 of the Companies Act 2006 (fraudulent trading);
(e) an offence under sections 346, 397 and 398 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (providing false statements to auditors, misleading statements, and misleading the FCA);
(f) an offence under section 327, 328 and 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (concealing criminal property, facilitating acquisition, acquisition and use of criminal property).
“relevant body” and “acting in the capacity of a person associated with B” have the same meaning as in section 39.
(3) B is guilty of an offence under this section if a person associated with B commits an economic criminal offence intending—
(a) to obtain or retain business for B; or
(b) to obtain or retain an advantage in the conduct of business for B or otherwise for the financial benefit of B.
(4) It is a defence for B to prove that, when the economic criminal offence was committed—
(a) B had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have in place, or
(b) it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to expect B to have any prevention procedures in place.
(5) In subsection (2) “prevention procedures” means procedures designed to prevent persons acting in the capacity of a person associated with B from committing an economic criminal offence.
(6) A relevant body guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine,
(b) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to a fine,
(c) on summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.
(7) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether—
(a) any relevant conduct of a relevant body, or
(b) any conduct which constitutes part of a relevant criminal financial offence takes place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
(8) The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State must prepare and publish guidance about procedures that relevant bodies can put in place to prevent persons acting in the capacity of an associated person from committing an economic criminal offence.”
This new clause would create a corporate offence of failing to prevent economic crime, defined by reference to the offences listed in Part 2 of Schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
New clause 16—Conversion of platforms to centralised registers: review—
“(1) Within one year of this Act receiving Royal Assent the Secretary of State must establish a review of the operational efficacy of closed beneficial ownership platforms created by Crown Dependencies or British Overseas Territories that are subject to the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership information with Her Majesty’s Government for the purpose of combating illicit financial activity.
(2) The aim of the review will be to gather information to equip Her Majesty’s Government to take all steps necessary to provide financial, administrative or any other support to assist Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories in converting all such beneficial ownership platforms into closed centralised registers of beneficial ownership.
(3) In the course of the review the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the governments of any Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories which have created closed beneficial ownership platforms and which are subject to the automatic exchange of information with Her Majesty’s Government for the purpose of combating illicit financial activity; and
(b) such bodies as the Secretary of State or governments under subsection (3)(a) deem appropriate.
(4) The review shall be completed and laid before Parliament within one year of its establishment.
(5) No later than one year after the review has been laid before Parliament, Her Majesty’s Government must have taken all steps necessary to assist relevant Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories in the establishment of closed centralised registers of beneficial ownership.
(6) Her Majesty’s Government shall supply quarterly reports to Parliament of the progress of steps taken under subsection (5), and such reports shall set out—
(a) concerns expressed by relevant Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories about conversion of beneficial ownership platforms to centralised registers, and
(b) an assessment by Her Majesty’s Government of the extent to which objections to the creation of centralised registers can be justified on a constitutional, economic, administrative or any other operational basis.”
New clause 17—Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies registered in Crown dependencies—
“(1) In Part 1 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (introductory), after section 2A, insert—
“2AA Duty of Secretary of State: Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies registered in Crown dependencies
(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, in furtherance of the purposes of—
(a) this Act; and
(b) Part 3 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017
to take the actions set out in this section.
(2) The first action is, no later than 31 December 2017, to provide all reasonable assistance to the Governments of Crown Dependencies to enable each of those Governments to establish a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in that Government’s jurisdiction.
(3) The second action is, no later than 31 December 2019, to publish legislative proposals to require the Government of any Crown dependency that has not already established a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in that Government’s jurisdiction to do so.
(4) In this section—
“a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies” means a register which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, provides information broadly equivalent to that available in accordance with the provisions of Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006.
“legislative proposals” means either—
(a) a draft Order in Council; or
(b) a Bill presented to either House of Parliament.”
New clause 18—Whistleblowing in relation to failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion and money laundering—
“(1) The Secretary of State shall conduct a review of arrangements to facilitate whistleblowing in the banking and financial services sector in relation to the disclosure of suspected corporate failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion and money laundering.
(2) The review must consider, but shall not be limited to—
(a) arrangements to protect the anonymity of persons disclosing suspected corporate failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion and money laundering;
(b) the efficacy of current penalties for institutions that treat whistleblowers unfairly, and proposals for future criminal penalties.
(3) In conducting the review the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) whistleblowers in the banking and financial services sector,
(b) devolved administrations,
(c) interested charities,
(d) the relevant regulators, and
(e) any other persons the Secretary of State deems relevant.
(4) The Secretary of State must lay the report to Parliament within six months of the passing of this Act.”
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to conduct a review of arrangements to facilitate whistleblowing in the banking and financial services sector, in consultation with those groups listed in subsection (3), and then lay a report before Parliament on steps the Government will take to bring forward penalties for institutions that fail to protect whistleblowers.
New clause 19—The culture of the banking industry and failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion—
“(1) The Secretary of State must undertake a review into the extent to which banking culture contributed to the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion in the banking sector.
(2) The review must consider, but shall not be limited to, the following issues—
(a) the impact of culture change on decision making senior executive and board level;
(b) the pressure on staff to meet performance targets;
(c) how allegations of tax evasion are reported and acted on.
(3) The review must set out what steps the UK Government intends to take to ensure that banking culture is not facilitating tax evasion.
(4) In carrying out this review, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) devolved administrations;
(b) HMRC;
(c) the Serious Fraud Office;
(d) the Financial Conduct Authority;
(e) interested charities, and
(f) anyone else the Secretary of State deems appropriate.
(5) The Secretary of State shall lay a copy of the review before the House of Commons within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.”
New clause 20—Report on the impact of the criminal offences relating to offshore income, assets and activities—
“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer shall, within one year of the coming into force of the provisions in Tax Management Act 1970 relating to criminal offences relating to offshore income, assets and activities introduced by section 165 of the Finance Act 2016 publish a report on the impact of the introduction of these offences.
(2) The report must include, but need not be limited to, information about—
(a) the number of persons who have been charged with offences under each of sections 106B, 106C and 106D of the Tax Management Act 1970;
(b) the number of persons who have been convicted of any such offence;
(c) the average fine imposed; and
(d) the number of people upon whom a custodial sentence has been imposed for any such offence.”
New clause 21—Report on income lost to tax evasion—
“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer shall, within one year of the passing of this Act, prepare and publish a report, in consultation with stakeholders, on the value of income lost to the Exchequer from tax evasion offences.
(2) The report must include the following—
(a) the value of the income lost to the Exchequer from tax evasion offences in the financial years—
(i) 2015-16;
(ii) 2014-15;
(iii) 2013-14;
(iv) 2012-13; and
(v) 2011-12;
(b) a detailed summary of the model used by HMRC for estimating income lost to the Exchequer from tax evasion offences.
(c) an assessment of the efficacy of HMRC’s performance in relation to dealing with tax evasion, including—
(i) a breakdown of specific HMRC departments or units dealing with investigation and enforcement of tax evasion matters;
(ii) details of the numbers of staff in each of the years listed in paragraph (a) who are located within departments or units dealing with investigation and enforcement matters in relation to tax evasion;
(iii) details of the budgets allocated to departments or units dealing with investigation above; and
(iv) details of the numbers of prosecutions or the amount of tax recovered in each financial year listed in paragraph (a) as a result of the work of HMRC departments or units dealing with investigation and enforcement matters in relation to tax evasion in those financial years.”
Sir Edward Garnier
I shall be relatively brief in introducing this group of new clauses. In moving new clause 2, which stands in my name and those of a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House and which mirrors new clauses 3, 4, 14 and 15, I want to introduce a debate about the future of corporate criminal liability in this jurisdiction. I must declare an interest, as over the past few years I have been instructed by the Serious Fraud Office in a number of cases involving the prosecution of large international companies. One of the problems that prosecutors and, no doubt, investigators have found in this jurisdiction when dealing with the modern corporate landscape—to use that hideous jargon—involves trying to fix liability on a company suspected of criminal activity, as a matter of criminal law. It is not difficult to fix criminal liability on an individual if the evidence is there: the person either did or did not do it, and they either did or did not have the necessary criminal intent.
Under current English law, however, fixing criminal liability on a corporation involves resorting to what is called the identification principle. This involves finding someone of sufficient seniority within a corporation who can act as or be described as the directing mind of the company. Through that identified person, we can then move on to fix criminal liability on the corporation. That was fine in the Victorian era, when most companies had one or two directors. An example would be a small business in a market town in the 1860s or 1870s, which would have been owned and directed by two or three men—it was always men in those days. If a fraud was committed on behalf of the company, it would have been perfectly easy to find the directing mind of that company among the small group of directors.
As the industrial revolution and corporate legal development proceeded during the late 19th century and early 20th century, however, it became clear that companies were getting bigger. An increase in international trade meant that companies based in this country had offices, and directing minds, in other parts of the world. In 1912, the United States dealt with this by doing away with the identification principle involving the directing mind and, through case law, by developing a principle in criminal law that a company could be vicariously liable for the criminal acts of its employees on the basis that they were conducting criminal activities for the benefit and on behalf of the company.
We in this country reached the stage long ago at which we needed to reform the way in which we look at corporate criminal liability. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless), with his Scottish legal experience, will no doubt inform us whether the situation is the same in Scotland as it is in England, but I believe that it is uncontroversial to say that the Victorian identification principle is no longer apt to deal with international corporations. I am not picking on the company that I am about to mention because I think it has committed a criminal offence; quite the contrary—I just want to use it as an example of a large international company. British Telecommunications is a huge company that employs hundreds of thousands of people all around the globe doing various things in the telecoms world, all of them entirely legitimate and beneficial to the company, its shareholders and our national economy. Surely, however, it is a matter of common sense to say that it would be extremely difficult nowadays to fix upon an individual or small group of individuals as representing the directing mind of that company if it was suspected that an offence had been committed many miles away from the main board and the headquarters of the company in London. I repeat that I have used British Telecommunications simply as an example of a large international company with operations right around the world.
Of course it would be perfectly possible to fix upon an individual, a human being, who had committed an offence. It might well be that that individual had committed an offence for the benefit of the international corporation, but unless that person was of sufficient seniority within the hierarchy of that great big international company, it would be very difficult to fix criminal liability for that person’s offence on the corporation as well. As I have said, the United States has been getting round that problem for more than 100 years by using the principle of vicarious liability, which we are used to dealing with in this country in civil law but not in criminal law.
I believe that there are two ways in which we can approach this question, and this is the whole point of the new clauses that I and others have tabled. First, we could use the American system of vicarious liability, and there are plenty of good arguments for doing so. Secondly, we could approach the problem—as we have done in the new clauses—by using the failure to prevent regime, in which, when a company fails to prevent someone or another body associated with it from committing a specified offence, it thereby becomes liable for the criminal offence itself. We already have that provision on the statute book in section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010, and it is about to be added to the statute book through the existing provisions in this Bill relating to tax offences. That follows David Cameron’s speech to the corruption summit at Lancaster House last summer.
In pushing forward these new clauses, I want to invite Parliament, in this House and the other place, and the Government—by which I mean not only the political Government but the non-political Government: the officials who run the Government day by day and advise on matters of policy—to consider whether extending the failure to prevent regime would be an easier and better way to deal with this than turning the whole thing on its head by adopting the vicarious liability principle wholesale.
There are plenty of arguments for and against the extension of the section 7 failure to prevent bribery model. I have attended a number of meetings with criminal lawyers who are far more experienced than I am. Indeed, I see one sitting just two Benches in front of me, behind the Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) will know, as I have come to learn over the past few years since I have taken an interest in corporate crime, that a number of difficulties are created by the failure to prevent model. I will not rehearse them all now, but some of those difficulties were set out on Friday 13 January 2017 in the Ministry of Justice’s “Call for evidence” paper, which sets out five options for a failure to prevent regime.
I favour the failure to prevent model over the vicarious liability model because it is already set within our system. The new clauses would not extend the principle but merely extend the ambit of the criminal offences that could come within a failure to prevent system. The provisions will not be brought into this Bill because it is highly unlikely that the Government would accept any of them—albeit they may nod politely at them—when the Ministry of Justice’s call for evidence process is still open. However, I hope that the Government will look carefully at the shape and design of the new clauses with a view to considering vigorously whether what we have proposed as a matter of principle is worthy of greater thought.
The intention of new clause 2 is to create a corporate offence of failing to prevent economic crime, as defined by reference to the offences listed in part 2 of schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Again, I will do my best to be brief. That schedule brought in the deferred prosecution agreement system for dealing with errant companies. I declare an interest, with both capital and small letters, in that not only have I been instructed by the SFO in two of the three deferred prosecution agreements that have so far taken place, but I brought the system into law when I was Solicitor General—at least I began it before I got the sack. There is a cloud in every silver lining, is there not?
Sir Edward Garnier
Very few. I am diverting myself, because I deliberately said “a cloud in every silver lining” not “a silver lining in every cloud.”
The short point is that schedule 17 to the 2013 Act contains about 50 economic and financial criminal offences that can be dealt with through deferred prosecution agreements between either the Crown Prosecution Service or the SFO on the one hand and corporations—that is to say respondents and defendants that are not human beings—on the other. Those offences are perfectly capable of being moved across into the failure to prevent regime. As I said, section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 makes it an offence to fail to prevent bribery, and we are about to have an offence of failing to prevent a tax offence, so why not—I ask rhetorically on this occasion—extend the failure to prevent regime across to these other offences? New clause 3 does exactly the same, save that it limits the offences to those set out in its subsection (2).
New clauses 4, 14 and 15 contain provisions suggested by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) that broadly address the same issue that I am discussing. I will not press new clause 2 to a Division, because these are probing amendments designed to create a public discussion, and I hope that they will inform the Ministry of Justice’s discussion paper. I also hope that they will encourage the Home Office and the Minister, with whom I have had some useful discussions about this and other matters to do with the Bill, to consider carefully and positively the extension of the failure to prevent regime.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
I start by thanking the Security Minister and the Government for responding to the campaign on Scottish limited partnerships in which I have been involved for about a year. We are all grateful that the Government recently announced that they will conduct a review, which means that the amendment that I have regularly been tabling to Bills over the past year is no longer necessary. However, I have found myself having to table a different new clause; I will explain why and why it troubles me greatly that I am forced to do so.
For Members who are unfamiliar with why my colleagues and I have been so concerned about these things called Scottish limited partnerships, let me point out that they do remarkable reputational damage to Scotland and probably to the UK’s financial sector. They are a front for some of the worst international crime, money laundering and hiding of criminal assets to be found. Without going into great detail of how they manage to do that, it might interest the House to know just a few of the types of crime for which they have been used.
SLPs have been at the centre of Ukrainian arms deals, kick-backs and a major Moldovan banking fraud. They have been at the heart of a major corruption scandal in Latvia involving the nephew of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov. They have been used to run international mail frauds, including that of a French psychic who has been targeting vulnerable elderly people with offers of spiritual insights for significant amounts of cash. They are involved in a $1 billion copyright infringement case that is taking place in the United States. They have been involved in criminal activity such as setting up paedophile websites and raising money through such horrible activities. The list goes on and on. SLPs, and other limited partnerships to some extent, have been utilised as a way of hiding billions of pounds of criminal money. Often that money does not necessarily come here, as we find it in tax havens. The legitimation of a UK or Scottish limited partnership is used as a means of hiding the beneficiaries of such criminal activity.
For those reasons, I am particularly grateful that the Minister has been willing to speak seriously about this. He has done more than any other Minister to move the Government to respond to some of our concerns, so why did I table new clause 10? I did so because SLPs and limited partnerships are based on a 1907 Act, of which probably few people are aware, that amended the Partnership Act 1890, of which even fewer people are aware. By some chance, I sit on the Regulatory Reform Committee, which is so popular that in December it held its second meeting since I joined it in January 2016. Why did we have our second meeting in December? Because we were told that the Treasury was introducing a legislative reform order. And what was that legislative reform order for? At the same time as the Government announced a much-welcomed review of limited partnerships, the Treasury sought to create a new form of limited partnership—private fund limited partnerships —not on the Floor of the House, but through a device that is supposed to be used only for non-controversial matters of legislative reform. I can hardly think of anything more controversial than a mechanism that has been used for international criminal assets and money laundering, but I have even greater concerns.
I will have to leave the debate in about an hour to attend a meeting of the Regulatory Reform Committee to take evidence on the Treasury’s proposals—[Interruption.] I hear Members suggesting they are jealous, but I am sure that they are not. Under the proposals, there are four areas with which even SLPs have to comply that these new private fund limited partnerships will not. For example, the jurisdiction in which the general partners are registered no longer needs to be divulged. The registration numbers of the general partners no longer need to be divulged. The jurisdiction in which the limited partners are registered no longer needs to be divulged, and the registration numbers of the limited partners, if they are corporations, no longer need to be divulged.
Not only are we creating a new form of limited partnership, but we are doing so with considerably less regulation than is in place for existing limited partnerships that have been a front for international criminality. As I have such great faith in the Minister for Security, our new clause would require the Home Office to conduct a review before the Treasury introduces any legislation to create a new form of limited partnership so that we can ensure that those limited partnerships will not be subject to the type of criminal abuse and illegality that we have found with Scottish limited partnerships.
There is also a broader question to be answered. Why are this Government using a device such as a legislative reform order to try to quickly establish something in such a controversial area? Surely this is something that should be fully and properly debated on the Floor of the House. That is why, when I go to the Committee shortly, I will certainly not be agreeing that the proposal makes progress. I will do my best to require that this matter is brought back to the Floor of the House so that it can receive proper and urgent scrutiny. In the light of my arguments, I commend new clause 10 to the House.
Nigel Mills
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I rise to address the new clauses that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) spoke about and new clause 6. I will begin by speaking to the new clauses tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend and the measures tabled by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who co-chairs the all-party group on anti-corruption, on the failure to prevent economic crime.
The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) knows far more about such things than I do, and he made his argument well, but I reinforce the point that there is a strong feeling among the public, because if large companies are seen to be part of some very serious criminal activity, people are confused about why those companies and the senior people within them have not been prosecuted for those serious offences. If people look across the Atlantic, they see that America does manage to prosecute senior bankers for such offences, so they think, “We see all our banks being fined in America for being guilty of rigging various markets, yet why are no senior directors of those companies being prosecuted here? Why are those banks not being prosecuted?” That exposes the fact that our law, as the hon. Gentleman explained, has become out of date. It seems horribly unfair that the Serious Fraud Office finds it comparatively easy to prosecute very small companies and their directors, when it is clear who the controlling minds are, but that when we see far more serious offences being committed by, on behalf of, or for the benefit of much larger companies, we cannot quite find enough evidence to prosecute those companies or their very senior directors.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
In the US context, does my hon. Friend accept that there is often a political element there, despite the division of power? The prosecutor is often looking to make a name for himself by taking on a big bank—often, it has to be said, a big non-US bank. It is a particular concern—not just in the banking world but beyond—that overseas companies tend to be fair game as far as prosecutions are concerned. There is actually a rather different regime there, and it might not necessarily point to a desire and a need for a change in UK law.
Nigel Mills
I agree with my right hon. Friend’s point. It is interesting that the United States seems to favour prosecuting large banks and large companies that are internationally owned rather than US-owned. I am sure that the Foreign Office is trying to work out whether that is an unfair, anti-competitive move by the US. He is right that we should not try to read too much across from the US system into ours, but I was trying to make the point that people are confused about why people are prosecuted in the US but not over here.
That takes me back to the point that it seems unfair that while we can prosecute directors of small businesses, we cannot prosecute when we see much more serious offences in large businesses. That is why I support extending the model of the failure to prevent that we already have in place for bribery and that we are adding for tax evasion. We are talking about other very serious economic crimes, and it is hard to make a distinction as to why we would rank some of these offences as less important or serious such that we do not take the power to prosecute so that we prevent serious fraud, for instance.
I welcome the Government’s consultation on those issues, and it is right that it would be somewhat premature to legislate before we get the outcome of the consultation, as that might make a mockery of the idea of consulting. It is a real pity that although this Bill is the ideal vehicle in which to act, we cannot, because of the timing, make the change that we want. We will be relying on another relevant Bill being introduced later in this Parliament so that we can finally make the change. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough said, it would be helpful if the Minister would make some encouraging noises about how seriously the Government take such matters and when we might expect to see some progress following the consultation, if the Government were minded to proceed with legislation.
I will take a bit of a leap from that topic to the subject of new clause 6—our grouping is interesting. For quite a long while, I thought that I was supporting Government policy by encouraging our overseas territories and Crown dependencies to adopt the same transparency regarding beneficial ownership that we are putting in place for the UK through the Bill. The previous Prime Minister was absolutely right to make efforts to get those territories and dependencies to agree to having transparent registers. I think that we all welcome the fact that the territories have moved a fair way in agreeing to have registers and reliable information on the beneficial owners of companies operating there. We all congratulate them on that, and look forward to that being in place; we all recognise that it will be a great step forward for various law enforcement authorities to be able to get that information relatively speedily to help prosecutions here. However, that does not go far enough, and we recognise that by saying in new clause 6 that we want a transparent register.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend makes a strong and powerful case, but does he not recognise the distinction between privacy and secrecy? No one wants an entirely secret element, but most people who indulge in banking, whether in an overseas territory or anywhere else, expect a certain amount of privacy. There is no question but that we would expect law enforcement, the police and the tax authorities to have access to these registers. My hon. Friend has been fair in making the point that ultimately a lot of these issues should be constitutional questions for the territories; these measures should not be imposed on them by the UK. On the notion that anyone should have access to that information beyond the authorities I mentioned, as they would in his Tajikistan example, surely he can understand the reluctance for that to happen, particularly in the globalised financial world in which we live, and particularly if the same does not apply elsewhere.
Nigel Mills
I accept that we hear the privacy argument a lot—I am sure that it is made in the UK context as well—but we have taken the decision to have transparent registers so that we know who the ultimate beneficial owners of these entities are. If I think through the scenarios in which people would have a right to privacy, I can perhaps see that there might be a good reason not to publish if there is a real issue of individual safety, but I struggle to find many other situations for which there is a good argument for people being able to establish entities or other bodies in the overseas territories without being clear about who the ultimate owner is. If someone owns a company here or is a shareholder, that has to be public. That transparency exists for any kind of entity here, so I am not sure why a different argument ought to apply for our dependencies. In weighing the right to privacy against the right to ensure that we are not letting dirty, corrupt, criminal money into the system, we have to err on the latter side of the equation.
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend gave the example of a toll road in Tajikistan. Because of where we are now, with a commitment to central registers and automatic access for our law enforcement agencies to those registers in countries such as the BVI, we could investigate his example and those responsible could be tracked down. Because it is an offence under the Bill to encourage tax evasion, even in another country—I guess the people who siphon off the toll money are not paying taxes in Tajikistan—we could take action if the BVI bank had a British nexus. We have now gone a long way towards tackling that type of crime because of this Bill and where we have got to since David Cameron’s summit.
Nigel Mills
I am grateful to the Minister for making those points, but we should be careful that we do not focus only on one example. There might be good commercial reasons in that case and it might just be a rumour from that country. I was highlighting the question of whether there are sufficient resources in the various law enforcement bodies, either here or elsewhere, to pursue inquiries through the labyrinth of corporate structures that tend to be involved when it comes to the most complex money-laundering or corruption situations.
The advantage of transparency, and one reason why we have chosen to have it here, is that it puts the information into the public domain so that various NGOs or other bodies can do some of the initial investigation, piece together the corporate chains and links, break the corporate veils, and thereby work out where this money is coming from and where it has got to. I am a little sceptical that our law enforcement bodies will ever have the resources to start that process in the vast majority of cases. If we can get the information into the public domain and give people the chance to trace it all the way through and find the answers, that new information can be used by the law enforcement bodies. That is what we are trying to achieve, because enabling transparency will make it much harder to hide the money through a complex structure going through multiple territories and however many different trusts and entities.
It is entirely right and welcome that law enforcement bodies will have timely access to information, but that will not be enough to enable the full tackling of this scourge that we would like to see. That is why I support the effort that has been made with new clause 6 to find a way to send a very strong signal to our territories that we want transparent registers. That is the right thing to do and it is the right direction of travel for the regimes in question. We want our territories to take the lead, rather than waiting for everybody else to do something first. Let us set an example and move first, and not wait for the herd.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). I almost feel like not making a speech and sitting down now—but I will not—because he made such excellent points about why public registers of beneficial ownership in our overseas territories are so important. I look forward to working with him on this issue and on public country-by-country reporting, as well as with the many other colleagues from both sides of the House and from eight political parties who support new clause 6. Despite some Government pressure, several Conservative MPs support the new clause, including the former International Development Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who I understand hopes to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for her hard work on this important amendment. I am really sorry—and she is too—that she cannot be here today to speak in this debate. I hope that, on this occasion, Members will not mind me dubbing new clause 6 “the Hodge amendment”.
I welcome the Government’s Criminal Finances Bill. Its aims of tackling corruption, tax evasion and terrorist financing are really important and should be commended. However, the absence of any mention of the overseas territories is remarkable. As Christian Aid has said, the No. 1 thing that the Government can do to tackle corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion is to ensure transparency in their overseas territories. Unfortunately, the secrecy that those territories trade in facilitates the corruption and the aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion that we are all trying to stamp out.
The amendment is supported by the all-party groups on responsible tax and on anti-corruption, Christian Aid, Global Witness, Transparency International, Action Aid, Publish What You Pay, Save the Children, Oxfam and many others. We all know from numerous polls that this matter is something that the British public really care about. Two thirds of them want the Government to insist on public registers of beneficial ownership in the overseas territories.
As the hon. Member for Amber Valley mentioned, we have, with this amendment, responded to concerns raised earlier at different points of debate on this Bill. We are focusing purely on the overseas territories where the constitutional issues are more clear cut. We recognise that the overseas territories are taking steps towards private registers of beneficial ownership, so we have allowed a generous timeline for them to move from that to make these registers publicly accessible.
The overseas territories need to have these private registers in place by June of this year. This amendment would give them another two and a half years after that, which is within the lifetime of this Parliament, simply to make those private registers public. Such a move would be a major step forward.
New clause 6 is important not only for us in the UK, but for developing countries, which is why so many NGOs are supporting it. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, developing countries lose at least $100 billion every year as a result of tax havens. Around 8% to 15% of the world’s wealth is being held offshore in low tax jurisdictions, many of which come under our jurisdiction. A World Bank review of 213 big corruption cases found that more than 70% of them relied on secret company ownership. Company service providers registered in UK territories were second on the list in providing these companies. Oxfam has said recently that around one third of rich Africans’ wealth is currently sitting in offshore tax havens. If all that wealth was held in Africa and taxed properly, we would be able to pay for enough teachers to educate every child in Africa.
It damages our reputation, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley said, that the British Virgin Islands was the most mentioned tax haven in the Panama papers. We know that future leaks are coming, so why cannot we get ahead of the game and ensure transparency now?
In a recent debate on the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill, the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), said that the CDC would never invest through Anguilla or the British Virgin Islands. If a DFID Minister and the CDC can say that, what does it say about our responsibility today to change that reputation—British Ministers are clearly considering this—and do something to help those territories become more transparent?
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly strong point. I, too, was pleased to add my name to new clause 6—I am sorry that I have not been able to join her for much of this debate. Does she agree that this is all about the consistency of approach? We talk about trying to reduce the need for aid in certain countries, and a key way in which to do that is to ensure that countries can generate their own revenues by having tax paid properly in their own jurisdictions?
Caroline Flint
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and I thank him for his support and for putting his name to new clause 6. Aid is important, but more important is the question of how to create self-sufficiency so that more countries that are recipients of aid can stand on their own two feet. Transparency regarding overseas territories and our own system is an important part of that, as is good governance in the countries in question. Unfortunately, some countries to which we supply aid could do a hell of a lot more to help their own citizens. This is an area where we can have a direct impact and start making significant changes right now.
Stephen Doughty
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a conflict here? On the one hand, different Labour and Conservative Governments have been very sensible in supporting tax systems and tax authorities in many developing countries. However, if transparency of information—on companies, how they are incorporated and so on—is not available, even if we are giving them support, they cannot get to the bottom of where their taxes are actually going.
Caroline Flint
If we do not have the tools to make the difference, we are not going to see the change that I think everyone across the House wants to see. Without full access to transparent information, investigators will not know what information to request through these agreements, and that is fundamental. That is why public access to the data is important and why David Cameron was exactly right to demand it.
When the Minister responds, I expect him to say that the overseas territories are making real progress on this agenda and that including them in the legislation is not necessary. Let us be clear about the progress that has been made since the former Prime Minister first asked the overseas territories to consider public registers of beneficial ownership back in October 2013. More than three years on, just one overseas territory, Montserrat, has committed to a public register. Hooray for Montserrat! The rest have delayed at every step. Is the Minister satisfied with that outcome, and how does he account for why progress has been so slow?
In April 2014, the then Prime Minister wrote to overseas territory leaders, asking them to consult on public registers. Not all of them even did that. In July 2015, the current Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Gauke), asked those overseas territories with financial centres to develop plans for central registers by November 2015. That deadline was not hit. Press reports last year said that the overseas territories were ignoring Foreign Office Ministers’ letters and meeting requests. At the most recent meeting with overseas territories’ leaders in November 2016, public registers of beneficial ownership were not even mentioned in the final communiqué. That raises the question whether we would have made as much progress as we have if the Panama papers had not been released.
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Lady is not being very charitable. Actually, we have achieved an awful lot since David Cameron’s summit. While the registers are not public, we will this year achieve a central register of beneficial ownership in all the overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and where they have needed help in getting there, we have given them help. The hon. Lady said that the issue of the public register had not even been raised. I can tell her that I had a meeting with the overseas territories and Crown dependencies two weeks ago, and I raised it then.
Caroline Flint
I thank the Minister for that information, because I did go and read the final communiqué from the meeting in 2016, and while there was some mention of beneficial ownership and private registers, nothing in the communiqué mentioned any journey from private to public registers—the point I made a little earlier. I do welcome the progress that has been made, but, as I will go on to suggest, unless we link the efforts being made on private registers to the endgame of public registers, I fear that we will still have some of the problems that so many people on both sides of the House and outside it have been worried about for some years.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
The Minister has just told us that he did raise the issue of making the register of ownership public. If he was prepared to raise that issue two weeks ago, and if he is prepared to adopt that role of encouragement, would it not be better for him if he was supported in future by this Parliament through the very new clause we are debating?
Caroline Flint
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Part of having this debate, and part of looking at ways to rephrase the original amendment, is about strengthening the arm of Ministers to say, “Look, we welcome the efforts on central registers, private registers and the automatic exchange of information, but we are on a journey. This is not the endgame; this is part of a journey to where we want to get to.” It would be helpful to hear from the Minister what the reaction was to the discussion of public registers at the meeting he mentioned.
The issue of central registers is important because, while there may be private registers, information may be held in different places. Private central registers are important because it helps to make things clearer, even in the private situation, if those who ask for information are able to get it. Also, if we do not have central registers, it will be even harder to make that journey to public registers if we want to do that in the future.
So how many of our overseas territories will provide central registers? Will the British Virgin Islands register be central? Not all of the overseas territories have indicated that this is the route they want to go down. That is why Ministers should be talking to them now about the journey to public registers. This is about the journey we are on. The way the private registers are put together, how they are held and how easy it is to access them for those who are going to have to ask for access are all pertinent to a future where public registers are available.
When the Minister responds to the new clause, I expect him to say how complicated this all is constitutionally. None of us who has signed the new clause wants the Orders in Council to be used. They are there as a backstop if the Government are unsuccessful in persuading the overseas territories to publish their registers. As I have said before, the new clause gives the overseas territories until the end of 2019 to act on their own.
However, the fact is that we cannot remove the possibility of using Orders in Council if we want to see more progress on the transparency agenda. The constitutional position on the overseas territories is very clear. A 2012 Government White Paper said:
“As a matter of constitutional law the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the Territories.”
There are multiple examples of the UK legislating for its overseas territories. In 2009, the UK imposed direct rule in the Turks and Caicos Islands, following allegations of corruption. In 2000, the UK Government decriminalised homosexual acts in the overseas territories using Orders in Council. In 1991, the UK Government, by Order in Council, abolished capital punishment for the crime of murder in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The exception was Bermuda, which is generally considered the most autonomous overseas territory, but the UK Government threatened to impose change, which had the desired effect of ensuring changes in domestic legislation.
On Second Reading and in Committee, the Minister was very clear that he wanted to see public registers in the overseas territories and was working to get them, so why has he scaled back on his ambitions in recent weeks? Undoubtedly, the UK Government need to work closely with our overseas territories to help them to diversify their economies away from a unique selling point of secrecy, and that will require a great deal of support.
As we look ahead to a global, post-Brexit Britain, let us seek to lead the world rather than just follow. Let us ensure that transparency is increased. Let us ensure a fair playing field for businesses and individuals across the world. Let us ensure that tax cheats, corrupt individuals, terrorists and organised criminals have nowhere to hide. For the benefit of UK taxpayers, for people in the developing world, and for the UK’s reputation and that of our overseas territories, let us not miss this opportunity. For all these reasons, I urge the House to support new clause 6.
Mr Mitchell
New clause 6 is an important probing amendment. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister says before I decide whether to vote for it. One of the most important aspects of the Bill is tackling corruption and standing up for openness and transparency. The Government deserve enormous praise for the work that they have done—landmark work, really—not only here but in the G20, in trying to tackle corruption. That is what this new clause is about.
Conservative Members join the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who spoke to the new clause very eloquently, in saying how much we regret that the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) cannot be here today. Given the reason for that, I hope that she will send the right hon. Lady the House’s best wishes. I should correct her on one point. She said that Back Benchers signing this new clause might have been leant on by the Government or were signing it in spite of being leant on. I am happy to confirm to the House that no one has tried to lean on me in this respect.
I think that the Minister will have to do a little better than in his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on his Tajikistan bridge example, because my hon. Friend was absolutely correct. The Administration of Tajikistan may well be colluding with the owners of the bridge, but that is not the point—the point is to enable civic society to hold the powerful to account. That is why we support transparency. That is why, when I had the privilege of being Secretary of State for International Development, we introduced the transparency initiative. We put everything we possibly could into the public domain. It is why we should all support a free press. Although it may be rumbustious and unruly from time to time, a free press is nevertheless a bastion of our liberties. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. A lot of the stuff that is the subject of this new clause leaks out anyway in the back pages of Private Eye or whatever. It is much better to put the whole thing on a formal setting and have it made public. The Government, particularly the former Prime Minister and the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles) in his capacity as the anti-corruption tsar, have made huge progress on this.
Will the Minister give us the flavour of the Government’s thinking on the slightly differing treatment of the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies? It would be helpful for the House to understand that. During the run-up to the tabling of this new clause, I was visited by officials of no fewer than five of the dependent territories, supported by the Falkland Islands, although I think that that was a matter of solidarity rather than direct interest. They made some very important points, which no doubt we will hear about from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), who chairs the all-party British Virgin Islands group. First, they say that if they have an open public register, they will suffer a competitive disadvantage—and that is true. Their answer is that if they are going to do it—they do not have an objection in principle to doing so—they think that everyone else should do it as well. They point out that the potential effect on their income, which could reduce quite substantially, might well push them back into dependency. That is a fair point. The Government’s answer should be to try at all times to narrow the footprint of the areas that can hide behind secrecy.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who speaks with great authority and commitment on these matters. I will come on to a practical matter on which I disagree with him, although I do not disagree with the objective that he seeks to achieve.
I endorse the thrust of the Bill, as my right hon. Friend has just done, and the observation—it is worth repeating, and it is all the more important as we look towards the world as it will be after we have left the European Union—that Britain is a world leader in transparency and effectiveness at dealing with financial crime. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) was right to stress the value of the Serious Fraud Office’s work. It is extremely successful and highly regarded the world over, not least because it is operationally independent of any investigating authority. Many of us believe that it would be quite wrong to do anything to change that arrangement. The SFO works well as currently constituted, and it has an international reputation as a leader precisely because of that important independence.
I turn to new clause 6. I have much sympathy with what the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has said, but I do not think that new clause 6 is an appropriate or proportionate way to achieve the desired objective. Let me set out why. Before I do so, I should declare an interest as the secretary of the all-party group on Gibraltar, one of the British overseas territories, and I am also a member of the all-party group on the Channel Islands, which are Crown dependencies. Crown dependencies are not covered by new clause 6, but they are covered by other new clauses.
My concern is that the way the argument is put assumes that all the overseas territories should be lumped in together, which I do not think is fair. I particularly want to address the position of Gibraltar. Its position is different, first, because of the nature of its constitution and, secondly, because unlike other overseas territories—I do not criticise or make any comment about them—it is, in effect, part of the European Union. As part of the European Union, it has had to comply, and has done so willingly, with international and EU standards in the same way as the UK.
It is important not to lump Gibraltar in with other jurisdictions where there has been controversy. I say that specifically—it is important for the House to have this on the record—because I am afraid that some politicians on the other side of the land border in Spain unscrupulously seek regularly to slander Gibraltar and its constitutional and legal arrangements, doing so wholly unfairly to advance an unjustified claim against Gibraltar. I would not want anything said in this House in any way to give comfort to people seeking to do down a loyal and effective British territory, so we need to draw such a distinction.
There is a twofold point to be made about Gibraltar. Although I accept the 2010 White Paper’s observations about what can be done, I argue that it is undesirable to contemplate legislating, certainly in Gibraltar’s case, because to do so, even by Orders in Council, would have the effect of abrogating the 2006 Gibraltar constitution. The constitution gives Gibraltar, and the democratic and elected Gibraltar Parliament, entire home rule in matters relating to its economy and domestic legislation, save only those matters reserved to be exercised by the Governor on behalf of the British Crown.
Caroline Flint
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, who should be “right honourable”. I absolutely agree that it is very welcome that Gibraltar has complied not only with the EU initiative, but with the OECD as well. I would gently ask him, however, why Gibraltar is not in favour of following the UK route of having a public register of beneficial ownership?
Robert Neill
The reason was very properly and sensibly set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. There is a risk of a competitive disadvantage, and as I have said, we must bear in mind the situation in which Gibraltar finds itself. I suggest it would be inappropriate for it to be at a competitive disadvantage compared with other Mediterranean jurisdictions, some of which are not well disposed towards it.
Gibraltar has done a great deal, and continuing dialogue is a sensible way forward. It would not be appropriate to legislate, particularly as undermining Gibraltar’s constitution, even if it was legally possible theoretically—I suspect it would be challenged in the courts—would be most undesirable politically, because our commitment to Gibraltar must be made particularly clear as we leave the European Union.
It is worth adding that Gibraltar has taken very considerable practical steps and has been recognised internationally for doing so. It is worth simply saying that it has transposed all the necessary EU directives into its law—perfectly willingly, without any difficulty and of its own volition—and it has also complied with all OECD initiatives in this regard. It has gone beyond that to establish a central register, under the terms of the fourth anti-money laundering directive, for which the deadline is this June. It has entered into an exchange of notes to accelerate access to all UK authorities for investigative purposes. It has agreed to the EU5 proposal for the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership with participating countries, covering all EU countries, including Spain. Gibraltar has therefore been extremely willing to co-operate, even with countries that do not always behave well towards it, and that needs to be recognised. The Gibraltar Government are actively looking at the 5 July 2016 EU proposal to amend the fourth anti-money laundering directive by introducing a register, and that ought to be their decision. As I think the Minister would confirm, Her Majesty’s Government have worked very closely with Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar on this issue. A constructive dialogue is taking place, which is the right way to deal with it.
Finally, before I move on to Crown dependencies, it is worth saying that Gibraltar’s record of effectiveness in the exchange of information was recognised by the 2014 OECD “Phase 2” review, when it was ranked as largely compliant. That is actually a very high ranking, which ranks Gibraltar as being as good in terms of compliance as the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. Gibraltar, therefore, is doing the job. That really needs to be stressed, so that others do not misuse the linkage, which, in Gibraltar’s case, is not borne out by the evidence: it has some 135 tax information exchange mechanisms with some 80 countries; it has already implemented the Financial Action Task Force recommendations with the United States and the United Kingdom; and it is implementing common reporting standards, the global standard, along with the UK and other countries. I therefore suggest it would be heavy-handed and inappropriate to involve Gibraltar in this approach when it is already doing so much.
I would like to touch on the Crown dependencies, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. Frankly, I think the constitutional position is more difficult because they are not, and never have been, subject to the United Kingdom. Their allegiance is purely to the British Crown, not the United Kingdom. The difficulty of attempting to legislate for them would be real and profound in constitutional terms. That is why the relationship falls under the Ministry of Justice and their legislation is signed off by the Privy Council. The new clauses that seek to bring them into the position here are not well-conceived legally in that regard. That is the key issue.
It is also worth observing, since the Justice Committee recently visited all three Crown dependencies as part of an inquiry, that they, too, are up to the highest standards of reporting and ensuring information is readily available to the authorities. It is worth saying in relation to Jersey, but it applies to them all, that a report by Moneyval, an established body of international repute, stated:
“Jersey’s combination of a central register of the UBO with a high level of vetting/evaluation not found elsewhere and regulation of TCSPs of a standard found in few other jurisdictions has been widely recognised by international organisations and individual jurisdictions as placing Jersey in a leading position in meeting standards of beneficial ownership transparency.”
Similar provisions, in different legislative forms, have also been made in the two other Crown dependencies. Again, it would be unfair, inappropriate and disproportionate to lump the Crown dependencies in with this issue.
We all share the same objective. We want to make sure there is maximum transparency and honest money in our system. For the reasons I have set out, however, I hope those who support the new clause, and other new clauses that have not yet been moved, will reflect and conclude that this is not the appropriate legislative vehicle to achieve that objective.
Sir Henry Bellingham
I, too, would like to say a few brief words on new clause 6. I declare an interest: I chair the all-party British Virgin Islands group and I am a former Minister with responsibility for the overseas territories.
I am well aware of the challenges in Africa. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) mentioned the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He and I will remember when Tullow Oil had its licences expropriated by the Kabila Government. It transpired that the interface company was a BVI-registered shell company in which Kabila, and part of Zuma’s family, had shares. It would have been very useful if we had been able to confirm that at the time.
I entirely accept that looking to the future and envisaging public registers across the world makes a lot of sense. What I am very worried about—this is the only point I am going to make—is that if new clause 6 is passed and territories like the BVI lose their business model, there would be a massive exodus by legal services, accountancy firms, banks and so on. They would have to then rely on tourism, and it could well be that they move back to being dependencies.
The other issue is this: would it solve the problem? No. The companies registered in the BVI, the Cayman Islands or the Turks and Caicos Islands would simply register elsewhere in countries that do not have public registers. They would go to Panama or Colombia. Indeed, I saw recently that the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore have said specifically that they will not bring in public registers until the rest of the world moves on. New clause 6 is well intentioned, but we should be very mindful of the unintended consequences.
Apart from the BVI losing its business model, those unintended consequences would include, above all else, the loss of some excellent intelligence and exchange of information arrangements. For example, the BVI has in place a beneficial ownership secured search system that enables our crime and fraud agencies to co-operate immediately and confidentially to get the information required. If these companies were registered elsewhere in the world, we would lose that crime-busting capability.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I rise to support new clause 6, to which I added my name in the full confidence that I was merely endorsing what I understood to be Government policy on ensuring transparency on these matters in the overseas territories, that policy having been announced by the previous Prime Minister. I find myself genuinely puzzled, therefore, about why that is apparently no longer Government policy, and I wish to raise some issues and put some questions that I hope the Minister can answer so as to reassure me and other hon. Members who have supported the new clause in good faith that there are good reasons why it should not go forward.
First, I thought that the argument about transparency had been established. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) suggested that transparency would, in itself, be an undesirable thing for the overseas territories to have to undertake, but it seems to me that we might well have applied that argument to the position in the UK. Had we accepted that argument, we would not have taken action here in the UK to require transparency.
Mark Field
It is fair enough that I be allowed to defend myself. I was making the point that while I favoured full transparency towards law enforcement agencies and the tax authorities, I did not support there being a full, open and public register at this stage, because I supported the idea of banking privacy.
Nick Herbert
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for clarifying what he said, but my point still stands, which is that we have taken action in the UK to require such publication. Why is it right in the UK but wrong in the overseas territories? That was the point I was seeking to make. Perhaps the Minister can explain.
Secondly, I understand that constitutional objections have been raised to the new clause. The argument is that it would be wrong to insist that the overseas territories take action. If so, why did we propose it in the first place? As a result, hon. Members like me now find themselves on the wrong side of the Government’s opinion, when we thought we were supporting a policy in our manifesto. If there is a constitutional objection, was it not surprising that the previous Prime Minister announced the policy of transparency for the overseas territories?
Is it even right that the British Government never impose policies on our overseas territories? In 2000, the Government, by Order in Council, decriminalised homosexuality in the overseas territories. I doubt that many Members would oppose that policy, although I suspect it was opposed in many of the overseas territories. Do hon. Members say that the British Government were wrong to do that? Murder might still be a capital offence in some of the overseas territories had the Government not insisted on the abolition of such capital crimes in 1991. The principle is established that the Government are constitutionally entitled and have in practice, where there is an overriding public policy justification, legislated in relation to the overseas territories.
The third argument advanced against this measure is that the overseas territories are doing it anyway. We are told that it is not necessary to back new clause 6 because the overseas territories are well on their way to doing the right thing, but that takes us back to the question of what it is that they are doing. If they are producing registers, that is welcome, but my question still stands: why did we think transparency was a good thing, but now no longer believe that it is a good thing? We have reset that bar. We are now saying that the overseas territories are on their way to doing the right thing, but the right thing is now defined merely as the register, and it is no longer transparency.
I think the reason this has happened has been revealed by some of my hon. Friends for entirely honourable reasons, and it is that some of these overseas territories and therefore some of my hon. Friends fear that there will be a competitive disadvantage for the overseas territories if they are required to produce a public register as the new clause suggests, in the way they will eventually be required to do, and as the Government suggested at one point that they should.
However, let me say simply that if we accept the argument that being at a competitive disadvantage is an obstacle to taking measures against tax evasion or corruption, this House would do very little on those issues. It can always be argued that we could be putting our own banking arrangements or those of other countries at risk by taking steps deemed to be in the public interest on the grounds that they could produce corruption. To turn that around, if we accept the argument on competitive disadvantage, there would be no reason why the House should not reverse all the measures taken on banking transparency and establish some sort of regime that used to pertain in countries like as Switzerland where there would be wholesale banking secrecy, because that would be good for business and it would place us at a competitive advantage by comparison with other countries. It could be argued that such a thing would be entirely acceptable.
Clearly, that would not be acceptable. We have taken the opposite view: there is a reason to demand transparency and that transparency is essential in order to tackle corruption. We are talking about measures that are necessary to protect not just the UK taxpayer but the poorest countries in the world, which are disadvantaged and penalised because people are able to siphon off funds unlawfully and immorally and shelter them in various regimes. We are apparently saying that we are willing to accept that, because if we take action against it, some other regime will perform that immoral task. That seems to me to be a wrong position for the House of Commons to take, and if it were accepted, we would not have a Bill such as this one or any transparency measures at all.
I therefore hope that the Government will reconsider their position. New clause 6 is entirely reasonable, providing a period of time for the overseas territories to comply with the transparency requirement. I, for one, will take a great deal of convincing that something that was held by the Government to be desirable and that we hold to be desirable and right in our own country is wrong for the overseas territories.
Mark Field
I have spent the last 16 years as the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, and six of those years as an adviser to an international law firm with a substantial Isle of Man presence—Cains. Over the last two years, I have been the vice-chairman for international affairs for my party and have therefore had many dealings with and much knowledge of these sorts of issues.
I fervently agree with the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) that there has been a significant journey—indeed, a massive change—with respect to the mentality around beneficial ownership, getting registers together and having a certain openness about those registers. It is a journey that is ongoing.
I think it realistic to believe—my hon. Friends the Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) presented some powerful arguments in this regard—that there is a real risk of competitive disadvantage applying to a number of the overseas territories. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out, and as was recognised by the right hon. Member for Don Valley, the Crown dependencies are in a different legal and constitutional position. They are not part of the United Kingdom. They have their own legitimate and democratic Governments, and I think it would be quite wrong for the Government to railroad them, whether by means of Orders in Council or through the Bill.
My instinct is that we shall return to these issues. I support the Government: I do not think that the time is ripe for a provision such as new clause 6. It would, however, be wrong to assume that a huge amount of work has not been done quietly behind the scenes. I know from my own experience, and the experience of many other people, that in recent years there has been a sea change in the attitudes of a number of the overseas territories, and certainly in those of the Crown dependencies, many of which are ahead of the game when it comes to elements of the transparency agenda. I think there is a real risk—which was very well described by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk—that if we were to impose this provision on the overseas territories in such short order, a huge amount of business would leave those shores. Some would say, perhaps with some legitimacy, “We do not want to have this business here.”
I believe that we should continue the work of recent years, and consider global protocols that would prevent competitive disadvantage from coming into play. Surely that would be a better regime. I think it entirely wrong to perceive all our overseas territories as terrible tax havens where illicit work goes on. They have an astonishing amount of technology, which I have seen at first hand in, among others, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, to enable them to co-operate instantaneously with law enforcement and tax authorities in the event of any suspicious transactions.
I hope that new clause 6 will not be pressed to a vote, or that the Government will win if it is. However, I also hope that the Minister will give us some idea of how he sees the future, given the ongoing conversations about a global protocol that we could all support.
Richard Arkless
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). His homeward commutes on Thursday evenings fill me with the utmost envy. Perhaps he would enjoy my regular seven-hour journeys up and down. However, he made a very interesting speech. Indeed, the contributions from Members on both sides of the House have been very informed and enlightening.
I do not want to take up too much time, but I want to touch briefly on some of the new clauses before I hand over to the other Front Benchers. New clauses 2, 3, 14, 15 and 4 extend the principle of corporate economic crime, which has been discussed at length today. The Bill incorporates a failure to prevent such crime, but only in relation to tax evasion. As others have said, it would appear sensible, given the current climate and the public mood, to extend that provision so that the liability reaches the tops of organisations.
I have mentioned this in the House before, but, as a lawyer who had some in-house experience working for a large retail bank, I can say with the utmost certainty that sticking one’s head above the parapet and telling the bank that it is wrong is not the course of action that is most conducive to one’s career. I did not fall foul of that myself—I avoided that particular pitfall—but I think that I probably would have done so at some future time.
I think the public would demand that the concept of corporate economic crime be extended beyond tax evasion. I think they would be surprised to learn that the bank would not be held liable for LIBOR-rigging, for instance. Of course, the individuals concerned were prosecuted under different laws, but there was no corporate criminal liability for the boards of directors or for the banks themselves. I do not think the public would thank us for a corporate economic offence that extended only to tax evasion. It is tax evasion, for goodness’ sake. I think the public would expect companies such as banks and other large organisations to be held criminally liable for something as obvious as tax evasion. It is a great shame that the Bill has not grasped the nettle. The Minister may, of course, have something miraculous to say. I suspect, however, that we are not going to have an extension of corporate economic crime, which is a real shame.
Dr Huq
This group of new clauses contains a fair few of ours, so I shall take a bit longer than I did last time. I want to speak to new clauses 6, 16 and 17 and I want to press new clause 17 to a vote.
Tax evasion was big news in 2016 following the publication of the Panama papers, which threw light on certain opaque offshore companies. Following the leaking of those papers, the overwhelming sentiment was that something needed to be done, and this Bill is that something—or rather, it introduces a set of somethings to deal with the problem. It introduces new corporate offences that will no longer be reliant on the defunct guiding mind principle, it creates unexplained wealth orders and it contains some other eye-catching stuff including the failure to prevent offences under the category of a politically exposed person. It also makes necessary amendments to our pre-existing anti-terrorism legislation. The Minister has pointed out that the Bill builds on a raft of Labour-initiated legislation, including the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the Bribery Act 2010 and the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006. On the whole, we support the Bill, and all this stuff is not to be sniffed at.
I also want to mention the new additional monitoring, which the Minister announced on the spot a little earlier, relating to the human rights abuses mentioned in our debate on the first group of new clauses.
As the Bill has progressed, however, it has become apparent that there are chinks in the armoury for fighting money laundering. We welcome what is in it, but concerns are being expressed not only in my party but by a range of charities and non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Traidcraft, Transparency International, CAFOD and the ONE Campaign. They are concerned about what the Bill does not contain, and the elephant in the room is the issue of beneficial ownership and the UK’s inaction in tackling the financially secretive companies and practices that lie at the heart of the economies of many of our overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Beneficial ownership is entirely not present in the Bill. It is conspicuous by its absence. In other words, I am referring to our “tax havens.” The silence seems bizarre given that we are talking about money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing. Whether the Government like it or not, the matter must be addressed. The issue falls within the Bill’s remit because overseas territories are facilitating, aiding and abetting financial crime. The last time I was at the Dispatch Box I said that the UK, along with its overseas territories and Crown dependencies, is the biggest secretive financial jurisdiction in the world, so we have a special responsibility to act and to lead on this agenda, not to be slightly less bad than everyone else. The UK is facilitating some of the largest and most well-known tax havens, so we should be leading not following.
When the Government have been told that they need to “get real” not just by me in Committee but by the court of public opinion after the scandalous events of last year, they need to toughen up and get a grip on overseas territories and Crown dependencies because they facilitate illicit financial activity on a global scale, but the same excuses follow and have been trotted out today: the UK does not have the constitutional legitimacy for the overseas territories and Crown dependencies; and the territories are supposedly adhering to international standards anyway, so making them adopt public registers of beneficial ownership is not necessary. We are also told that the Government do want the territories and dependencies to adopt such registers, that they are working towards that, and that in the light of the progress made the threat of an Order in Council is unnecessary.
The Government say that the time will be right when the rest of world follows the UK’s lead and that they will set a global benchmark for financial territories. At the sixth sitting of the Bill Committee, the Minister told us that only when the time is right and only when there is an international standard for public registers of beneficial ownership will it be imperative for our overseas territories and Crown dependencies to follow suit. He actually claimed that the Crown dependencies and overseas territories with financial centres are already way ahead of “most jurisdictions”, including most G20 nations, on tax transparency. We were told that they are doing enough and that now was not the time to upset the applecart with public registers, particularly when they have agreed to adopt centralised registers. The Minister may recognise his own words from Committee in response to an amendment of mine that was pretty much identical to new clause 6:
“I certainly think that these places”—
the overseas territories and Crown dependencies—
“have come 90% of the way, and we should see whether that works for us. We all have the intention”—
to adopt public registers—
“and the United Kingdom is leading by example.”
In response to our threat of an Order in Council, he said:
“The new clause is a very strong measure. We should not impose our will on the overseas territories and Crown dependencies when they have come so far.”
This is the interesting bit:
“It is important to recognise that we have got where we have through cajoling, working together and peer group pressure, which…makes a real difference.”––[Official Report, Criminal Finance Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 199-200.]
That already seems slightly contradictory.
On the one hand, we hear that we cannot legislate for the dependencies. In fact, I remember the Minister calling me—someone whose parents suffered the worst excesses of the British empire—a neo-imperialist. It was certainly the first time that anyone has called me a neo-colonialist or whatever it was. At the same time, however, we clearly are able to do something and have the option to stop turning a blind eye and to turn inactivity into activity. The Minister himself insisted that the proposal was a “strong measure” that is less preferable to his own formula of cajoling and behind-the-scenes pressure.
Mr Wallace
Will the hon. Lady recognise for once that through cajoling and peer group pressure all Crown dependencies and overseas territories will by this year have central registers of beneficial ownership or similar? That is ahead of many G20 countries that do not even have central registers. We have actually come a long way and a lot further than when Labour was in government.
Dr Huq
I listened carefully to what the Minister said, and he said something similar in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). I will literally eat my hat—not that I am wearing one—if that happens. The registers must be in a format that is easily convertible to public registers.
We are not there yet. As someone who conducted empirical social science research, I wonder where the 90% figure came from. I know such things are often said across the Dispatch Box—in this case, it was in a Public Bill Committee—on the hoof, in the heat of the moment, and I would not want to label the Minister as a purveyor of fake news, but does he really think that we are 90% of the way there? Even if Government Members say that we do not normally do this, there is always a time when, if needed, we can step in, and the Labour party would argue that that time is now.
Mark Field
The specific problem is about legislating for the overseas territories rather than the Crown dependencies. I think it is understood across the board that this does not apply to the Crown dependencies. We all recognise that significant progress has been made in recent years, so will the hon. Lady pledge at this juncture not to press new clause 6 to a Division? Let us see further progress in the months and years to come that will hopefully ensure that we move towards a global protocol that keeps everyone happy.
Dr Huq
First, I would like to finish what I was trying to say. I was coming to the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, which I realise are two different things. I would also like to hear what the Minister has to say, because at earlier stages of the Bill he was conciliatory and we backed down on some things.
We are dealing with not just new clause 6 but new clause 17. We are looking at both overseas territories and Crown dependencies because, internationally, the UK will be able to lecture and persuade others to adopt transparent finance practices only if its overseas territories and Crown dependencies stop engaging in—
Dr Huq
I will carry on for the moment because I want to make some progress—I am not able to get a sentence out at the moment. The hon. Gentleman will be referenced later in my speech. We worked well together under his excellent stewardship of the Justice Committee.
The previous coalition Government’s White Paper on the overseas territories has already been quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. It referred to how, as a matter of constitutional law, the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the overseas territories. The phrase “unlimited power” is pretty clear. On the Crown dependencies, which the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) mentioned, it appears that not only the Government but the SNP, given the remarks of the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless), who was a member of the Justice Committee with me, have accepted, or been cowed into believing, that the Crown dependencies are somehow untouchable.
I want to quote from a report by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). The Justice Committee’s 2010 report on the Crown dependencies stated:
“the restrictive formulation of the power of the UK Government to intervene in insular affairs on the ground of good government is accepted by both the UK and the Crown Dependency governments”.
A list of examples was given, but the hon. Gentleman probably knows it better than I did, because he wrote it.
Robert Neill
It would not be unreasonable for the hon. Lady to note that I was not Chair of the Justice Committee at that time. Can she give me any example of a time when the United Kingdom has specifically legislated for a Crown dependency, as opposed to acting under the prerogative power through the lieutenant governors, which indeed itself has not been done in many years? The overseas territories are not the same as the Crown dependencies legally. I honestly urge her to reflect on that, because she is genuinely on shaky legal ground.
Dr Huq
As I have said, there seems to be a lack of will. The hon. Gentleman talked at length about Gibraltar—[Interruption.] If he will listen to what I say back to him, that might be useful. There is a lack of will to act. People have been lobbying all of us, probably including him. The fact that we have the power to make a change is more significant than examples—if this is needed, it can be done. New clause 16 does not coerce anyone to do anything, but it sets out steps that would facilitate matters.
Richard Arkless
Given the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, it is of course open to this place to legislate on Scotland. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that she would legislate on matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament?
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Huq
I would like to make progress. I will not take any more interventions, because I am still at the very beginning of my speech and the Whips are telling me that they want me to conclude.
The question is not, “Can we do this?” but, “Is it right to do this?” It will come as no surprise that I think that the answer is yes. The Government’s White Paper made it clear that when the law is not working, or there has been a breakdown in order—corruption was mentioned —the UK has the power to act.
Dr Huq
It would help if Members were listening to me. How many times have I given way? Numerous times—more than anyone else in our proceedings, which have been going on for many hours—so I would like to make some progress.
Even if, as has been mentioned, it is the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands that are prolific offenders—I think that the British Virgin Islands come up the greatest number of times in the Panama papers—it does not completely absolve the Crown dependencies. Several Members have tried to untangle the difference between Crown dependencies and overseas territories. The Isle of Man managed to rack up 8,000 entries in the Panama papers and is being singled out by the Canadian revenue authorities for investigation. Let us not forget that in October 2015, HMRC defeated the Isle of Man on a tax avoidance scheme that took place from 2001 to 2008 and left a hole in our finances of £200 million. That is a not insignificant sum, and it is money going from our Exchequer. How many hospitals and schools could we have built for that? I do not know the precise answer; it is a rhetorical question. In 2007, the tax havens of Guernsey and Jersey were investigated by our Serious Fraud Office in one of the biggest corruption investigations in African history. These things often join up; the money moves around.
The point is clear: the very structure of the laws pertaining to finance in these places, coupled with their deliberate adoption of complex and opaque institutional structures, is crying out for reform. Globally, these dependencies are at the heart of undermining the rule of law—something that we hold dear—in other countries due to the corruption that they facilitate. Their laws therefore clearly need to be changed, and there is undeniable scope for us to change them. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who is sadly absent, has said, there is a moral case for us to act, even if there might not be an identical incident in which we have so acted. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley referred to polling that shows enormous public support for such an approach—some 80% of people in a recent poll.
The Bill Committee was told that public registers are not an international norm and that our Crown dependencies and overseas territories are somehow exemplars because they have adopted closed registers of beneficial ownership. Lamentably, that might look like a bit of an alternative fact—dare I say that. I have here a piece of paper—in fact, it is three sheets stapled together—with a list of 46 jurisdictions. Those countries are all dependencies of G20 nation states, so they are in a similar constitutional position to our overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and they all have centralised registers of beneficial ownership. Shall I read out all 46, or does the House want just a smattering? They are: the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Christmas Island, the Cocos Keeling Islands, the Coral Sea Islands—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady is not going to read out all 46, is she? She has made her point most eloquently, so there is no need to list all 46. We do not read long lists in this Chamber, and the House has got the point she is making.
Dr Huq
I am most grateful for that clarification, Madam Deputy Speaker. Some of those on the list are the DOM-TOMs—the départements d’outre-mer and the territoires d’outre-mer—so there is a long list, including Guadeloupe and Martinique, but I shall move on.
It is a bit of a nonsense for the Conservative party to claim that the overseas territories and Crown dependencies are leading the world in financial transparency because of the creation of central registers if 46 other dependencies are doing that already. Not only have some been incredibly slow to catch up with the aforementioned countries, but some of our Crown dependencies and overseas territories are among the worst offenders and have not adopted centralised registers, let alone made them public. More accurately, they have adopted platforms.
The Government ask us to believe that the British Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands will be able to police their own financial businesses by relying on those businesses, which facilitate crime. It is asking them to mark their own homework and to be judge and jury. Call me a cynic, but I doubt that that is a workable solution. Do we really believe that anonymous companies in the British Virgin Islands—which, for example, allowed the former wife of a Taiwanese President to illicitly purchase $1.6 million of property in Manhattan—would be capable of policing themselves?
There are several other examples. Would Alcoa, the world’s third largest producer of aluminium, be capable of policing itself when it has used an anonymous company in the British Virgin Islands to transfer millions of dollars in bribes to Bahraini officials? Would the anonymous British Virgin Islands-based company used by Teodorin Obiang, the son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, really be capable of policing itself when it allowed him to squirrel away $38 million of state money to buy a private jet? It was thanks to the US Justice Department that he was caught. The Government’s protestation that we are working with the territories and dependencies, and that we are 90% of the way there, is at best highly questionable.
Dr Huq
No, there is more.
The main point I want to make is that our Government should be at the forefront of the push to cast off the cloak of secrecy under which terrorists have previously been able to fund their attacks and gangsters have stored their ill-gotten gains. We should not be dragging our feet on this. Some of these jurisdictions, including the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, have hidden behind the fig leaf of the consultation.
I shall dispense with the rest of what I was going to say, but we wish to press new clause 17 to a Division—[Interruption.] If anyone had listened to me, they would know that I was largely talking about the Crown dependencies.
In conclusion, we could have gone all the way and become the gold standard for other Governments to follow. We could also have dealt with the public disquiet over perceived levels of tax evasion, which the former Prime Minister, to his credit, wanted to tackle. This massive oversight undermines not only the claims made by the former Member for Witney, but citizens in some of the poorest developing countries of the world, which are at the end of these complex supply chains of criminality. Those citizens are the main losers in all of this.
The Home Office’s press release that accompanied the publication of the Bill said that the new offences were aimed at
“sending out a clear message that anyone doing business in and with the UK must have the highest possible compliance standards.”
Although we agree with large parts of the Bill, it does, none the less, fall short. New clause 17, which Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition wish to press to a Division, would go some way towards addressing a number of these issues.
Mr Wallace
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). I will take this opportunity to respond to the many points that have been raised in this debate. It is a regret that the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) is not in her place, but it is for fully understandable reasons. I pay tribute to her for the work she has done in campaigning for tax transparency, and I send her my best wishes at this time.
Let me now turn to the main thrust of this debate. What has dominated our proceedings is this question of whether our British overseas territories and Crown dependencies should have public registers of beneficial ownership. I am a supporter of transparency. I was the first Member of this House to publish my expenses—long before that was required. It was not a popular thing to do at the time, but I am a great believer in transparency. I learned that from my time in the Scottish Parliament, because I am also a great believer in respecting devolution and respecting constitutional arrangements.
Let me say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) that we have not changed our ambition. Our ambition is still to have public registers of beneficial ownership in the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. I repeated that to the leaders of those territories and dependencies just two weeks ago, but how we get there is where there are differences. We must recognise that, ever since David Cameron held that anti-corruption summit, we have come a long way—I am not sure whether it is 90%, 89%, or 85%. I do not know the percentage—I did not do the same course as the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton. None the less, we now have a commitment to keep either central registers or linked registers. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) needs to recognise that it is perfectly possible to link registers and to interrogate them centrally. We aim to fulfil that commitment by June 2017.
We are also committed to allowing our law enforcement agencies to have automatic access to those registers. We already do that in some of those territories, with requests coming back within hours. As a Home Office Minister, I am charged with ensuring that we see off organised crime, tackle corruption, and deal with money laundering. I believe that our arrangements do allow us to deal with potential crime and tax evasion. If I did not think that, I would not be here making the point that now is not the time to impose that on our overseas territories and Crown dependencies. I have faith that, at the moment, the capabilities of our law enforcement agencies enable us to interrogate those systems and to follow up and prosecute those people who encourage tax evasion not only in this country, but in other countries. This Bill gives us that extra territorial reach that many other countries do not have.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Can the Minister give the House a categorical assurance that none of the money made from ill-gotten gains of criminal activity, through fuel fraud in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is illicitly put into those countries?
Mr Wallace
We find criminals using banking systems all over the world to hide their money, whether that is in Northern Ireland, London, the Republic of Ireland, Crown dependencies or elsewhere. Such places have agreed to work with our law enforcement agencies, and we will allow their law enforcement agencies access to our databases in order to follow up such activity.
The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton underplays the success of the United Kingdom’s leadership role. Without imposing on democratically elected Governments in those countries and without imposing our will in some sort of post-colonial way, we have achieved linked registers and access to registers for our law enforcement agencies across many Crown dependencies and overseas territories. We might compare ourselves with our nearest neighbours, the major economies—with all due respect, I do not mean Christmas Island—such as Germany and other European neighbours such as Spain. We are the ones with a public register and we, not them, are the ones ready to have a unified central register. Perhaps we should start by looking at the major economies, rather than sailing out on a gunboat to impose our will on overseas territories that have done an awful lot so far in getting to a position in which I am confident that our law enforcement agencies can bring people to justice. That is the fundamental point of this principle. We have not abandoned our ambition. We have decided that the way to do it is not to impose our will on overseas territories.
The Labour party’s new clause 17 is probably constitutionally bankrupt, if I may use that phrase. It would certainly cause all sorts of problems, although I am not sure that we can actually impose our will on a Crown dependency like that. All the good words of the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton seem to have disappeared because the new clause leaves out overseas territories and would apply only to Crown dependencies. If Labour Members think that such a provision is right for Crown dependencies, why is it not right for overseas territories? I do not understand why they have left that out, although I suspect it is because, when it really comes to it, Labour Members do not know what they are talking about. If the Labour party wanted to be successful with this, it might have done it in its 13 years in Government.
I respect devolution and constitutional arrangements, and it is important to do that at this stage. Crucially, if we do this in partnership, we will get there. When we see people being prosecuted and the system of information exchange between law enforcement agencies working, we will have arrived at a successful point. I am confident that we will get there. I do not shy away from telling the overseas territories and Crown dependencies that our ambition is for transparency but, first and foremost, our ambition is for a central register that is easily interrogated by our law enforcement agencies.
Nick Herbert
I welcome my hon. Friend’s restatement that the Government remain committed to transparency. Will he give some kind of indication of a timetable, once his policy of registers is fully in place, by which he expects the overseas territories to be able to move to full transparency?
Mr Wallace
The first commitment is for the central register to be in place by June this year. Where overseas territories have trouble fulfilling that—for example, they just do not have the capacity to do it—we have offered help to allow them to do so. Hopefully that means that we will keep on target. As for setting a date for the public register, we first have to complete our own, and get it up and running. Once we know what challenges are involved in doing that and seeing how it works, we can have a grown-up discussion with our G20 partners about when they will do that. We should not just focus on the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Major economies, including our own, are guilty of allowing people to hide illicit funds, which is why we introduced this Bill. I suspect we will find many funds laundered not in those small overseas territories, but in some major economies in the G20. That is important.
Mark Durkan
A number of the Minister’s hon. Friends used the argument of competitive disadvantage when speaking against new clause 6. That is not an argument that the Minister has addressed at the Dispatch Box. Will he assure us that he is not saying that, when the time might be right in the future, and as long as any of the territories cite concerns about competitive disadvantage, the British Government would just back off?
Mr Wallace
We do have to recognise that there is a difference between secrecy and privacy; we have to respect that and to understand when privacy is an advantage and when it is being used secretly, to create a disadvantage or to avoid detection. So the difference between secrecy and privacy is not as straightforward as it would seem. In our lives, we all deserve some element of privacy. Shareholdings in some very major private companies, for example, are not listed—they have to be declared—and that has been established for many years.
Mark Durkan
Just to clarify the point, some of the Minister’s hon. Friends said that their grounds for not supporting new clause 6 were that these territories would be put at a competitive disadvantage if they had to move to public registers. Is that the Government’s case, or is that argument being made by his hon. Friends, but not from the Dispatch Box?
Mr Wallace
The United Kingdom Government do not think they are at a competitive disadvantage, and that is why we are progressing with a public register ourselves. However, we will lead by example and by peer-group pressure; we will not lead by imposition. That is fundamentally the difference between the Government and some Members of the House. That is how we are going to get there.
Mr Wallace
No, I have to press on. I am sorry.
The damage caused by economic crime perpetrated on behalf, or in the name, of companies to individuals, businesses, the wider economy and the reputation of the United Kingdom as a place to do business is a very serious matter, and it comes within the area of corporate failure to prevent economic crime.
The Government have already taken action in respect of bribery committed in pursuit of corporate business objectives, and the Bill will introduce similar offences in relation to tax evasion. Both sets of offences followed lengthy public consultations, as is appropriate for such matters, which involve complex legal and policy issues.
That is why I confirmed in Committee that the Government would be launching a public call for evidence on corporate criminal liability for economic crime. That call for evidence was published on 13 January and is open until 24 March. It will form part of a potentially two-part consultation process. It openly examines evidence for and against the case for reform, and seeks views on a number of possible options, such as the “failure to prevent” model. Should the responses we receive justify changes to the law, the Government would then consult on a firm proposal. It would be wrong to rush into legislation in this area, but I hope hon. Members will recognise that the Government are looking closely at this issue, and I encourage them to contribute to the consultation process.
Let me move on to the issue of limited partnerships, which was raised by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) and more generally by members of the Scottish National party. I am grateful for the work they have done alongside the Glasgow Herald in highlighting the abuse of the Scottish limited partnership by criminals internationally and domestically, and it is important that we address that issue. We take these allegations very seriously—only recently, the hon. Gentleman highlighted another offence to me—and that is why a call for evidence was issued on 16 January by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the need for further action.
The “Review of limited partnership law” is an exciting document—I am afraid the graphics man was clearly not in on the day it was created—but I urge members of the Scottish National party to respond to it, and I know they have already done so. They will be interested in one of the questions, which asks:
“What could the UK government do to reduce the potential of Limited Partnerships registered in Scotland being used as an enabler of criminal activity, whilst retaining some or all of the aspects of those Scottish Limited Partnership structures which are beneficial?”
I know the Scottish National party will respond to that.
Richard Arkless
What can the Minister tell us about the mystery Committee that is sitting for one hour today and proposing a new type of limited partnership that will, in theory, step into the place of SLPs? That is the sticking issue for me. Is there anything he can say on that point?
Mr Wallace
Well, apart from asking the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath how he has enjoyed his hour on the Committee, which he has gone off to attend, I think we should look at this in chronological order. The review is taking place now. Whatever it produces will, of course, be responded to. If it is responded to in legislation, that will succeed whatever is being discussed in that Committee now.
I come now to the issue of tax evasion and the Opposition’s new clause 11, which returns us to the question of corporate transparency in overseas territories. I should stress that the new offences in part 3 of the Bill already apply in those jurisdictions. First, the domestic tax evasion offence applies to any entity based anywhere in the world that fails to prevent a person acting for it, or on its behalf, from criminally facilitating the evasion of UK taxes. The overseas offence applies to any entity that carries out at least part of their business in the United Kingdom. The only circumstances in which a company is outside the scope of these offences is where there is no connection to the UK: no UK tax loss, no criminal facilitation from within the UK, and no corporation carrying out any business. In those situations, it is for the country suffering the tax loss, and not for the UK, to respond. The corporate offences are by no means a one-size-fits-all solution for every country. However, I am pleased to report that Government officials have spoken to revenue authorities, regulators and businesses from across the world about the new corporate offences, and there has been significant interest in them.
Caroline Flint
I will not press new clause 6 to a vote. I do not believe that the Minister has really answered the points that have been made by hon. Members across the House. I am sure that this matter will be picked up in the other place, and I reserve the right to pick it up once again with my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) when it returns to this place.
Sir Edward Garnier
My new clause 2 was drafted and tabled before Christmas. Since then, I have had a number of meetings with my hon. Friend the Minister and we have also seen the Ministry of Justice’s call for evidence in relation to corporate criminal liability. In the light of what he has said this afternoon, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 17
Public Registers of Beneficial Ownership of Companies registered in Crown Dependencies
‘(1) In Part 1 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (introductory), after section 2A, insert—
“2AA Duty of Secretary of State: Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies registered in Crown dependencies
(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, in furtherance of the purposes of—
(a) this Act; and
(b) Part 3 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017
to take the actions set out in this section.
(2) The first action is, no later than 31 December 2017, to provide all reasonable assistance to the Governments of Crown Dependencies to enable each of those Governments to establish a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in that Government’s jurisdiction.
(3) The second action is, no later than 31 December 2019, to publish legislative proposals to require the Government of any Crown dependency that has not already established a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in that Government’s jurisdiction to do so.
(4) In this section—
“a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies” means a register which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, provides information broadly equivalent to that available in accordance with the provisions of Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006.
“legislative proposals” means either—
(a) a draft Order in Council; or
(b) a Bill presented to either House of Parliament.” —(Dr Huq.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you could advise me. I have been to Downing Street today, along with a constituent who had travelled all the way from west Cumbria to hand in a petition. Unfortunately, we were turned away at the gates. I was told that I would not be allowed to go to Downing Street to hand in a petition that had been booked in through the proper procedures. We had been offered a time to hand in a petition about health services, so it was understood what the petition was about. However, when I asked the security officer from No. 10 Downing Street why I was not allowed to hand in the petition, as had been agreed, he told me that today was “not a good day”. When I pressed him, he told me that I could hand in the petition “after Thursday”.
I am concerned that I have been prevented from handing in a petition that was properly booked in, through the proper procedures, because of a by-election, and that this has been politicised. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, on what is my best course of action?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for giving me a moment’s notice of it. She is clearly concerned and aggrieved. My initial response is to say to her that this is not a point of order for the Chair, or, for that matter, a subject for the House authorities. I understand her concern, not least in terms of personal inconvenience, and I trust that her point of order has been heard on the Treasury Bench. It is very much a matter for Ministers, with whom it has not been registered, but I repeat that it is not a matter for the Chair.
Third Reading
Mr Wallace
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Financial profit is at the heart of almost all forms of serious and organised crime, which directly affects the most vulnerable in society. The Bill will significantly improve our ability to tackle money laundering, corruption, tax evasion and terrorist financing. It is a key part of the Government’s critical work to reduce the flow of dirty money into the City and to cut off the funding streams to the fraudsters, money launderers and kleptocrats.
This country is the largest centre for cross-border banking. The UK is, and will remain, a good place to do business. However, the National Crime Agency estimates that up to £90 billion may be laundered here each year. I have made it clear—as has my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and, indeed, her predecessor—that we need to make the UK a hostile environment for those seeking to move, hide and use the proceeds of crime and corruption. In an increasingly competitive international marketplace, the UK simply cannot afford to be seen as a haven for dirty money. We must not turn a blind eye to the money of corrupt officials that flows through businesses, banks and property, and that is why the Bill is so important.
I thank the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), as well as the hon. Members for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) and for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin), for their input throughout the Bill’s passage so far. Other hon. Members have also brought considerable knowledge and expertise to the proceedings.
The Government, and I as the Minister concerned, have been determined to be open to input from all parties, and I am pleased that we have made some concessions towards addressing the issues raised. I know we have not dealt with all the concerns raised, but I hope that I have made sure that the Bill leaving this place is better than when it was introduced and that it has taken on the points raised by both the Labour party and the SNP, and indeed by my hon. Friends on the Conservative Back Benches.
We had further detailed debate of the Bill on Report today, with many well-informed contributions from all parts of the House. The debate has covered the scope of the unexplained wealth orders and other powers in part 1 of the Bill, as well as the corporate offences regarding the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion.
Of course much of today’s debate has focused on issues that were not part of the Bill itself, notably the new clause in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and others, which sought to impose sanctions on those involved in gross human rights abuse or violations overseas. The strength of feeling on this issue is clear, and the treatment of Sergei Magnitsky was undeniably deplorable.
This Government are committed to promoting and strengthening universal human rights globally. Our approach focuses on holding to account those states responsible for the worst violations of human rights and working with those states determined to strengthen protections against abuse. But we have listened to the House, and our amendment will allow for the recovery of property connected with torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment overseas. This sends out the strong message that those seeking to profit from torture and other serious abuses will not be able to do so in the UK.
The House also debated the commitments made by the overseas territories to tackling corruption and money laundering in their financial systems. The UK is at the forefront of the global approach to increasing corporate transparency and tackling tax evasion and corruption. That work started under David Cameron, and it continues.
I share the desire for the Crown dependencies and overseas territories to take further steps towards full corporate transparency. That is why this Government continue to work closely with them towards that goal, but we must recognise the significant progress they have already made, putting them well ahead of many other jurisdictions.
The Bill and the wider package of measures of which it is a part will give agencies the powers they need to ensure that crime does not pay in a Britain that works for everyone. It is important that these powers are available to all parts of the UK, but, as I have said, we will await the outcome of elections in Northern Ireland before we commence the provisions there.
The need for this legislation is significant and particularly timely as we negotiate our future relationship with the European Union. Now, more than ever, we must showcase the UK as one of the best places in the world to do business, as we form new ties with international friends and partners.
Serious and organised crime costs the UK at least £24 billion annually and deprives people of their security and prosperity. We task our law enforcement agencies with combating the evolving threat from both criminals and terrorists, and I pay credit to those agencies for all the work they do on our behalf, but without the necessary powers to pursue and prevent these illicit activities, they fight a losing battle.
This Government have done more than any other to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing, but the scale of the threat is clear and we must do more. This Bill sends the clear message that we will not stand for money laundering or the funding of terrorism through the UK, and I commend it to the House.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
We in the Opposition broadly support the thrust of this legislation, and we have noted that the Minister has proved to be a listening Minister, which we welcome.
Tax avoidance and money laundering are the opposite of victimless crimes. In the first instance, there are inflated asset prices in the territories where the money is laundered, and there is no bigger example of that than the housing market in this country, particularly in London. In some of the most expensive parts of London, we can walk down streets where most of the houses are completely empty. Some might be empty because it is the wrong time of year for their owner to be there, and others because they have been bought as an investment, but increasing numbers of those properties are being used to launder money, and if this legislation can bear down on that, it will be of value not least to people who are victims of the wildly inflated London housing market.
Tax avoidance and money laundering mean a loss of tax for some of the poorest communities in the world. I was in Ghana last year looking at tax avoidance and evasion, and I was struck by the fact that a woman selling drinks by the side of the road could pay proportionally more tax than some of the biggest drinks manufacturers in the world. These are distorted systems of taxation, and if this legislation can bear down on that type of tax avoidance, it is to be welcomed. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that we are beginning to return money to some of those territories, notably Macau. I believe that we have also signed an accord with Nigeria. Above all, this legislation is important for suppressing corruption. It is not just a law-enforcement measure; it is also, indirectly, an anti-corruption measure.
I remind the House that the genesis of the Bill was the Panama papers, which revealed extremely widespread and highly lucrative avoidance of tax on an industrial scale. There were 11 million leaked files, and Britain was the second most prominent country in which the law firms’ middlemen operated. It was second only to Hong Kong. One British overseas territory, the British Virgin Islands, was by far the most popular tax haven state used by the firms in the documents. The Minister has said that we are at the forefront of taking action on tax avoidance and money laundering, and so we should be. The UK has sovereignty over one third of tax havens internationally.
We welcome the Government’s new clause 7, which will bear down on money recycled as a consequence of human rights abuses elsewhere. We still believe that there is insufficient scope for the civil recovery of assets, and the enforcement powers in the civil recovery provisions could be improved. There are particularly important omissions regarding the penalties for offences relating to the facilitation of tax avoidance, involving middlemen such as lawyers, accountants and straightforward spivs such as those identified in the Panama papers.
On the disclosure of beneficial ownership, we feel that there is a major problem, as the lack of disclosure can help to facilitate money laundering and corruption. Let us take an example. In the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consultation paper published in March 2016, the Government said that between 2004 and 2014, more than £180 million-worth of property in the UK was being investigated by UK law enforcement agencies as it was suspected of being funded by the proceeds of corruption. Moreover, more than 75% of those properties had offshore corporate ownership. That is believed to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of scale and of the proceeds of corruption being invested in UK property through offshore companies.
On the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies, I understand the technical argument that we cannot apply the same regime to those areas, but the moral issue is substantially the same. Some Members have spoken as though the populations of those territories as a whole benefit from financial services, but that is not the case. Only in recent years has the financial services industry been open to employing people born and bred on those islands in advisory, legal and management positions. Just because the political elites in those countries argue for light-touch regulation, let us not delude ourselves that financial services are helping the territories as a whole. We believe that the argument that we cannot impose proper standards on those territories is false. UK jurisdiction applies in all matters of defence and security, and the House has a right and a duty to see how best to impose those laws.
The people who are benefiting from the secrecy and the lack of regulation are the tax evaders and avoiders, the money launderers, the major criminal enterprises and the terrorist networks. We urge the Government to move forward on those issues. If legislation is required for onshore activity here in the UK, most reasonable people would argue that it is even more pressing to include overseas territories and Crown dependencies.
The Opposition are calling for a wide-ranging review of the UK tax gap, including an assessment of the loss of income tax due to tax evasion. As several Members on both sides of the House have said, if the legislation simply rests on the statute book and does not result in commensurate prosecutions, it will be a dead letter. We note that the Minister has listened thus far, and I hope that the Government and the appropriate Departments are listening when I urge them to ensure that the legislation amounts to more than just good intentions and that it is actively used to bear down on tax evasion, money laundering and corruption.
Mr Speaker
This debate has been concluded with notable speed.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Social Security and Pensions
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
I beg to move,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017, which was laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.
Mr Speaker
With this we shall consider the following motion:
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017, which was laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.
Caroline Nokes
With the leave of the House, and as you have indicated, Mr Speaker, my remarks will cover motions 3 and 4 on the Order Paper. In my view, the provisions in both orders are compatible with the European convention on human rights.
I will first deal with an entirely technical matter that we attend to in this place each year and that I do not imagine we will need to dwell on today. The Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017 provides for contracted-out benefit schemes to increase members’ guaranteed minimum pensions that accrued between 1988 and 1997 by 1%.
The Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017 reflects the Government’s continuing commitment to increase the basic and new state pension with the triple lock by 2.5%, to increase the pension credit standard minimum guarantee in line with earnings, and to increase benefits to meet additional disability needs and carer benefits in line with prices. The Chancellor reaffirmed this Government’s commitment to the triple lock for the length of this Parliament in his autumn statement on 23 November last year, ensuring that the basic state pension will continue to be uprated by the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5%. This year, the increase in average earnings and the increase in prices were less than the baseline of 2.5%, meaning that the basic state pension will increase by 2.5%. From April 2017, the rate of the basic state pension for a single person will increase by £3 to £122.30 a week. As a result, the basic state pension will be more than £1,200 a year higher from April 2017 compared with April 2010. We estimate that the basic state pension will be around 18.5% of average earnings—one of its highest levels relative to earnings for over two decades.
Last year, the Government introduced the new state pension for people reaching their state pension age from 6 April 2016 onwards, making the system clearer and providing a sustainable foundation for private saving. The Government have previously announced that the triple lock will apply to the full rate of the new state pension for the length of this Parliament. This is the first year that the new state pension will be uprated. As a result, the full rate of the new state pension will also increase by 2.5% this year, meaning that from April 2017 the full rate of the new state pension will increase by £3.90 to £159.55 a week—around 24.2% of average earnings.
We are continuing to take steps to protect the poorest pensioners, including through the pension credit standard minimum guarantee, the means-tested threshold below which pensioner income should not fall. The pension credit standard minimum guarantee will rise in line with average earnings at 2.4%, meaning that from April 2017 the single person threshold of this safety net benefit will rise by £3.75 to £159.35. Pensioner poverty continues to stand at one of the lowest rates since comparable records began.
On the additional state pension, this year state earnings-related pension schemes, the other state second pensions and protected payments in the new state pension will rise in line with prices, by 1%. The Government will continue to ensure that carers and people who face additional costs because of their disability will see their benefits uprated in the usual way, so disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carer’s allowance, incapacity benefit and the personal independence payment will all rise in line with prices, by 1%, from April 2017.
In addition, those disability-related and carer premiums paid with pension credit and working-age benefits will also increase by 1%, as will the employment and support allowance support group component and the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit.
This Government will be spending an extra £2.5 billion in 2017-18 on uprating benefit and pension rates. With the guaranteed minimum pensions increase order we continue: to maintain our commitment to the triple lock for both the basic and the new state pension for the length of this Parliament; to increase the pension credit standard minimum guarantee by earnings; and to increase benefits that reflect the additional costs that disabled people face as a result of their disability, and carers’ benefits, in line with prices. That includes increases to the disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carer’s allowance, incapacity benefit, the personal independence payment and disability carer premiums.
I commend the orders to the House.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I will start with some general comments on the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017 before turning to the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017.
Clearly we support the uprating of the guaranteed minimum pension in line with prices. However, I wish to touch on issues raised in last year’s National Audit Office report on the guaranteed minimum pension and the new state pension arrangements that came into effect last year. As we have heard, the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order provides an annual increase in the guaranteed minimum pension where there has been an increase in the general level of prices during the period under review.
When the additional state pension was introduced in 1978, an option was created under which an individual could contract out into another pension scheme on the basis that that other scheme met certain criteria. In that instance, both the employee and their employer paid a reduced national insurance contribution given that they were forgoing the state pension entitlements. Between 1978 and 1997, schemes that took on such new members were required to provide a guaranteed minimum pension—a new test was applied after 1997. Nevertheless, contracted-out schemes still had to provide a guaranteed minimum pension to scheme members for rights accrued between 1978 and 1997.
In 2016, the introduction of the new state pension ended contracting out by replacing the additional state pension with a single tier. Working-age people will now have their existing state pension entitlement adjusted for previous periods of contracting out and transferred to the new state pension scheme. Occupational pension scheme providers will continue to revalue any guaranteed minimum pensions that people have built up.
For people retiring after 6 April 2016, the Government will no longer take account of inflation increases to guaranteed minimum pensions when uprating people’s new state pension. The changes mean any guaranteed minimum pensions accrued between 1978 and 1988 will not be uprated, and the scheme provider will uprate guaranteed minimum pensions built up between 1988 and 1997 only to a maximum of 3% each year.
The National Audit Office was contacted by people approaching retirement age who had concerns that the new arrangements for a single-tier state pension will leave them worse off than they would have been under the guaranteed minimum pension. People also raised concerns about the lack of notice. Where have we heard that before? The NAO investigated and concluded that there would be some winners and some losers under the new arrangements, depending on the amount of time that people were contracted into a scheme. The NAO also commented that, again, there had been a dearth of information for those new retirees.
The NAO suggested that those who lose under the new rules may be able to build up additional entitlement to the state pension. The report recommended that the Government, via the Department for Work and Pensions, improve their evidence and analysis of the impact of these reforms, and provide much clearer, targeted information to the public about how they will be affected. I would be very grateful if the Minister updated us on how her Department is responding to the findings of the NAO report.
The Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017 provides for the annual uprating of social security entitlements excluded from the Government’s freeze to levels of social security enacted in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. This year, the Secretary of State has decided to uprate social security entitlements by inflation under the consumer prices index measure, which is at 1%. As the Minister explained, that covers attendance allowance, carer’s allowance, disability living allowance, the personal independence payment, industrial injuries disablement benefit, bereavement benefits, incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance, to name but a few. The Secretary of State has also decided to uprate the new state pension in accordance with the triple lock, and pension credit in line with earnings, at 2.4%.
We would not stand in the way of measures to increase the adequacy of the social security safety net provided by those benefits, especially not after seven years in which the system has been under considerable attack. We will therefore support the uprating order, but I must take this opportunity to expand on my real concerns about the inadequate uprating, particularly in the context of the freezing of many social security payments under last year’s Welfare Reform and Work Act, and the real cuts to some kinds of social security support, such as the employment and support allowance, the support for those in the work-related activity group, the universal credit work allowances, and the widow’s pension allowance, which we discussed yesterday, again to name just a few. This is an erosion of the adequacy of social protection for those who are often the most vulnerable in society.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Surely the shadow Minister recognises that our support for those with long-term health conditions and disabilities has increased by £3 billion a year, to a record amount. That shows that we are directing money to the most vulnerable in society—rightly so.
Debbie Abrahams
I am grateful to the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People. Actually, we know that social security support will have declined by 2020.
Debbie Abrahams
The former Minister shakes his head, but these are the Government’s own figures. If we look at spending across Europe as a percentage of GDP, we see that we are below the EU average when it comes to social security spending, just as we are on health spending.
Let us start with rising costs. Traditionally, the link between social security and inflation has ensured that some of the most vulnerable households in our country are not made worse off, year on year, by inflation in the cost of basic goods and services. The adequacy of social security has been heavily eroded over the past seven years. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation demonstrates that the price of essentials has risen three times faster than wages over the past 10 years. When that is combined with the coalition’s initial 1% freeze on uprating, introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, and the complete social security freeze put in place in last year’s Act, it means that low-income households have seen a significant deterioration in the adequacy of social security support since 2010.
Clearly, the historic drop in oil prices and subsequent slow-down in inflation of the price of household goods provided some respite to low-income households, but we know that the impact of the EU referendum on, for example, food and fuel prices is only just starting. People on low incomes spend a much larger proportion of their household budgets on the essential goods and services that have been so prone to inflation, so they are likely to have felt the effects of spiralling prices long after they have slowed down.
The costs of basic household items are beginning to rise again, with last month’s official figures showing inflation at a two-year high of 1.8%. I understand that the actual increase in food prices has been approximately 20%, but that has only just started to be passed on to consumers, so it is going to get worse. That puts real pressure on households that are trying to provide for their basic needs. Indeed, last week the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report showing that 19 million people are now struggling to make ends meet and get the basics required for a socially acceptable standard of living.
In the context I have set out, a 1% uprating to some social security entitlements is unlikely to do much for those who are struggling to get by. If the Prime Minister is really serious about helping those people, I urge that there be some reconsideration. As a matter of principle, it seems only fair that social security should rise in line with inflation and should apply to all entitlements, not just the ones that the Government have cherry-picked. Although the economic arguments for a freeze may once have been founded on the slow-down in the prices of the basics that every household needs, now that prices are predicted to rise by 10% by 2020 even that weak economic justification no longer stands up. That is before we even get to the social argument for protecting the incomes of the poorest people in our society, whom this Government have set out to punish over the past seven years.
In last year’s inquiry by the all-party group on health into the effect of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 on child poverty and child health, the freeze on social security support payments was singled out as the most damaging. I remind Members that the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that child poverty will increase by around 1 million as a direct result of social security and tax changes, and that will impact on those children’s health and futures. I make an impassioned plea to the Government and the Minister: we are approaching April, when several other disability benefits will be cut; I urge the Government to reconsider.
I shall not detain the House any longer. I urge the Government to review the cap before price inflation begins to pick up again. If they really cared about those struggling to make ends meet, that is exactly what they would do. In the meantime, although we regret the limit on the groups who will benefit from the uprating, we will support the order.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I am glad we are able to debate these orders simultaneously. The Scottish National party will obviously not oppose the social security uprating order, and we certainly welcome the pensions uprating order, but this is an opportunity to put on record, again, our deep concern about the ongoing impact on low-income households of the freeze on working-age benefits. We are particularly concerned about tax credits, which are mostly paid to working families with children, and employment and support allowance, which is paid to those who are not currently fit for work but are in the work-related activity group.
Any of us who regularly pushes a trolley around a supermarket can be in no doubt that the price of basic foods and household essentials is rising, and rising sharply. The depreciation in the value of the pound last year has taken some time to filter through to retail prices, but increases in the price of imported food and other goods is now very visible. The Bank of England has made it clear that it expects inflation to remain well above the 2% target for several years.
Ahead of the Budget and looking further forward, I hope the Government will look again at the benefit freeze and recognise that those on low and middle incomes spend a much larger proportion of their income on essentials than wealthier households and are disproportionately affected by rising food and fuel prices. In that context, a 1% rise in those benefits that are included in the order is unlikely to keep pace with the increase in prices that we expect to see over the coming months. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) has already alluded to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation assessment of the rising costs of essentials, which should give us all pause for thought. One simple example is that many of the severely sick and disabled people who will receive a 1% uprating—those who receive ESA as part of the support group—have limited mobility and are likely to spend a lot of time at home. Inevitably, they incur high heating costs during the winter months, yet the cost of energy is rising. Some of the big energy companies have already made announcements of price increases, and others have said that they are set to follow. Benefits that will be uprated by 1% include most disability and carer benefits—ESA, carers and pensioners’ premiums, statutory maternity and paternity pay and statutory sick pay. All are paid to people who are likely to be disproportionately affected by rising energy costs, and all are paid to people who are unable to work or who are limited in their ability to work.
Financial hardship is an increasing reality for households affected by sickness and disability and, as prices rise, that will only get worse. Even with increases to the minimum wage and personal allowances, large numbers of working parents and disabled people are significantly worse off in real terms and are finding it harder than ever to make ends meet.
When even the Financial Times is highlighting, as it did earlier this month, the strains on household finances that are already apparent and is warning that
“a combination of falling living standards and rising inequality would be extremely dangerous in today’s febrile politics”,
we should really heed the warnings.
I want to turn now to pensions and highlight the proposed increase in the single-tier pension. This has been the first full year that the new single-tier pension has been in effect, but I get the very strong impression that it is poorly understood among the general public.
Although I welcome the 2.5% increase in the single-tier pension, I am not at all clear how many pensioners will actually receive the full benefit of that increase. We know that there are both winners and losers in the transition process and that most new pensioners will not receive the full single-tier pension. Before its introduction, it was estimated that only around 22% of women and half of men reaching state pension age would be entitled to the full single-tier pension. Perhaps the Minister can clarify what has happened in practice and whether those sentiments were right. What proportion of male and female pensioners have received the full whack, and what ongoing impact assessment has the Department undertaken?
Perhaps the Minister can give the House an update on the pensions dashboard. I get the sense that there are real gaps in most people’s knowledge of the new system and that many people coming up for retirement are in for a nasty shock when they realise that they will not be eligible for as much as they think.
In this context, it would be very wrong not to mention the WASPI women, many of whom got insufficient and wholly inadequate notice of the shift in their pension age, and who, as a consequence, will lose enormous sums of money over the course of their retirement.
This week, I had a letter from a constituent who is one of the WASPI women. She did not get proper information about the changes and she has had no time to plan for them. She is facing an uncertain future in more ways than one in that she is currently undergoing treatment for cancer. She says that she does not know whether she will ever receive her pension. She is hopeful that she will make a good recovery—certainly I send her my good wishes. She makes the sobering point that none of us knows what is around the corner. There is a basic injustice here and that is why, even though she is ill, she is determined to fight for a fairer settlement. We can and we must do better by these thousands of women who are losing out.
While we are on the subject of women and gender inequality in pensions, I have to say that I am sorry that, in the past year, the Government have removed savings credits for new pensioners. Around 80% of those who previously benefited from savings credit were women, most of whom will have spent their working lives in low-paid jobs and are unlikely to have had access to an occupational pension scheme. Nevertheless, these are people who have managed to save, against the odds, despite the limited opportunities available to them. There is little enough incentive for people in low-paid jobs to save, and reducing savings credit and abolishing it for new pensioners erodes that incentive even further.
Pensions uprating is a wistful dream for some pensioners. Those who have frozen pensions are left out of the uprating. That is still a very live issue, and one that is likely to be more acute in the months ahead. There are those who are entitled to a UK state pension by virtue of having worked for it and of having paid their contributions but who have, for whatever reason, spent their retirement domiciled abroad. They face very different circumstances depending on whether their country of residence has a reciprocal agreement with the UK for the uprating of state pensions. Those in countries that do not have a reciprocal arrangement with the UK see their pensions frozen at their initial retirement level so, in real terms, the value of their pension falls every single year.
There are thought to be more than half a million people with frozen pensions, mostly in Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, but also in countries with strong family and historical links to the UK such as India, Pakistan, parts of the Caribbean and Africa. The issue will only become more acute in the months ahead as the UK leaves the European Union and European economic area. UK pensioners who retire to sunnier parts of the continent—there are thought to be 400,000—currently get their pensions uprated throughout the EEA as normal, but reciprocal arrangements will need to be put in place when we leave the EU if those pensioners are not to find themselves in the same difficult situation as those living in Canada and Australia. I hope that the Minister will be able to share the Government’s thinking on that issue, and tell us what steps they are taking to protect UK pensioners who live in other parts of Europe.
We need to deal with the fact that many of those approaching pension age, who have lived through an era of globalisation, will have worked in several EU countries and may have accrued pension rights in several parts of Europe, with wee bits of pension in several systems. That is true for many people who have worked in global industries or for multinational corporations. It is a bit of a minefield, and it would be immensely helpful if the Minister offered reassurance to UK pensioners living in EU countries that those issues are on the Government’s radar and will be addressed. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to address all the issues I raised as she closes the debate.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), speaking from the Opposition Front Benches, for their contributions. I will attempt to address the specific points raised in full.
The Government did respond to the National Audit Office report outlining the online Check your State Pension service, which now delivers personalised information to people many years in advance. The report also acknowledged that the aggregate impacts of the reforms need to be taken into account. Taking account of all elements of the reform, about 75% of people will receive more from the new state pension by 2030 than under the previous systems. There is no statutory requirement for formerly contracted-out pension schemes to increase for those accrued between 1978 and 1988. The Government do not intend to introduce legislation requiring those schemes to index pre-1988 guaranteed minimum pension rights. This needs to be set in context with the changes to the overall pensions landscape. Other aspects of pension reform may offset the loss of indexation—for example, maintaining the triple lock in this Parliament. Since 2011, the basic state pension has risen by £570 a year more than it would had it been uprated by earnings.
Work, not welfare, is the best and most sustainable route out of poverty, which is why our tax and welfare reforms are designed to ensure that work pays and that increased earnings are rewarded, rather than penalised. However, we remain committed to supporting people who cannot work and those with additional needs, which is why the orders provide for an additional £2.5 billion in 2017-18 to increase benefits for pensioners, carers and the additional costs of disability. We have had to make difficult decisions on spending. To protect those with additional needs, we are increasing the ESA support group component in line with the consumer prices index, and will also increase the enhanced disability, severe disability, carer and pensioner premiums.
The Government are committed to building a country that works for everyone, which is why the forthcoming Green Paper will identify and address the root causes of child poverty, building on the new statutory indicators of parental worklessness and children’s educational attainment, which were set out in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan will be aware that the current policy regarding overseas pensions is a longstanding one of successive Governments that has been in place for almost 70 years. Many Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, have pension systems that take account of overseas pensions as part of their means test. That means that a significant proportion of any increases in the UK state pension would go to the respective Treasuries of those countries. The hon. Lady is, of course, right to point out the issue of British overseas pensioners in other EU member states. Let me reassure her that their rights are part of the negotiation process. The Government are committed to getting the best deal for those pensioners.
The Government will be spending an extra £2.5 billion in 2017-18 on uprating benefit and pension rates. We will be spending over £2.1 billion more on state pensions and pension credit; nearly £0.3 billion more on disabled people and their carers; and £100 million more on people who are unable to work because of sickness or unemployment.
To conclude, the Government are continuing their commitment to the triple lock for both basic and new state pension for the length of this Parliament. We are increasing the pension credit standard minimum guarantee by earnings, and increasing benefits to meet additional disability needs, and carer benefits, by prices. I commend the order to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Pensions
Resolved,
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017, which was laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.—(Caroline Nokes.)
Business without Debate
18:31 - divided: - Ayes: 273 / Noes: 107 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I inform the House that the motion relates exclusively to England. A double majority is therefore required.
Petitions
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on the future of our state-run nursery schools. It is the petition of the many parents and supporters of schools such as the Fields Children’s Centre in Cambridge. Those schools do brilliant work that is now threatened by funding changes.
The petition reads:
The petition of residents of Cambridge,
Declares that nursery schools have very good outcomes with regard to closing the achievement gap as well as supporting children with complex educational or medical needs; further that the petitioners are concerned by the Government’s proposals for early years funding that would mean that local authorities would pass on 95% of early years funding from central government directly to early year providers; further that should the proposals be accepted all nursery schools in Cambridgeshire will find themselves in dire financial difficulties; and further that the proposals would lead to a loss of early years provision as well as job losses for nursery staff.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to drop their proposal that would require local authorities to pass on 95% of early years funding from central government directly to early year providers.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002014]
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Banks are more than a utility; they provide a service to communities up and down the land. Today banks are changing definitions and moving the goalposts so that they can close more branches, including in my constituency. This is being done by all banks, at a time when they are seeking to rebuild trust. The people of Odiham want to make it clear to this House—they have done so well into their four figures—that they want their local bank to remain.
The petition reads:
The Humble Petition of the people of North East Hampshire,
Sheweth,
That Lloyds Bank have proposals to close the Odiham High Street branch on 8th March 2017; that this high street branch is particularly highly valued; especially by older residents and small business owners who often pop in to manage their finances; and that if accounts are moved to Fleet, this becomes a four hour return journey by public transport, which is clearly not in the best interests of our community
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges HM Government to take all possible steps to urge Lloyds Bank to reconsider this decision and to make sure that the banking industry considers the social implications of their actions
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
[P002016]
SS Mendi
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
A hundred years ago today, just before 5 o’clock in the morning, the troop ship Mendi—on its way from Plymouth to Le Havre, in the company of HMS Brisk—was rammed by the freighter SS Darro in thick fog off the Isle of Wight and sank within just a very few minutes. More than 600 mainly black South African Native Labour Corps volunteers were killed in what remains one of the biggest maritime disasters in our waters in our history. On average, about 6,000 men were killed each day throughout the great war, which might explain why the death of 600 men in one incident, dreadful though that is, went unremarked in the House at the time. A search of Hansard will find no contemporaneous reference to it. I am very pleased to be able to rectify that this evening.
It is said that, as the Mendi slipped below the waves, the 65-year-old Reverend Isaac Dyobha steadied the men with these words as they conducted the death dance on the sloping deck:
“Be quiet and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basutos and all others, let us die like warriors. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war cries, my brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais back in the kraals, our voices are left with our bodies.”
Now, that is probably apocryphal, but the event became an iconic moment in South Africa—a rallying point for black consciousness in the years that followed. Post-apartheid, the Mendi has become a staple in the South African national story: monumentalised, used to name warships, and used to name this day—South Africa’s armed forces day. It is the inspiration for South Africa’s principal civil award for courage, the Order of Mendi. Still deeply and uncomfortably controversial in South Africa, we will probably never know the full details of what exactly happened on that cold foggy night, but the fortitude and dignity of the labour corps volunteers is beyond doubt. War is never glorious, but those who serve in it often are, as this episode so clearly demonstrates.
John Gribble and Graham Scott, in their excellent account of the sinking published this month by Historic England, describe what happened after the collision. There was, of course, a Board of Trade inquiry, conducted over five days in London. The penalty handed down to the Darro’s master seems unduly lenient, given that he was going much too fast in thick fog and failed to observe the rules for the prevention of collision at sea. Worse still, he stood off as men drowned, giving rise to a much circulated story that he was disinterested in rescuing men of colour. It has to be said that that allegation is unsubstantiated. The wreck was rediscovered in 1945 by a Navy hydrographer, and was explored by the Isle of Wight diver, Martin Woodward, in 1968.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for commemorating the centenary of the sinking of SS Mendi. He will be aware that the SS Mendi was positively identified by one of my constituents, Mr Martin Woodward. Mr Woodward has a museum in Arreton, where the bridge telegraph from SS Mendi is exhibited—it is a very great memorial.
Dr Murrison
Indeed. We have to be very grateful to Mr Woodward. He was, I believe, a self-taught diver who dived in an old hard hat rig. In those days—the 1960s—diving off the Isle of Wight was quite something. It would have been difficult work. I am yet to visit his museum in Arreton, but I will certainly make it my business to do so when I am next on the island.
In 2009, the Mendi was designated as a war grave by the Ministry of Defence. In 2012, English Heritage commissioned the excellent Wessex Archaeology, which is based near my constituency, to research the wreck and produce a report.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this subject forward for debate. Does he agree that it is only right and proper to remember those who sailed off to fight in a war that, it could be argued, was theirs not by fact, but by the principles of freedom and democracy? It is fitting that we in this House play our part by commemorating the souls lost on that fateful night.
Dr Murrison
Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. These volunteers—they were all volunteers—could have seen this as somebody else’s war on the other side of the world, but they did not. For whatever reason—I suspect there was a mixture of reasons and motives—they travelled 6,000 miles to serve in the conflict on the western front, while others served in other theatres of the great war. We have to be extremely grateful to them for their work and, in many cases, their sacrifice.
The Wessex Archaeology report produced in 2012 and the board of inquiry report serve as the authoritative primary sources on this tragedy. It is good to note that from today, the 100th anniversary, the Mendi qualifies under the 2001 UNESCO convention on the protection of the underwater cultural heritage.
Today’s centenary is an occasion, first and foremost, for us to commemorate brave men who lost their lives in Britain’s icy waters, but it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on the world as well as the war, since the war to end all wars drew many thousands from around the globe to its killing fields. The historiography and remembrance of the great war have, for 100 years, been overwhelmingly of the white war fought by white men in Europe, but the jigsaw has some missing pieces. The centenary is an opportunity to find them and fit them. Drawn from India, China, the Caribbean, Egypt and across Africa, as well as the UK, the labour corps were an essential part of the great war story. Neglected for too long, they must now be heard.
Some 100,000 men served in the Chinese Labour Corps and 40,000 in the French equivalent under arrangements with the Chinese Government. They were seen as cheap labour and dismissed as “coolies”, and the UK trade unions resisted their employment in the British Isles. In 1917, there was a reluctance to allow black men to raise a hand against whites, even against the enemy on the western front—they might, after all, develop a portable taste for it, which was an alarming prospect for the Union Government of Louis Botha.
The South African Native National Congress, the predecessor of the African National Congress, sensing an opportunity to advance the prestige of black people and further its political ambitions, offered to raise combatant troops but was rebuffed by Pretoria. So although non-whites did fight in theatres where the enemy, too, was likely to be non-white, they served on the western front as unarmed labourers. In France and Flanders, they were treated as second class and were penned up in compounds like prisoners of war. When they returned home, the Government in Pretoria failed to live up to earlier promises, denying them campaign medals bearing the relief of a monarch in whose name they had been prepared to sacrifice all. One veteran said he felt
“just like a stone which, after killing a bird, nobody bothers about, nobody cares to see where it falls”.
None the less, South African Native Labour Corps members returned to their homeland utterly changed, with perspectives, horizons and ambitions that would not suit their rulers. One white officer told his men:
“When you people get back to South Africa, don’t start thinking that you are whites, just because this place has spoiled you. You are black, and you will stay black.”
Some will say that this is inconvenient history, that we must not judge yesterday by the standards of today, and that we have no business raking it all up, but I would argue that the great war centenary is the last opportunity to shine a light on the unremembered. The story will be incomplete and partial for as long as they remain in the shadows.
The experience of the great war centenary so far has been that the candid and respectful exploration of shared history, however uncomfortable, has not driven people apart or reignited hurt and grievance, but brought them together. We saw that so well last year in the island of Ireland, in the commemorations surrounding the centenary of the Easter Rising and the Somme offensive. To my mind, the Mendi tragedy is primarily a heartrending story of stoicism and bravery in the face of adversity, but inevitably it also prompts difficult questions about attitudes to race in the early 20th century, the progress made over 100 years and where we are today.
The story of the SS Mendi, like the battle of Delville Wood during the Somme offensive of 1916 has, of course, particular resonance in South Africa, but we must commemorate it, too, in the United Kingdom. There is a danger—
Dr Murrison
We must commemorate it, too, in the UK, because there is a danger that some communities in modern Britain may get the impression that they have little equity in what we as a nation are commemorating during this four-year centenary, and that it has nothing to do with them.
On Friday, in the presence of the South African high commissioner, I had the great privilege of launching an engagement project funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government, called “The Unremembered: World War One’s Army of Workers”. Created by the Big Ideas Community Interest Company, it ensures that communities across the UK will remember the 616 brave men of the South African Native Labour Corps and 30 crew members who lost their lives on 21 February 1917. Over the coming months the project will explore men from across the globe, as well as from the UK, who went to theatres of war not to fight, but to dig trenches and latrines, build hospitals and roads and carry food, water and the wounded. Unremembered will encourage and support communities to explore the role of labour corps during the great war and after it in the great clean-up operation that set about restoring normality to the battlefield and reburying the dead under the supervision of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making very powerful points, for which I pay tribute to him. Is he aware of the Hollybrook memorial in Southampton, which is dedicated to those who died on the SS Mendi? It might be a good idea for the Royal British Legion and local schools to remember this date in future years, so that those who died on that day 100 years ago will never be forgotten.
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Yesterday, a commemoration was held in Southampton to mark the loss of people on the Mendi. A service is held every year, with this year being particularly special, given the fact that it is the 100th anniversary.
Unremembered will reach out to Britain’s diverse communities, bringing to mind the world as well as the war, and reminding everyone that the events of 100 years ago are very much to do with them today. The Basotho, Pondo, Swazi, Xhosa and Zulu volunteers of 1917, some of them high born and educated, most far more modest men, believed that what they were going to 6,000 miles from home had everything to do with them. That was despite the political ambivalence at home of many in the already fractious Union of South Africa, despite the complex motives of some in relation to the nascent struggle for political and constitutional change and despite the second-class status labourers were given by those they came here to help. Denied the respect and recognition due to them in their time, we must honour them today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Rob Wilson)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) on securing today’s debate today on the centenary of the sinking of the SS Mendi. I should also like to commend him for the substantial role he has played in ensuring the success of the Government’s first world war centenary programme so far. The centenary programme provides an opportunity for us all to come together to honour the sacrifices made 100 years ago, and I am delighted to have taken over ministerial responsibilities for the programme.
I look forward to the national commemorative events planned to mark the centenary of Passchendaele—the third battle of Ypres—in Belgium this July, as well as the centenary of the Armistice in 2018. I am also grateful for the contributions that other hon. Members have made tonight, which have highlighted how important this subject is to the House. Every Member’s constituency contains many families who have lost loved ones in that war.
As my hon. Friend said, the sinking of SS Mendi was one of the worst maritime disasters in British waters, but it was also among the darkest moments of South Africa’s war. More than 600 men lost their lives, a figure second only to the number of casualties suffered by the 1st South African Infantry Brigade at Delville Wood during the battle of the Somme in 1916. The Mendi was carrying members of the South African Native Labour Corps, bound for the western front. The centenary gives us an opportunity to honour those who lost their lives that day, and to recognise the significant contribution of the various labour corps to the wider war effort.
Numbering more than 20,000 men, the South African Native Labour Corps was one of the most significant of the groups that served. The labour corps were drawn from the UK and from around the world: from South Africa, Egypt, India, Canada, China and elsewhere. At the beginning of the war, tasks such as moving stores, repairing roads and building defences were carried out by soldiers who had withdrawn from the frontlines for rest, but by early 1917, the need for labour on the western front had become critical as a result of the unprecedented scale of casualties suffered: I think my hon. Friend said that there were about 6,000 a day during the war. That was the catalyst for the creation of the labour corps. Maintaining the vast military infrastructure of camps, transport routes, stores and supply dumps and communications networks was a mammoth undertaking. Without the efforts of the labour corps, the Army and other fighting forces simply could not have functioned.
It is right for the events of 100 years ago not to be forgotten. I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) —who has ministerial responsibility for Africa—was able to represent Her Majesty’s Government at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Hollybrook cemetery in Southampton yesterday. In the presence of Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal, those brave men were honoured with the respect and recognition that they fully deserve on the 100th anniversary of their deaths. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important for us not to forget the discrimination faced by many who served in the labour corps. This anniversary is an opportunity for us to recognise our nation’s past, and to strengthen our ties with the nations that supported us and fought beside us. The Government are commemorating the centenary, as well as the wider role of the labour corps, in a number of ways.
The CWGC cares for the graves and memorials of the 1,300 members of the South African Native Labour Corps who lost their lives in the first world war. We know that the majority of those who died aboard the Mendi were never found, but nearly 600 are commemorated by name on the Hollybrook memorial in Southampton. As is the case with all the Commission’s cemeteries and memorials, every one of those named at Hollybrook is commemorated in the same way. In life they had very different experiences, but in death they are honoured with equal respect. The remains of 19 who died aboard the Mendi were recovered, and buried in cemeteries and local churchyards. Today their graves can be found along the coastlines on either side of the English channel. There are graves at Milton cemetery in Portsmouth—where a commemorative event took place on Friday—and also in France and the Netherlands.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Government are funding a community engagement project called “The Unremembered: World War One’s Army of Workers” to recognise the contribution of the tens of thousands of labourers who served in the first world war. I urge schools and communities throughout the country to take part in that important project, which will focus on the role of labour corps including the South African Native and Chinese Labour Corps, and will provide educational resources to enable schools and communities to learn more about them. Its aim is to further understanding of the impact of the first world war, to achieve positive community impact, and to raise awareness of local heritage sites, particularly the labour corps war graves and memorials that can be found in the UK. I would also like to remind organisations that the Heritage Lottery Fund has funding available to explore, conserve and share local first world war heritage. Thousands of young people and communities throughout the UK have already been involved in activities marking the centenary, and I encourage local communities to apply to this fund.
The centenary programme aims to commemorate all who served in the first world war and were impacted by it, and to provide opportunities for the public to rediscover our shared history. I therefore conclude today by paying tribute to all who lost their lives in 1917 at the sinking of the SS Mendi and all who were affected by it. Together, we will ensure that they have not been forgotten.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2017
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Percy)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2017.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. The draft order, which was laid before the House on 23 January, will implement three key elements of the devolution deal negotiated between the Government and the seven councils in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area: Cambridge City Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, East Cambridgeshire District Council, Fenland District Council, Huntingdonshire District Council, Peterborough City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council. First, it will create the position of a directly elected Mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough who will be accountable to the people. Secondly, it will establish a combined authority chaired by the elected Mayor with its membership drawn from the seven constituent councils. Thirdly, it will confer significant new powers and budgets on the Mayor and the combined authority, as set out in the devolution deal, notably for planning, housing and transport. The draft order will result in arrangements for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough that, in accordance with the deal, will materially contribute to the promotion of economic growth and regeneration throughout the area, improve productivity, facilitate investment, improve the area’s infrastructure and—all being well—drive up housing supply.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough devolution deal is built around the directly elected Mayor, who will be the necessary focus point of accountability when major new budgets and powers are devolved. It is one of a number of deals that we are implementing throughout the country in fulfilment of our manifesto commitment. Through the deal, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will gain control over a new £20 million-a-year funding allocation for 30 years, which will be invested in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough single investment fund with the aim of boosting economic growth, a £100 million housing and infrastructure fund, and an additional £70 million over five years, ring-fenced to meet the housing needs of the greater Cambridge area. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will also receive powers over strategic planning, the responsibility to create a non-statutory spatial framework for the area, and a devolved transport budget and responsibility for an identified key route network.
The draft order is made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, as amended by the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. Its origin is in the governance review and scheme prepared by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Councils in accordance with the legislation. The scheme sets out proposals for powers to be conferred on a combined authority for the area and for its governance and funding arrangements.
As is required in all such cases—the shadow Minister can attest to that from his knowledge of all the other combined authority orders that we have implemented—the councils had to consult on the proposals in the local area. The consultation ran from 8 July to 23 August 2016 and a summary of the responses to it was provided to the Secretary of State. For the draft order to be laid before the House, he had to be satisfied that the statutory tests were met; the fact that we are here this morning is proof that he considers that they were, and that the conferring of these functions is likely to lead to an improvement in the exercise of the statutory functions in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The seven constituent councils have also consented to the draft order.
The order provides for the establishment of a combined authority
“on the day after the day on which it is made.”
It also provides for a directly elected Mayor, who will be elected on 4 May this year and will take office on 8 May. The next election will be held in May 2021. In summary, the new powers enable the Mayor to create a strategic transport plan and confer on the combined authority the function to maintain a key route network—again, that will be exercised by the Mayor—as well as economic and regeneration functions. They also enable the Mayor and the combined authority to create a non-statutory spatial plan by conferring a general power of competence on them. Finally, they confer on the combined authority public authority functions relating to the devolved transport budget to be exercised by the Mayor.
The new powers will provide the combined authority and the Mayor with the powers needed to support the effective use of the new devolved budgets, which I have highlighted. The order also provides for the necessary constitutional and funding arrangements to support the Mayor and the combined authority. In particular, provision is made for the seven constituent councils to contribute to the cost of funding the Mayor and the combined authority’s activities.
In conclusion, the order devolves new wide-ranging powers to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, puts decision making into the hands of local people and will help the area to fulfil its longer term economic and social ambitions. I therefore commend it to the Committee.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I am pleased that we are discussing another devolution deal that is coming to fruition and that the local authorities in the areas consent to the proposals, which is why we are discussing them today.
Perhaps we need to go a bit further back to see why we are here at all. This was part of a wider devolution deal involving 22 councils across the East Anglia area. That came from the Government trying to impose their vision of what a devolved settlement could be, with extremely high bars for what was and was not acceptable, and extremely high expectations about direct accountability in a way that we do not see in Parliament. Rightly, councillors in the area were not happy with the settlement. People said, “Why are you expecting more from a local authority in terms of accountability than you expect from the UK Parliament?” We do not have a directly elected Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary of State, who continues to build his power base through a number of Bills that are coming through, is not directly elected either. However, for posts with a fraction of that power, the Government are demanding that direct elections take place in areas across the country. Moreover, they are demanding that the construct of those combined authority areas bears little relationship to community identity or historical partnership working in those areas.
There was a great deal of sense in Greater Manchester, which has a long history of working together, and not just before the county was disbanded, but since with the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities. Incrementally, ever more joint working was taking place and people were coming together. That is not the case in a great deal of the combined authority arrangements that are being introduced. They are very much artificial constructs that have been bolted together to try to justify the scale of devolution that the Government want. I repeat my fears from previous statutory instrument Committees: turnout could well be affected by people not having a connection to the posts being imposed.
I commend the councils in the area concerned for the consultation that was carried out. It had 4,000 responses, which is significantly more than we have seen in other areas, as was referred to in the councils’ summary document. However, there is a lot of cynicism about what the Mayor could be and what powers will really be devolved. We talk a lot about the devolution of schools—that has been covered in detail in reports in the public domain—but almost nothing has been said about the fact that education responsibilities are being taken away from the same seven local authorities in those areas. The Government need to clarify whether they are really willing to let go in order to let areas develop their own public services and economies, or whether the centre still wants to grab control back from local areas.
I am pleased to see that Cambridge City Council has managed to secure money in the devolution deal; the documentation that we have seen states explicitly that £70 million will be spent on a new generation of council housing. Many Labour councils throughout the country will look at that with a degree of jealousy, because many of them have consistently been restricted and blocked by the Government from bringing in new generations of council housing.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, is there a real desire to see genuine devolution of education, skills and training to local authorities? Will that include the reversal of the centralising nature of education in this country? Will the powers gifted under this devolution agreement be offered more widely, so that other areas can be given the opportunity and the funding to build a new generation of council housing?
Moreover, will the Government commit in the very near future—next week would be a good time, if the Minister has time on his hands after we deal with business rates this week—to introducing a framework of devolution in England that is clearly understood and available for all? There is now a significant kickback from areas—not just urban areas but Conservative shires—that do not feel that devolution is on offer to them, either because their community does not meet the requirements for a directly elected Mayor or because the artificial construct of a combined authority does not meet their aspirations for their areas or local economies. We cannot have a vision for a devolved England if we do not have a framework for it.
I ask the Minister to clarify those points. We do not intend to vote against the draft order. In the spirit of championing devolution, we look forward to seeing more devolved settlements in future.
Andrew Percy
It is always a delight to debate the future of devolution and the position of the Mayor with the shadow Minister, as we have done when considering every single such statutory instrument, and as we probably will when we debate the next draft order this afternoon. I welcome what I think is his tacit support for the deal and I will try to respond briefly to his points.
The shadow Minister compared the directly elected Mayor with the UK Parliament. As I keep making clear whenever we debate these statutory instruments, and as I will no doubt have to keep making clear in future such debates, the difference is that Parliament is elected from across the whole United Kingdom and is accountable for the decisions made throughout the country, whereas for these devolution deals there is nobody elected from or accountable for the entire geography of the area. When maximum powers and budgets are being devolved—shared funding is an example—we insist on having somebody accountable for and elected by the whole area, which would not be the case if we simply left it up to the combined authorities. His analogy with Parliament falls down at that point.
The shadow Minister spoke about the history of local authorities working closely together in Manchester. Manchester is probably the best example in England of authorities working together over a long period. For the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough deal, we have had to apply the statutory tests, which require that the area covers a functional economic area and that it improves the function and exercise of statutory powers. Both of those tests have been met. He also spoke about the scale of devolution. All I will say about that is that we have an investment fund of £20 million a year, a £100 million housing and infrastructure fund and a £70 million fund specifically ring-fenced for Cambridge City Council. That is substantial and very real devolution.
The shadow Minister asked about skills funding. As he will be aware from previous debates, a number of deals include the devolution of post-16 or post-19 skills funding. As one would expect, there is still a national policy on our education system, but the two do not necessarily run contrary to each other. We have made good on our pledges on devolution in the area of skills.
Jim McMahon
Does the Minister agree that there could be a compromise position? We could meet the objectives of having regional schools commissioners and of having devolved arrangements by allowing the boundaries for regional schools commissioners to be coterminous with those for combined authorities.
Andrew Percy
The problem with that is that we do not have devolution deals agreed in every location, so there will always be a different approach in different parts of England. Each deal is bespoke and we have negotiated different arrangements for post-16 and post-19 skills funding in each of them, as the shadow Minister will have seen.
The shadow Minister raised the devolution offer for England more generally. We have always made it clear that we take a bottom-up approach and that if areas want to come and discuss proposals with us, we will always be open to them. However, a lot of areas have decided that they do not want to proceed with devolution offers and deals. Other arrangements are available to such areas that might better meet their needs, including unitarisation or the merging of councils, but that is for the areas themselves to determine.
Finally, the shadow Minister spoke about turnout. As we have discussed several times in debates, the Department has put money into promoting these elections in May. In previous debates I have given the example of the mayoralty of London: people were not as enthusiastic about the first mayoral elections as one might have hoped, but they have become much more enthusiastic as the Mayor’s role has developed and grown in importance. These are new roles, and I am sure that local people will understand their importance once they see that the Mayor has significant powers and access to significant finance. We will do everything we can, along with the Electoral Commission and the councils themselves, to encourage people to take part in the May elections. These are substantial positions and the people elected to them will have access to quite substantial powers and budgets.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I do not intend to detain colleagues for long, but I have two brief questions and an observation. First, lest anyone watching the proceedings should think that the House does not take its scrutiny role seriously, let me say that I believe there is a mistake in the explanatory memorandum—on page 4, at line 6 of paragraph 7.3—which refers to something that happened on 8 November 2017. Perhaps the Minister could ask his officials to correct that, so that the electronic version is correct.
I certainly support the draft order, which seems to have broad local support. However, speaking as someone whose local authority area is not in a combined authority, could I ask the Minister to explain whether the local authorities underneath the new body that we are setting up will be slimmed down to some degree—or are we just creating a new structure without taking anything away? I am concerned about the totality of the public sector and how we pay for it.
I see that the Norfolk and Suffolk combined authority will not go ahead, because the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk was not happy with it. Will the Minister briefly give us his thoughts on whether individual district councils should continue to have the power of veto when there is broad support for combined authorities?
Andrew Percy
I can only apologise for the mistake in the date in the explanatory memorandum, although I have not been able to find it myself. The Opposition Whip, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe, is a former teacher, like me; I am sure that we are both disappointed not to have spotted that mistake for ourselves, but I am delighted that someone else did.
On the creation of a new structure, we must remember that the combined authority is made up of the local authorities. We are not creating a new elected body to sit as part of the mayoral combined authority; it is the local authorities working together and pooling their resources for the good of the local area. I therefore do not see it as creating a wholly new structure on top.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire tempts me down the route of talking about what happens in two-tier areas, as in this deal, and whether the local authorities underneath the structure might want to be “slimmed down”—a beautiful way of raising the prospect of unitarisation or of councils merging, which we know can be very controversial. All I can say is that that is an issue for the local authorities. If they wish to pursue a route of unitarisation or merger, it is for them to come forward with proposals for us to consider. We certainly do not require, as part of the deal, any change to governance structures beneath the new mayoral combined authority, but it is something that can be promoted locally.
On Norfolk and Suffolk, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that—
The Chair
Order. This is fairly precisely defined secondary legislation relating to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, so I would be grateful if the Minister stuck to that matter. I have tried to be relaxed about this.
Andrew Percy
I would be as delighted as you, Mr Stringer, if we could keep the debate as narrow as possible. All I will say in response, therefore, is that it is a requirement of the legislation that all local authorities in a devolution deal area consent to the creation of the combined authority. That has happened in the case of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough; in other areas it has not. Nevertheless, the legislation is clear that we require 100% consent to create the combined authority.
Question put and agreed to.
draft Tees Valley Combined Authority (Functions) order 2017
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Percy)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Tees Valley Combined Authority (Functions) Order 2017.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans.
The draft order, if approved and made, will be another important step in bringing to life the devolution deal that the Government agreed with the Tees Valley in October 2015. It will confer on the combined authority a power, to be exercised by the Mayor, to designate a mayoral development area. That is a necessary step in advance of the creation, by order, of a mayoral development corporation.
The order also includes transitional arrangements to allow the combined authority to act in place of the Tees Valley Mayor, before he or she is elected on 4 May 2017. The functions being conferred correspond to those held by the Mayor of London in relation to the Greater London area. The order confers the functions with appropriate modifications—I will restrain myself from talking about those at this stage but can say more later—to reflect the different conditions in the Tees Valley.
The implementation of the devolution deal agreed between local areas and the Government has already seen two orders made in relation to the Tees Valley, and there will be more. The first was the Tees Valley Combined Authority Order 2016, which establishes the combined authority from 1 April 2017 and includes the functions relating to economic development, regeneration and transport. The second order taken through the House is the Tees Valley Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016, which creates the position of Mayor for the Tees Valley, with the first election being on Thursday 4 May.
The order that we are considering this afternoon is the next step in implementing the devolution deal and it will enable the establishment of a mayoral development corporation in the south Tees area by summer 2017—but only, of course, if the Mayor and the combined authority wish to see that. We will confer further powers on the Mayor and the combined authority at a future date; indeed, we laid an order before the House on 6 February to do just that.
The draft order is made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, as amended by the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. Before laying the order, the Secretary of State considered the statutory requirements set out in the 2009 Act and he is satisfied that they have been met. In short, they cover the conferring of the functions on the combined authority being likely to lead to an improvement in the exercise of statutory functions across the Tees Valley. The Secretary of State has also had regard to the impact on local government and communities and, as required by statute, the five constituent councils and the combined authority have consented to the making of the order.
On the detail, the order confers on the Tees Valley Mayor and the combined authority the powers—appropriately modified, as I said—that the Mayor of London and the London Assembly hold to establish mayoral development corporations. Those powers include the power to designate mayoral development areas. The Mayor is required to notify the Secretary of State of a designation and the latter is then required by order, subject to the negative procedure, to establish the mayoral development corporation.
The powers also include the power to transfer property to the mayoral development corporation and to decide that the corporation has certain functions, in particular whether it is to be a local planning authority. There is also the power to appoint members to any such corporation. There are modifications that make the powers different from those that exist in London, but I will not go into detail about those at this moment.
The process for establishing a mayoral development corporation in the Tees Valley would be as follows. The Mayor would designate a mayoral development area if the Mayor considered that the designation would further economic development and the regeneration functions of the combined authority; if the Mayor had consulted on the proposal and had had regard to that consultation; if the Mayor had published the proposal and it had not been rejected by the combined authority within 21 days—the buy-in of the combined authority is important and gives a further element of local accountability; and if the Mayor had received the necessary consents from combined authority members and the North Yorkshire Moors National Park Authority.
Once the Mayor has made the designation and notified the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State must make the order to establish the mayoral development corporation. If the Mayor has yet to be elected, the chair of combined authority takes the place of the Mayor. Members of the Committee may be aware that the combined authority is currently consulting on a proposal for a mayoral development corporation to cover the SSI site and the wider 500-acre industrial site located there. That consultation started last December and runs for 11 weeks, closing on 10 March. As I mentioned, the order includes transitional arrangements that will allow work to continue at a pace to create a mayoral development corporation in the Tees Valley. The order also provides for the necessary funding arrangements to support the Mayor and the combined authority in delivering the functions.
In conclusion, the order devolves brand new powers to the Tees Valley combined authority, gives effect to the significant devolution deal that we have negotiated with the area, and puts local people and business leaders in a strong position to drive economic growth and regeneration in the Tees Valley. I commend the draft order to the Committee.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am standing in for my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), who leads on devolution for the Opposition. I would like to put on the record my thanks to him for his valuable work in scrutinising the devolution deals.
Today’s draft order is the next step in the process towards implementing the Tees Valley devolution deal. The Tees Valley combined authority has been created, and I look forward to supporting Sue Jeffrey in her bid to become the first female metro Mayor in the country.
The order gives the Tees Valley combined authority the functions it needs to execute the powers handed down by central Government in the devolution deal. That includes devolved responsibility for transport; the creation of a mayoral development corporation to examine what strategic sites should be developed; and the creation of a Tees Valley investment fund. Local leaders are supportive of devolution to Tees Valley, but their support is caveated. Local leaders did not welcome the imposition of a Mayor for the Tees Valley combined authority, but they have accepted it. In evidence to the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, Councillor Sue Jeffrey, the leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said:
“It is a price we are having to have, so we will make it work...We have to take what is on offer and do what we can with it.”
That smart and pragmatic approach has been adopted by all five councils and shows how people in local government operate best: taking what they can get to defend local communities even when the conditions are set by others. The imposition of a directly elected Mayor has been a barrier for a lot of other devolution deals that have not made it through.
On this side of the House, we support devolution, but it needs to be real and meaningful. We would do things differently. We believe that devolution should be bottom-up, not top-down. Forcing totally different parts of the country to adopt a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach contradicts the essence of true devolution. We are not opposed to the concept of Mayors where a well-run mayoralty can provide visible leadership and accountability, but we do not support imposing rigid governance arrangements, such as Mayors, as a prerequisite for the devolution of powers.
Devolution should mean that people and communities are free to choose the most appropriate model for their community. These devolution deals should be an opportunity to bring powers and decision-making closer to the people. However, the imposition of Mayors contradicts that and risks undermining public confidence in devolution. Does the Minister accept that different areas require different governance models, and that true devolution supports them to create their own suitable models?
People feel that the proposed devolution process is being done to them rather than being done with them. We have serious concerns about how that devolution process has been handled and the lack of buy-in from the public. We need to get that buy-in and to get them on side, but at the moment they are not a meaningful part of the debate. People do not feel remotely connected to the current devolution process, and because the public have not been brought on the journey, voter turnout in lots of areas could be very low. The Communities and Local Government Committee has warned the Government that such a disconnected, remote system, which has led to low turnout, will have implications for the democratic legitimacy of some elected Mayors.
The fledgling proposals could be undermined from day one, and mayoral positions could be tainted going forward. The Government must consider that possibility when designing the devolution deals. What are they doing to ensure greater public engagement and community buy-in for future devolution deals?
If we believe in devolution and in power being distributed closer to the communities that we serve, we need to let go of that power; we must not put unnecessary requirements on local areas to receive that power. Although Tees Valley has accepted the conditions of the devolution deal, we want to see progress made in places where a Mayor is not an acceptable option. Concerns have been expressed about the creation of a fourth or even a fifth tier of local government that could create a complex, over-bureaucratic, costly system of representation that does not reflect an area’s needs. It is wrong, however, that some areas are not being given devolved powers because of that. If the principle behind the order is about getting devolution going, at some point we will have to come forward with a devolution framework for all of England—one that does not pick off one area against another.
I hope that the Government will ensure that every area will get the type of devolution currently available only in some areas. Devolution should not mean excluding some places or leaving communities behind. What will the Department for Communities and Local Government do to ensure that those areas that did not accept a directly elected Mayor will still enjoy the benefits of devolution?
On Brexit funds, we need an assurance from the Minister about the implications for future EU funding. A key benefit of the Tees Valley deal was control over EU structural funds; the Tees Valley has been a long-term beneficiary of European funding and has secured a commitment worth £169.8 million over the current EU funding period. The combined authority was going to control that funding, and that control was an essential part of the devolution deal. In the light of the Brexit vote, Tees Valley needs clarification in view of the current instability about inward investment. Can the Minister offer reassurance to the Tees Valley combined authority that expected levels of funding, including those expected from the EU, will be maintained—not just until 2020, but after that? Will there be local control of those funds?
I appreciate that I have asked the Minister a number of questions; if he cannot answer them today, I would like him to commit to answer me in writing in the near future.
We share concerns about regional investment in the light of the gross disparities between infrastructure spending in the capital compared with the regions, so we are glad that the Tees Valley devolution deal includes control of the new £15 million a year funding commitment over 30 years; a comprehensive review and redesign of the education, skills and employment support system in the region; and responsibility for business support. That is key to the Tees Valley, given the importance of the chemical industries cluster and associated manufacturing industry.
I commend the work of the five councils in the Tees Valley combined authority and their efforts to secure the best possible deal for their area and community despite the constraints placed on them. However, the £15 million devolution deal over 30 years does not come close to compensating for the cuts that those councils have already seen to their budget—the Tees Valley area has seen cuts in excess of £240 million per year since 2010, which is a huge sum to lose from local authority budgets. Local authorities as a whole are facing a £5.8 billion funding gap by 2020.
One of our major criticisms of the Government’s approach to devolution is how they expect communities to flourish when they have systematically underfunded local councils and run down public services. I think the Minister would accept that we cannot empower local government by impoverishing it. The Labour party, in Parliament and in local government, is committed to supporting local areas to secure the deals that best suit local need and will best help them to meet the challenges they face in supporting their local communities. It is absolutely right that we continue the devolution journey.
The order is an important step if people believe in devolution and in taking power away from the centre and giving it to communities. Members on this side of the Committee welcome the order but we caution against this type of top-down devolution in the future, and express serious concerns about future funding. Nevertheless, we accept that this is another step on the journey to devolution across England.
Andrew Percy
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for what was a generally positive response to the journey of devolution if not, necessarily, to its structure. She is right about the shadow Minister. He and I have gone to head to head on every single one of these orders thus far. In every instance, we have debated the issue of a mayoralty, whether it was within or outwith the particular order before us, and have debated at length the future of devolution across the rest of England and the different structures and options available to local authorities who might wish to reform themselves.
We have also debated turnout, at length. In today’s Opposition it is not always clear that there is consistency but we certainly had consistency today from the shadow Secretary of State, which is something we do not see very often from the Opposition Benches. On that, she can go back and report positively—
Andrew Percy
This is a positive statement about the quality of the Opposition in the shadow CLG team, in that they seem to be on the same side.
The shadow Secretary of State made particular mention of a candidate, so I should even it up by saying that we have an excellent candidate in Ben Houchen. I hope, and feel, that this could be the year for us in the Tees Valley.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The Minister just mentioned the Conservative candidate for the Tees Valley mayoral elections. Does he agree with that Tory candidate’s comments about the SSI blueprint? He said that it was laudable example from the Government—after the loss of 5,000 jobs, a massive impact on GDP and the Tees Valley economy, and business rates lost to the local area. Does he agree that the mayoral candidate was right to celebrate that catastrophe for the Tees Valley as a success?
Andrew Percy
The good thing about being a diligent northerner is that I tend to read the local papers of the north-east closely and know exactly the example to which the hon. Gentleman refers. It took place at a hustings, at which the candidate in question actually stated that the Government response, including the £80 million and the swift setting-up of a taskforce, was a blueprint for how to respond to those sorts of issues. There was also general agreement among the other candidates at the event about the Government response being a blueprint. It was not at all his saying that the terrible situation there was in any way a blueprint for what the Government want to see—clearly not.
I believe that the first iteration of the story that went online in one of the local newspapers was different from the one that went up a little later, so I think there was a bit of politics going on. I am aware of the situation but, to be absolutely clear—we do not want to get into a general debate about the hustings for the mayoral election on 4 May—no candidate would ever stand up at any event and say they thought what happened at SSI was positive, or in some way a blueprint. The Government response was a blueprint and there has been general agreement on that in the region. The Government reacted quickly and £80 million was swiftly made available and that was a good blueprint for how to respond to what was, notwithstanding that, a terrible situation.
The Chair
I am all in favour of shortening the winter, but not by extending the mayoral campaign into the Committee Room, so let this be the last contribution, Mr Blenkinsop.
Tom Blenkinsop
Thank you, Chair. As the only Tees MP on this Committee, it is important that I get across this point in relation to the debate held at the Materials Processing Institute, which seeks a metals strategy from the Government. The Minister knows that, as I have talked to him about it previously.
The important and pertinent point for this debate is that the £80 million never arrived. It was promised by the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who said that the Tees Valley was going to receive £80 million, but it was actually £50 million. Yet the Government, even in this debate, reiterate that it is £80 million, which is not the case. In fact, I believe that the £50 million is £16 million short of the previous Labour Government figure from 2009, when the same works did not hard close; they were actually mothballed and brought back to life. Would the Minister like to reflect on the £80 million figure and correct it?
Andrew Percy
We made up to £80 million available. I cannot talk about the previous Labour Government’s record on this, because, of course, we lost 16,000 steel workers during their time in office.
Tom Blenkinsop
On a point of order, Mr Evans. As a former trade union officer for Community trade union, of which I am still a member, I should say that I was part of the cross-match committees that ensured there were no hard redundancies at that site.
Andrew Percy
We will not contest that one. All I know from representing the steelworks in Scunthorpe is that we lost a number of jobs.
Andrew Percy
We are not talking about steelworks; I appreciate that.
It is clear that this is still a live and important issue. What this order does—this is one thing we can all unite around—is to give this new devolution deal the power to create a mayoral development corporation based around that site. We have been very clear as a Government that we believe it has enormous potential.
There are huge challenges—the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland knows that better than I do—but I was proud to sign the indemnity to get the works under way and to assess some of the issues with the site. I am proud that we set up the company in December to take on the day-to-day management of the site through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
I continue to believe that there is huge potential in the site, as do Lord Heseltine and local MPs. The best way forward is to work together to try to secure what we can for the future of the site. I believe this order, which gives the Mayor and the combined authority the power to establish a mayoral development corporation should they so wish, is a positive step towards the future of that site and the Tees Valley generally.
I want to respond to the shadow Secretary of State’s two very direct questions. On devolution deals across the country, we remain open to discussions with other areas if they wish to come forward with proposals. A number of them are in discussion with us at the moment. Others may choose not to go down a mayoral combined authority route. Some are already openly talking about unitarisation or other ways of trying to improve the delivery of local services. That is, of course, up to them.
I must say that there is no such thing as EU funding, given that we are a net contributor to the European Union, so we give far more than we get back. The people of the Tees Valley sensibly voted in very large numbers to leave the European Union—a decision I fully agree with. We have been very clear on European funding. The commitment has been repeated time and again from the Prime Minister down, and work is ongoing to look at what we can do in terms of funding post our exit from the European Union. The commitment is very clear on that, and I am happy to write to Members if need be.
I do not think there is anything else to respond to. I am not going to rerun the whole mayoralty debate. It requires the consent of all local authorities, and I think this order is a positive move towards what we want to see with the SSI site in particular. It gives the powers to do that, and I commend it to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Nuclear Industries Security (Amendment) Regulations 2017
(8 years ago)
General CommitteesRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Jesse Norman)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Nuclear Industries Security (Amendment) Regulations 2017.
It is a delight, Mr Pritchard, to serve under your chairmanship.
I will give some background information on the draft regulations and explain why we are making the amendments. The UK takes civil nuclear security issues seriously, including with regard to regulation. Since 1980, this country has been a signatory to the convention on the physical protection of nuclear material, or CPPNM. The convention requires its signatories to have in place a robust legislative and regulatory regime to ensure the security of civil nuclear materials that are stored or in transit. The UK also complies with international guidance on best practice in the field produced by international bodies, in particular the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Nuclear Industries Security Regulations 2003 represent the cornerstone of the United Kingdom’s regulatory regime for civil nuclear security. They place significant obligations on the operators of civil licensed nuclear sites with regard both to physical security measures for their facilities for nuclear material and to the security of sensitive nuclear information. They also cover the movement of nuclear material by air, road and rail within the UK and globally in UK-flagged vessels. The legislation requires all civil nuclear operators to produce and implement robust nuclear site security plans and it requires the transporters of nuclear materials to produce transport security statements.
The draft amendments being considered in Committee will update the regulations in four key areas. The overarching aim is to enhance still further civil nuclear security arrangements and to ensure that the United Kingdom’s regulatory regime remains up to date, comprehensive and robust. That will help to ensure that this country continues to give full effect to its obligations under the CPPNM. The amendments will increase accountability for producing nuclear site security plans, strengthen information and cyber-security arrangements, and better reflect the remit of the Office for Nuclear Regulation in the area of personnel security. I will provide further detail on each amendment.
The first amendment is to regulation 4(1) of the 2003 regulations. It will require that a nuclear site security plan approved by the ONR is in place for each nuclear site. At present, the security regulations do not specify on whom that obligation is placed. The amendment will make it the responsibility of the designated responsible person for the nuclear site, as defined in the security regulations, to ensure that an approved security plan is in place at all times. In tandem, a related amendment to regulation 25 will make it a criminal offence for the responsible person to fail to meet the obligations under regulation 4(1) as amended. The creation of such an offence underlines the security imperative placed by the Government on nuclear operators to maintain up-to-date security plans that have the approval of the independent regulator.
In combination, those amendments will add clarity to the regulatory regime by making the responsible person accountable for ensuring that the site has approved nuclear security measures in place at all times. I should add that the implications of creating a new criminal offence have been fully considered and the Ministry of Justice has approved the measure.
We will also amend regulations 4(3)(d) and 16(3)(c). Those amendments are aimed at further enhancing industry information security and preparedness for cyber-related incidents. The amendments will make it a requirement for nuclear site security plans and transport security statements to set out the steps to be taken in the event of the loss, theft or unauthorised access to sensitive nuclear information. Requiring duty holders to outline those contingencies will help to ensure that risks associated with information security and cyber-attacks are identified as early as possible and managed effectively using measures approved by the ONR.
We are also making amendments to regulations 9, 17(3) and 22(7), which relate to personnel security. Ensuring robust measures are in place to combat the potential threat that insiders pose or may pose to the civil nuclear industry is a key priority for the Government and the regulator. The amendments are intended to provide the ONR with greater flexibility for determining whether nuclear premises’ “relevant personnel” are suitable in security terms. Instead of solely approving all such relevant personnel itself, the ONR will be able to assess and approve the industry’s broader personnel security arrangements—for example, by examining the effectiveness of review and aftercare arrangements for personnel working in the sector.
The amendments will also allow the ONR to approve processes to be used by duty holders to determine whether relevant personnel are suitable in security terms. That will involve consideration by the ONR of whether the measures used by duty holders are in accordance with Her Majesty’s Government’s personnel security policy or not. We are also making an amendment to regulation 22(5)(a) to remove a reference to guidance published by the ONR or security classifications that have become obsolete.
The amendments have been developed in consultation with the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy conducted an industry consultation on them between 24 June and 22 July 2016. In total, 19 responses to that consultation were received from a range of industry stakeholders. On the basis of those responses, economists at the Department have forecast one-off administrative costs to the civil nuclear industry of less than £100,000 arising from the changes. That assessment has been approved by the regulatory policy committee. I consider the security benefits arising from the changes to outweigh that cost by far.
In parallel with the amendments, the ONR intends to issue revised security guidelines to the civil nuclear industry. These guidelines, known as the Security Assessment Principles—SyAPS—are closely aligned to emerging threats to nuclear security, especially in relation to cyber-security and information assurance. The amendments I have outlined will complement the revised guidelines.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I will make some brief comments. In general, we support any sensible measures that are aimed at improving nuclear safety. The Minister clarified responsibilities, security checks on personnel and extra cyber-security, which make sense and which we welcome.
However, I suggest to the Minister that there is still a gap in the Government’s strategic thinking regarding nuclear power. The Government are moving forward with a new nuclear strategy—we know about their determination to get Hinkley Point C through—yet at the same time, with Brexit, we are facing withdrawal from Euratom. There seems to be a lack of joined-up thinking and of clear strategy in the wider sense. Will the Minister comment on that? The withdrawal from Euratom was only mentioned in the explanatory notes to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which seemed to catch a lot of people on the hop; the Nuclear Industry Association wants to remain in Euratom.
What impact will the Government’s negotiations with other countries such as the US, Canada and Japan have on the regulations and the Government’s wider thinking on nuclear safety? That is also why the Scottish National party called for a White Paper to be published before the triggering of article 50, and why we want an impact assessment on EU withdrawal to be produced. Although we welcome the initial measures that tidy up the legislation, we are looking for some comfort on wider nuclear safety and how the Government will proceed with regard to Brexit.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Opposition do not have any serious concerns about the measure. It is composed of sensible changes to procedures, which it undertakes on the basis of existing safety regulations. Indeed, it is part of a series of amendments that have been made to those safety regulations since their introduction in 2003. It brings the regulations into line with the new arrangements for security guidance that are coming out in the spring. It is my understanding that the introduction of the regulations is entirely in line with previous practice and not in response to any particular emergency, shortcoming or other factor that might cause rushed legislation to be put in place. They are also entirely in line with the safety guidance as it stands and how it is developing.
A minor question arises on the change to regulation 4 of the 2003 regulations. It appears to suggest that there has been a responsible person and an approved security plan for nuclear premises in place in previous safety regulations, but that there was no connection between the two. The amendment also appears to suggest that there should be a connection:
“The responsible person must ensure that there is an approved security plan in place”.
That puts the blame on the responsible person, as it were, if an approved security plan is not in place. If that is not the case, what happens currently? Is there a serious lacuna in approved security plans—that is, no one is actually responsible for them, and the instrument makes someone responsible for them—or does the instrument merely give legal weight to a practice that is widespread in nuclear safety? Perhaps the Minister will be able to assure me that that is the case. I hope it is, and that the regulation is not filling a hole, but is bringing into law something that is widespread, as security regulations stand at the moment.
May I also ask the Minister where we stand, so far as the regulations are concerned, amended or not, in relation to the treaty from which they stem? The convention on the physical protection of nuclear material is an international convention that puts common practice into place across a wide number of countries. The convention, which was signed up to at the beginning of 1980, is a multilateral convention and an indefinite treaty, and the UK is one of its contracting parties.
On 3 March 1980, Euratom signed up to the convention, apparently on behalf of the contracting parties within Euratom. If we trace the chain back from where we are today, in terms of amendments to the regulations, the relationship of the regulations to the convention and the signing the convention, it appears to be the case that all of this might fall down if we are not a member of Euratom. Can the Minister reassure me that I am not correct on the signing of the convention: it was actually signed up to separately by the contracting parties and that Euratom, although it may have signed the convention, had no relationship to those contracting parties?
Alternatively, if the convention was signed up to by Euratom on behalf of the contracting parties in Europe, what is his view of the salience of the regulations if we were not a member of Euratom? Will we have to go back to the drawing board, write them all out again and start again on nuclear safety? Or would we find other devices in order to recover what we had lost by not being a member of Euratom?
Jesse Norman
I am grateful for the questions that have been asked so far. I thank the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) for their helpful and supportive comments. I am grateful for their support for the amendments. Their overarching aim is to further enhance, as the hon. Gentlemen recognise, civil nuclear security by ensuring that the UK's regulatory regime remains up to date, comprehensive and robust. As I have outlined, they will strengthen accountability at civil nuclear sites for the production and maintenance of security plans that have the approval of the Office for Nuclear Regulation; improve the civil nuclear industry’s information security and preparedness for cyber-related incidents; and provide the ONR with greater flexibility in determining whether “relevant personnel” are suitable in security terms, to help ensure that robust measures are in place to combat the potential threat that insiders pose to the civil nuclear industry. The changes, as I hope colleagues agree, will reinforce the regulatory regime for civil nuclear security and help to ensure that the UK continues to give effect to its international obligations under the convention.
May I comment on all the issues that were raised? Our nuclear security will not be affected at all by the decision to leave Euratom, which does not have a role in setting security standards, regulation or inspection of UK civil nuclear security arrangements. As for the wider impact, the UK complies with its obligations and follows international best practice, as I have described with regard to the convention on the physical protection of nuclear material, and on a continuing basis through the membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency. These are not Euratom institutions or constructs, and are not affected by the UK’s decision to leave Euratom. We are separate signatories to the convention, in response to the question raised by the shadow Minister, so we are not affected by the decision to leave Euratom. As the Committee will know, we are very much persuaded of the importance of Euratom, and wish to continue to have the closest possible relationship with it and its members after Brexit.
To respond to the other questions asked by the shadow Minister, the regulations are, as he suggested, part of a continuing process of reform and improvement, and were not introduced in response to any specific emergency or concern. They are in line with safety guidance that has been issued. As for regulation 4, it was not previous practice that no one should be responsible, but it has not been a guaranteed process of responsibility tied to individuals. The regulation cleans up that potential gap—different sites have different practices, and part of the purpose of the regulations is to raise the bar for all of them so that a common security standard is applied in each case. From that point of view, the hon. Gentleman should not, as he suggested, have any concerns. I therefore commend these regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Value Added Taxation
(8 years ago)
General CommitteesRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, it may be helpful to remind Members of the procedure in European Committees. The whole proceeding must conclude no later than two and a half hours after we start. First, I shall call a member of the European Scrutiny Committee to make a brief statement about why the Committee decided to refer these documents for debate. Secondly, I shall call the Minister to make a statement, followed by questions for up to an hour, though I have some discretion to extend that if there is an appetite to do so. Thirdly, the Committee will debate the Government motion, and I will put the question on the motion when debate or the time available is exhausted, whichever comes first.
I understand that the hon. Member for North East Somerset would like to make a brief explanatory statement about the decision to bring the documents to the Committee.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. It may be helpful to the Committee if I take a few minutes to explain the background to this document and why, nearly a year ago, the European Scrutiny Committee recommended it for debate.
The EU has a common system of value added taxation, governed principally by the 2006 VAT directive. The VAT directive, in its present and earlier versions, is meant to be a temporary arrangement, pending member states’ agreement on a permanent and definitive VAT system. The Commission has accepted that the existing system contributes to VAT fraud in cross-border trading.
Following extensive consultations begun in late 2010, the Commission published in April 2016—it works very swiftly—an action plan to establish a
“VAT area that is fit for purpose in the 21st century.”
It sets the direction of travel the Commission envisages for VAT and presents a set of ideas for wider EU debate under four headings: “Recent and ongoing policy initiatives”, “Urgent measures to tackle the VAT gap”—that is the difference between expected revenue and revenue actually collected, a significant part of which results from fraud—“Medium term measure to tackle the VAT gap” and “Towards a modernised rates policy”.
The European Scrutiny Committee has considered the document twice. In April 2016, it said that the document might prove to be the catalyst for the EU finally achieving a definitive VAT system. Accordingly, we recommended that it be debated in this Committee and that Members might wish to explore whether such a VAT system is indeed now in prospect in the foreseeable future; what difficulties for other member states the Government see in agreement on a definitive system; the extent to which the existing regime has contributed to cross-border fraud and the extent to which the proposal might remedy that; and what difficulties there may be for the UK in reaching such an agreement.
When we reconsidered the matter in November 2016, we deplored the Government’s inexcusable failure to schedule this debate in a timely manner. However, we also added further matters that Members might wish to explore in this debate, which include: details of the Council conclusions on the action plan and their implications for the UK; what the prospects are now for implementation of the Commission’s undertaking in relation to zero rating of sanitary products; and to what extent the Government expect there to be continued UK and EU harmonisation of VAT rules post-Brexit. I look forward to hearing contributions on those issues in the debate and to the Minister’s response.
The Chair
I call the Minister to make an opening statement. I remind colleagues that interventions are not allowed during a statement.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Good morning, colleagues. I am pleased to be here to discuss the European Commission communication on an action plan on VAT, “Towards a single EU VAT area—Time to decide”, which my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset outlined. I apologise that it has taken so long to schedule this debate and, indeed, has spanned two Ministers. We are here now, and we will have a chance to look at these issues and cast our minds ahead to the new challenges, as circumstances are very different from when the debate was first called for.
The action plan on VAT provides an update on progress and identifies the next steps to be taken to improve the system. As we have heard, the Commission’s Green Paper on the future of VAT, published back in December 2010, launched an EU-wide consultation on the future of VAT in the EU. The subsequent White Paper in 2011 set out the Commission’s vision of a simpler, more efficient and robust VAT system that is tailored to the single market. The White Paper was presented to this Committee in an explanatory memorandum in December 2011 and the Committee debated it in 2012. The Commission’s communication, published in April last year, is the continuation of that work.
Like the preceding Green and White Papers, the action plan contains no legislative proposal, but sets out the Commission’s vision for the future of VAT—in the Commission’s words:
“A VAT area that can support a deeper and fairer single market, and help to boost jobs, growth, investment and competitiveness. A VAT area that is fit for purpose in the 21st century.”
The overall approach in the plan is aligned with the UK’s approach of reducing burdens on business and developing a practical and workable system. The plan identifies the areas in which the Commission feels that further reform is necessary and presents a range of ideas for future EU work.
The ideas are grouped under four headings, as has been mentioned. Under the heading, “Recent and ongoing policy initiatives”, the plan highlights the shortcomings of the current EU VAT system in dealing with cross-border e-commerce. It outlines the Commission’s intention to present legislative proposals that would modernise and simplify VAT rules for cross-border e-commerce, and highlights the Commission’s intention to produce a package of legislative proposals this year, with the aim of improving the VAT environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to facilitate growth and encourage cross-border trade.
Under the heading “Urgent measures to tackle the VAT gap”, the plan proposes improvements to co-operation between EU member states and between EU and non-EU countries. It suggests that such changes would improve the efficiency of tax administrations and improve levels of voluntary compliance and co-operation between businesses and tax authorities. The plan also identifies potential measures to improve co-operation between tax administrations and customs law enforcement bodies and to strengthen tax administrations’ capacity in the fight against fraud, which I know has been at the forefront of the Committee’s thinking over the past few years.
The plan then focuses on moving towards a robust single European VAT area. As has been alluded to, the current VAT system is technically a temporary one. As members of the Committee know, when VAT was first established the aim was for goods to be taxed in the country of origin. At that time, however, an origin-based system was not possible for technical and political reasons, so transitional systems were adopted. Various attempts have been made to move towards an origin-based VAT system, but all have been unsuccessful. The Commission’s 2011 White Paper concluded that the origin principle remained unachievable and confirmed that the destination system would instead be pursued. The action plan committed the Commission to produce a legislative proposal for a definitive VAT system based on that principle this year.
The final section of the plan focuses on moving “Towards a modernised rates policy”. Parliament has a particular interest in that and in some of its implications. It highlights the constraints of the existing VAT directive in limiting member states’ freedoms to set VAT rates. Those rules were designed for a VAT system based on the origin principle and were therefore intended to guarantee the neutrality of the system. Given the agreement to pursue a final system based on the destination principle, the plan highlights that there is now an opportunity for member states to be given greater autonomy in setting rates.
The plan outlines two possible options that would give member states that additional flexibility. The first involves extending the current range of reduced rates legally applied in any member state to all member states; the list of goods and services eligible for the reduced rates would then be regularly reviewed. The second involves removing the existing reduced rate list and granting member states much greater rate-setting power.
The Commission has recently produced a number of the proposals that were trailed in the plan. In the context of the digital single market initiative and the May 2016 conclusions on the plan, the Commission published a proposal on e-publications in December last year. That was presented to the European Scrutiny Committee in explanatory memorandum 38344. Helpfully, that proposal has generated some discussion on VAT rates more generally and on the level of flexibility and autonomy that should be enjoyed by member states in setting domestic rates. That is important in the context of the wider rates review trailed in the action plan, which is expected by the end of the year. That is specifically relevant to the UK’s pursuit of the legal changes necessary to allow the introduction of a zero VAT rate on women’s sanitary products. We explored that issue in detail during Report stage of last year’s Finance Bill, and I know that Members across the House feel strongly about it.
As Members will be aware, the Government broadly welcome the action plan, most of which follows the UK approach to reducing the burdens on business and developing a system that is practical and workable, as seen in a number of the changes in the digital single market proposals presented to the European Scrutiny Committee in explanatory memorandums 38341/2/3, and specifically the introduction of a threshold for cross-border supplies of digital services and the “soft landing” easements for small businesses.
Of course, these and any other legislative proposals emerging as a result of the action plan are and will be subject to scrutiny in the normal way. They will also be subject to negotiation, and the unanimous agreement of member states will be required before any legislative changes can be made. As always, the key will be in the details of further work and proposals. The plan provides a basis for member states to explore the future of the EU VAT system and, in particular, a basis for a way forward on key UK priorities on simplification and on VAT rates.
The Chair
We now have until 9.55 am for questions to the Minister. Although I may allow the shadow Minister some leeway, I remind hon. Members that questions should be brief. Subject to my discretion, it is open to a Member to ask related supplementary questions.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for North East Somerset for his presentation and the Minister for soldiering on with a cold or virus.
Reference was made to “Time to decide”. I think that was 23 June last year, actually. That is symptomatic, in that many hon. Members are exercised by the fact that the Government are in assent on this matter and for so long have been all at sea—I think mid-channel might be where they are. Of course, the European Scrutiny Committee showed its exasperation on this matter and wagged its finger at the Government for not being able to debate this in due time to tease out many of these very important issues. However, we are where we are.
I think that in the last Committee of this nature that I was at, I raised the fact that we are now, in the light of the referendum, just going through the motions; I think we are all going through the motions. Before the hon. Member for North East Somerset got up and spoke, I thought, rather quaintly, that some Members do not grasp that, but clearly everybody is now beginning to grasp it.
On a more positive note, we have before us a framework in relation to the operation of a VAT system that simplifies things by reducing bureaucracy and so on. No one can disagree with that, but within a couple of years we will not be a member of the EU. We will not be in the single market, I suspect, or in the customs union and all the other institutions, so the debate that we are having, to some degree or another, will all be pretty obsolete. Unless the Government can push this along in the next two years—so pretty sharpish—it is pretty pointless, but of course by that time we will, I assume, have gained complete sovereignty over our tax affairs. We will not be beholden to the Commission—presumably. We will be able to have whatever VAT rate we want—presumably. We will be able to be as flexible as we want with the rates—presumably. Conservative Members, who wear subsidiarity as an amulet, will even be able to get rid of the descriptive name of the tax and call it something other than VAT. I am sure that Members will have their own monikers and acronyms ready: WOT, the “We’re off” tax, or GOT, the get-out tax. I suspect that it will be the legacy of some Conservative Members to get rid of the last vestige of European colonialism. It will be similar to when the Irish painted their red postboxes green.
Anyway, VAT arrangements will still exist. The bottom line is that we need certain assurances that over the next two years there will not be more loss of tax from the VAT regime as a result of aggressive tax avoidance or evasion, especially given that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ ready reckoner indicates that a 1% change to the standard rate is worth about £5.7 billion. We really have to keep our eye on that. As we move into this transition, we have to keep our eye on that. We have to put markers down in relation to green tax as well. I am talking about commitments not to put too much tax on green issues. We do not want tax hikes by the back door.
On the tampon tax, my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) and many women’s groups have fought hard to abolish the tax, and we need to push on and get an unambiguous commitment from the Government.
The Chair
Order. We will have a debate after the questions. I was prepared to give the hon. Gentleman some latitude but I ask him to crack on. I do not want him to use up his debate material during the questions. He might want to save it up for the debate.
Peter Dowd
I have raised the issues of tax avoidance and the green tax. On the optimism about getting the measure through, do we believe that we will be able to introduce it within the next two years? How long is a piece of string in relation to this matter? I hope that we do not have to hold our breath for too long.
Jane Ellison
I will make a general point and then respond with a bit more detail on fraud. I could not disagree more with the shadow Minister, although I thank him for his kind words on the state of my voice—I apologise to colleagues. It is certainly not the case that the vote to leave the European Union makes the debate “obsolete” and our participation in and engagement with the agenda pointless. For a start, there are UK businesses that have EU subsidiaries that will continue to be affected by the VAT rules within the EU, so it is important that the rules work well and are subject to sensible reform. The UK has always been a good influence for pragmatic reform in all such regards.
The precise arrangements under which we operate outside the EU will be subject, as we all know, to detailed and complex negotiation once article 50 has been triggered, but the EU will remain a major trading partner. We are leaving the EU; we are not leaving Europe. It will be an extremely important commercial relationship. The extent, therefore, to which the direction of travel on EU VAT rules aligns with our own priorities regarding simple and pragmatic regulation that is not burdensome to small businesses is, and will remain, extremely important.
Before we came into the debate, I asked my officials about how we will influence policy once we are outside the EU. The reality is that there are people who are not in the EU now who will influence and have a view about the EU’s VAT proposals. Equally, the OECD does a lot of work in that respect. There is a broad alignment of direction of travel between that organisation and the EU, and to that extent we are an important influence within the OECD. I reject the idea that the debate is obsolete and that our interest ceases once we are outside the EU. It remains the case that we need the rules to function sensibly and in a way that is as unburdensome as possible and addresses fraud, to which I now turn.
No system will be entirely fraud-free, and the concern for the UK and member states more generally about any move to a new system is that any change could introduce a new type of VAT fraud. In all aspects of the tax system, we have to consider where people might look to exploit the gap created by a change. In the UK, the level of VAT fraud attributable to criminal attacks on cross-border trade has fallen from a peak of between £2.5 billion and £3.5 billion in 2005-06 to between £500 million and £1 billion in 2014-15. The Commission has done various studies, and the one from 2013 estimates that such supplies amount to about €184 billion-worth of VAT for the UK alone, in terms of intra-EU supplies. Any change to the VAT rules on intra-EU supplies that would introduce a new type of fraud has, therefore, the potential for huge losses and it is important that we tread carefully. Within any proposal for a definitive VAT system, that will be an area for great scrutiny. We welcome the Commission’s engagement with us and its acceptance that member states will need to work very closely together to explore and evaluate.
Peter Dowd
I was trying to make a point about the obsolete nature of this debate. Would the Minister agree that there is a big difference between having a debate when a member of the European Union, with access to the single market and so on, and when outside the Union? We have been discussing it for several years; we are moving out and the EU know that, so this debate is to some extent pretty obsolete.
Jane Ellison
Without rerunning the referendum campaign, those issues were explored. I do not accept the basic premise, for the reasons I have given. Many businesses will continue to trade within the EU and have EU subsidiaries. The EU will remain a hugely significant trading partner and, as with all our trading partnerships around the world, we would look to bring UK influence to bear in a way that would support our own economic goals. There is a mutual benefit in having rules that work for everyone. We will also be a major trading partner for many EU members when we are outside the EU. Those are also important trading relationships. To that extent, there is mutual interest in making sure that we continue to move in a broad direction of travel and that we bring UK influence to bear.
When I was Europe Minister in the Department of Health, my experience was that the UK perspective on regulation, particularly with regard to the burden on business, was always felt to be a pragmatic and valuable contribution. I have no reason to think that that will change afterwards, albeit that relationships are clearly going to be in flux over the coming period of negotiation.
Peter Dowd
I take the Minister’s point, but the first sentence in the document is:
“This action plan sets out the pathway to the creation of a single EU VAT area.”
That is in the context of the single market. Does the Minister not agree that she is putting her head in the sand in the way that she is continuing to discuss this matter?
Jane Ellison
I am not sure I can add a great deal more. No, I do not have my head in the sand. I am being practical, as many of us now have to be. As Ministers, many of us are engaged on a day-to-day basis with the practicalities of how we move forward.
To reiterate, when we are outside the EU, it is probably going to remain our most important trading relationship. Therefore, it is vital that we continue to be good EU members while we are in, and that we continue to be engaged, practical and positive once we are out.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
To level-set people’s expectations, when in the process of the next few years do we expect to regain sufficient control over VAT so as to be able to end, for example, the hated tampon tax?
Jane Ellison
On Report of the Finance Bill last year, we included provisions to legislate by this spring or by the time that we had left the EU, whichever was legally possible and feasible. We have continued to engage with the Commission at official and ministerial level quite extensively since that debate. We are not likely to be in a position to move this spring, for the reason I spelled out in my comments, but we have given a commitment. We have the same view on this matter in all parts of the House; we want to deal with this long-standing anomaly. I am sure Members of all parties would also support the fact that we are equally committed to abiding by the rules for as long as we are in the club. We will not, and cannot, act outside the rules—that would be counterproductive to a negotiation in good faith—but we have included legislative provisions to move on this matter as soon as we are legally able. The clock is ticking on it. We are not moving towards a distant and unsighted point—we have a sense of the backstop date.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I have two questions. The Minister said a few moments ago that she looked forward to European Union alignment, after we have left, with our own VAT successor system, but that is surely the wrong way round. We will want to look at the opportunities to align our systems with a very large trading bloc sitting on our doorstep. First, to what degree does the Minister accept that the Government will wish to continue down a route of as much harmonisation as possible post-Brexit between our VAT system and whatever is developed in the European Union?
My second question is a prosaic one on behalf of my constituents who are trying to understand how their travel arrangements and holidays in the European Union might be affected after Brexit. Does the Minister envisage it will be possible to reclaim VAT paid in European Union countries as consumers leave the European Union to return from their holidays to this country?
Jane Ellison
On the first point, I did not express a specific aspiration about harmonisation. I said there was a clear national interest in continuing to engage with the EU. As I said before, the OECD and the EU are moving broadly in the same direction around VAT systems. There is therefore a wider interest in the UK’s continuing to pursue some of its key objectives around simplification and making the arrangements less burdensome, particularly for smaller businesses. The precise aspects of VAT arrangements are, as with so many things, a matter for the detailed negotiations ahead, once article 50 has been triggered.
It is reasonable to say that we would look to have arrangements in future that allow us to continue to trade easily and successfully with all our major trading partners, of which the EU will be an incredibly important one. It remains the case that it is sensible for us to stay engaged with the debate, but the detail of all of those things once we are outside the EU, including issues around things such as harmonisation, are for the negotiations. We cannot be clear yet, but I assure the Committee that the Government will seek the best deal, obviously. It is clear that, after we have left the EU, VAT will continue to be a major contributor to the Exchequer. In the UK we estimate we will raise £120 billion this year, which is important revenue for the Treasury.
Although the exit from the EU will offer the UK greater flexibility, it is important to manage expectations just a little. Colleagues might be interested to learn that requests for reliefs have already been flooding into the Treasury in anticipation of our leaving the EU—to date, a total of more than £30 billion—so the ready reckoner is already ticking over. Colleagues will have done their mental arithmetic and realised that £30 billion is rather a large proportion of the estimated £120 billion that we hope to raise this year. That is on top of the range of zero and reduced rates that have already been applied, estimated to be slightly less than £45 billion in 2016-17.
The issues around future rates for us outside the EU and all other issues have to be carefully considered, not only in terms of our trading relationship with the EU, but in terms of our domestic policy and economic and budgetary constraints. As with all such things, it is a complicated picture, but we will continue to engage with the debate. It is worth putting on the record that UK officials are not only engaged but making an extremely positive contribution to the wider debates on the technical policy-making areas, and we will continue to do that to good effect.
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I take it from the answer given to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston that there is at least the possibility that we will get back duty free when we have left the European Union? It would be a wonderful gift to the British people and would increase their joy when they travel.
Jane Ellison
It seems unusual for a Government Minister to draw attention to the fact that she did not answer a question, but since I did not answer that question, I made no such speculation or comment. As I have said, all these matters are for the negotiations ahead and a range of different outcomes are possible.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I merely asked if it were possible, and the answer, being answerless, indicates that it must at least be possible.
Peter Dowd
Just a final question from me. The Minister also did not answer the question from the hon. Member for Wycombe about the tampon tax. Although the Government have legislated to get rid of the tampon tax, depending on whether we are in or out of the Union, does the Minister believe that we will be able to implement a zero rate on the tampon tax before we leave the Union? What is the real possibility of that happening?
Jane Ellison
We have taken the House’s instructions very seriously. There was not just the debate on Report last year, to which I responded; this has been a live debate probably for my adult lifetime, and there have certainly been a lot of debates in the House in recent years, so we have been actively pursuing this issue. I recently detailed in a written answer some of the extensive engagement we have had at ministerial level and through letters at official level.
While we are in the EU, both sides continue to be bound by existing rights and obligations, and EU law allows for a reduced rate of not less than 5% to be applied to those products. We apply the lowest reduced rate, but we cannot apply a zero rate until there is an EU legislative change. We continue to push for it and to engage on the issue very actively, but the EU legislation can be initiated only by the Commission, and to date it has not provided the proposal that it was planning to bring forward before the EU membership referendum. We continue to push for the proposal, and we have tried to find ways of accelerating the prospects of a change, but it is likely that it will feature only as part of the VAT rates review that we anticipate will happen towards the end of this year. We will continue to keep the House updated, and no doubt we will return to the issue in the debates on this year’s Finance Bill.
Kate Green
Irrespective of Brexit, what is the Minister’s assessment of the likelihood that the European Union and its component member states will be able to develop and introduce a modernised VAT system, as the Commission hopes? What difficulties does she envisage for the other member states in reaching agreement on doing so?
Jane Ellison
As I said, this would be a very major change to the EU VAT system. To give colleagues a sense of perspective, it would affect about €600 billion of member states’ VAT revenue, which is a lot of money. We estimate that between 3.2 million and 3.7 million EU firms are involved in cross-border trade. Although this Committee in particular has expressed a degree of frustration at the speed at which events move, it is right that the Commission, member states and business stakeholders work together and take time to assess the impact. Any change has to strike the right balance, in terms of both preventing fraud and of simplicity and ease of operation. Inevitably, there is sometimes an offset between those two ambitions. We probably feel that the Commission’s medium-term timeline looks a bit optimistic, but we continue to monitor these events very carefully and influence them.
The Chair
If no more Members wish to ask questions, we now proceed to the debate on the motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 7687/16, a Commission Communication on an action plan on VAT: Towards a single EU VAT area—Time to decide; and agrees with the Government that it provides a basis for a way forward on key UK priorities on VAT simplification and on VAT rates.—(Jane Ellison.)
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I have a few things to add to our debate. First, I want to talk about the Scottish context, particularly on VAT for police and fire. It has previously been said that there cannot be changes to VAT for police and fire because of European regulations, and that there cannot be a change within what is classed as one member state.
In Scotland, our police and fire services are paying £35 million a year in VAT that we believe we should not be paying. We have made that case on a number of occasions, but the UK Government have refused to make changes to the system, despite allowing both the London Legacy Development Corporation and Highways England a derogation in terms of their VAT, which has not been the case for the Scottish police and fire services. If we are leaving the European Union, which it seems we are, will there be changes in that regard?
The other thing to consider is that if we go forward on the basis of what has been provided today—the document that has been put forward by the EU—there is a suggestion that there will be more flexibility for member states regarding what they can and cannot zero-rate. So if we continue with these regulations, would there be a possibility that the UK Government could more easily zero-rate the police and fire services than they have so far been willing to do? That is a specific point about the Scottish context.
I will also mention sanitary products. Again, this document mentions a couple of options for the future, option 1 and option 2, both of which involve changes around some of the derogations; option 2 in particular involves changes of that kind. We have this historical situation whereby the derogations were created when we first joined the European Union and they make little sense in today’s context. Some things that are luxury products—I consider them to be luxury products—currently have a derogation, and there are some things that I would consider essential products, such as sanitary products, that do not. I am not just talking about products for the absorption of blood but those for the absorption of urine or breast milk, which I have pressed the Minister on previously.
Those products should have a zero rate of VAT, because they are necessary. There are strange contextual issues around products used for the absorption of urine, but a number of people have got to pay VAT on them even though they are absolutely necessary products for them. It is really important that the Government consider this issue as we go forward.
I will put both those things in context. I disagree with the hon. Member for Bootle, who said that this debate is almost irrelevant; the opposite is actually true. What we need to do, as current members of the European Union, is ensure that decisions taken around VAT are as favourable as possible for the UK. We need to go into those negotiations and make our position clear, which is why I am taking the time today to speak about those things that I think are really important, so that the Minister is aware, when he goes into those negotiations, that I think they should be key priorities.
The wider context is that we will be outside the EU and we will have less of a seat at that table than we do currently. The Minister has mentioned the seat that we have around the OECD table, but when it comes to the single EU VAT area the likelihood is that it will take some time to create it and that we will lose our seat at the EU table before it actually comes into force. So we need to make our voice heard as clearly as possible right now, so that future regulations are positive for us.
One of the reasons I think this issue is really important is that if Members look at the top of page 8 of the papers we have been given they will see that the second paragraph says:
“better cooperation with international organisations and non-EU countries over VAT should make it possible to extend the EU system of administrative cooperation to non-EU countries, particularly to ensure effective taxation of e-commerce.”
Peter Dowd
I do not understand why people do not get this point, but does the hon. Lady agree that the Commission will not discuss anything in this whole debate about post-Brexit issues with us? It just will not do that. Does she accept that?
Kirsty Blackman
In the context of the article 50 negotiations that we will have, I think that the Commission will say to us, “No, we’re not very keen to discuss some of the ongoing future framework.” However, we are currently a member state. We have not yet triggered article 50 and while the article 50 negotiation period is happening, we have two years as an EU member state. The Commission does not have the ability to exclude us from negotiations about how things will develop in the future. So if the Government and the UK fail to do what I am suggesting, there will be a huge issue regarding how the UK gains access to things such as the single market in the future.
Peter Dowd
I repeat what I said earlier: this action plan—not a future action plan or one we would like—sets out the pathway to the creation of a single EU VAT area. Does the hon. Lady not understand that we are not going to be in a single EU VAT area?
Kirsty Blackman
We will not be in a single EU VAT area because we will not be an EU member state. However, the paragraph that I have just read out says that it should be
“possible to extend the EU system of administrative cooperation to non-EU countries, particularly to ensure effective taxation of e-commerce”,
so we will be involved as a third country. Given the way the EU does trade deals, it will look to ensure that there is as much equivalence and commonality as possible in a number of areas. We therefore need to make the case for the industries, sectors and products that we think are important. Ensuring that our voice is as loud as possible in these negotiations will benefit us as a country.
The likelihood is that the EU will look to include some commonality or equivalence in relation to VAT systems in a post-Brexit deal with the UK. The EU is a much bigger entity than the UK, so we need to think carefully about how the EU is currently structured and what it is currently doing to ensure that it is as favourable as possible for us when we become a third country and try to make a trade deal with it.
Mr Baker
I have been listening carefully to what the hon. Lady has said, which has been interesting. What consideration has she given to the need to co-operate on issues such as VAT in a world of global e-commerce that necessarily extends to many nations and millions of people outside the European Union?
Kirsty Blackman
That is a really interesting point, which highlights how much sovereignty has to be given away when agreeing a trade deal with another country. As the EU is a major player and a major consumer of our services exports—that is particularly relevant for e-commerce—we probably need to concentrate on agreeing a trade deal with it before thinking about deals with other countries. It is likely that the EU will want to talk about VAT when it makes trade deals with other third countries, too, so having a common relationship with the EU will probably be positive for us when we make deals with third countries.
I very much appreciate the chance to talk in this debate and make our priorities clear. If there is more flexibility over VAT and its devolution once the UK leaves the EU, I will call for the entirety of VAT to be devolved to Scotland. We have mentioned that before. Under the Scotland Act 2016, the top share of VAT is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Although that is nice, it does not give us flexibility over policy levers, so I would call for further devolution in that situation.
Jane Ellison
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen North, who spoke for the Scottish National party, for her wide-ranging contribution. I note that she made a bid with regard to police and fire services to add to the Treasury’s £30 billion and counting of VAT bids. We have explored the issue of the VAT incurred as a result of the changed arrangements, so she will be familiar with the point that I am going to make. That issue was in the business case for the changed arrangements. The Scottish Government were warned repeatedly that that would be the result of the way that they restructured emergency services, so it is surprising that the SNP keeps raising the issue as if the change was somehow imposed from the outside. The Scottish Government were alerted at the time. Our position on that remains unchanged, but as I said, I will add it to the list of things for which people want to see relief, along with the others that she mentioned.
I agree with the hon. Lady more—I think we both perhaps disagree slightly with the shadow spokesman for the Labour party—on her point that it remains very much in our interests to continue to engage with this debate. I will not speculate or second-guess the outcome of our Government’s negotiations or where the EU Commission is going on this, but there is a mutual interest in smooth and competitive trading arrangements. European markets account for around half the UK’s overall trade and foreign investments; around 3.5 million jobs. We will therefore continue to engage extremely actively and constructively while we are in the EU. However, it remains the case that even once we are outside it, the EU VAT system is influential. It is in our interests to ensure, to the extent that we can, that it is aligned with OECD and other international work, to take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe that this debate is wider than the EU.
We will remain engaged and there is mutual benefit, not just because of businesses that have EU subsidiaries. Because of the cross-border nature of trade, there is mutual advantage in making sure that arrangements make sense, both within and without the EU. I reject the counsel of despair from the Opposition Front Bench that there is no point in doing this—there is every point.
Peter Dowd
I am surprised the Minister has taken that view. It is a complete distortion. We are talking in the context of the document before us. This debate is specifically in relation to the document before us. It has taken years to get to this position. We are only two years from leaving the EU, and the idea that this has to do with post-Brexit negotiations is complete and utter tosh. Does the Minister agree that there is a difference between trying to saddle us, in relation to post-negotiation deals, with this and trying to deal with this specific issue? The two are completely different and the Minister should know that.
Jane Ellison
The Minister does know that, but the point I am making is that we are obviously in the EU until we are not. It continues to be in our interest to influence debate. I think I have engaged very directly with the shadow Minister’s point. The point I have been trying to make is that this is a broader challenge than just within the EU. The international direction of travel on VAT remains important. The extent to which, for example, better co-operation is enshrined within new systems will provide better information on which we can help to shape policies around supplies across borders.
The OECD is already looking at ways to improve international co-operation, so there is every reason to continue to engage with this agenda. It is nonsense to say that it is irrelevant, even though we will be outside the EU in due course. The extent to which we have a degree of alignment in objectives and that direction of travel between the EU and other major trading blocs, and international trading and economic organisations such as the OECD remains fundamentally important because they have at their heart the desire to find some key principles around which we can all agree that will facilitate trade, less fraud and lower burdens on business across the piece.
I end where I began by saying that this is an important issue on which we will continue to engage while we are in the EU, and continue to influence in a number of different ways once we are outside it.
Question put and agreed to.
Guardianship (Missing Persons) Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 21st February 2017
(8 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesGuardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 View all Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
I begin with the usual announcement that electronic devices must be switched off or kept silent and that tea and coffee are not allowed in the Committee Room.
No amendments have been tabled, so we have only to consider whether the clauses should stand part of the Bill. For the Committee’s convenience, I suggest that we do so in two debates. The first will be on clauses 1 to 7, which focus on the definition of missing persons and the making of a guardianship order. After we reach a decision on clause 1, I will then put the Question that clauses 2 to 7 stand part of the Bill. The second debate will be on clauses 8 to 25 and the schedule to the Bill, and we can then take a vote or a decision on them. I hope that hon. Members are content with that.
Clause 1
Missing persons
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.
Quite simply, the Bill will fill a gap in the law that few people even know exists. Around 4,000 people go missing every single year, yet there is currently no mechanism under the law for anyone else to manage their property and financial affairs. Data protection and contract law prevent dialogue between banks, landlords, insurance companies or utility companies, for example, and any party other than the account holder—I note at this point that the Bill has the full support of the Council of Mortgage Lenders—and the missing person, their estate and their dependants are often worse off as a result. The new status of guardian of the property and affairs of a missing person will fill that gap and help families and others after a disappearance. Many of us have benefited from similar powers in other difficult circumstances, such as when someone close to us passes away or is no longer able to manage their own affairs because of dementia or other mental capacity issues.
The core provision of the Bill is that the court will have the power, on the application of a person with a sufficient interest in the property and affairs of the missing person, to appoint a guardian. The Bill draws on systems used abroad—in certain states of Australia, for instance—and on the system for appointing deputies under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. It provides that the guardian will take control of some or all of the property and financial affairs of the missing person, who must generally have been missing for at least 90 days; will have authority to act on the missing person’s behalf; will be able to use the missing person’s property to help those left behind; will be accountable for his or her actions and supervised by the Office of the Public Guardian; will be appointed for a renewable period of up to four years; and, crucially, will be required to act in the missing person’s best interests. The small fee involved will be payable by the missing person’s estate, so there will be little or no cost to the taxpayer.
Clauses 1 to 7 cover who is defined as a missing person, who can be appointed as a guardian, when, how and for how long a guardian can be appointed, and the extent of the guardian’s role and powers. I commend them to the Committee.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. With your permission, I will make all my remarks to the Committee in this debate.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton on all the work that he has done to introduce the Bill. As he says, it fills a gap that many people are lucky enough not to be aware of. He knows better than most here that such a Bill has been a long time coming and is very welcome indeed.
I can confirm, as expected and as hon. Members will be aware, that we will not oppose the Bill. We support it, and there is strong cross-party support for filling this gap in the law. I understand that the Missing People charity, one of the main promoters of this change in the law, endorses the Bill as drafted. As has been discussed, and as hon. Members know, there is no mechanism in England and Wales to protect the property and affairs of a missing person. As we have heard, the Bill seeks to change that. The absence of such a provision has led to profound hardship for many people.
Hon. Members will recall the Westminster Hall debate in March 2016 in which hon. Members spoke passionately of the experiences of themselves and their constituents, which are relevant to the Bill. As many will remember, the hon. Member for York Outer spoke of his constituent Peter Lawrence, whose daughter Claudia Lawrence has been missing since 2009. It is a well-known case, and I understand that it was announced last month that a review of the case is to be scaled down. I know that Peter Lawrence has campaigned vigorously alongside Missing People for a change in the law for some time. My hon. Friend the Member for Neath also spoke of her personal experience of her uncle vanishing abruptly.
The anguish that those circumstances must cause to families is truly unimaginable to those who have not known the uncertainty and trauma of such a loss. The inability to manage a missing person’s property and finances can only add to that distress, anxiety and anguish. Of course, there may be dependants who require financial support, outstanding bills and obligations or mortgage payments on which families rely—it is very welcome that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has mentioned the support for the Bill from the Council of Mortgage Lenders. As I have mentioned, the importance of trying to maintain some measure of order while a loved one is being traced is perhaps overlooked by the rest of society, who cannot imagine such a situation. Plainly, that needs to be corrected, which is why we welcome the Bill.
There have been faltering attempts at legislation before, so I am glad that we are now seeing real, practical progress. Hon. Members will recall that the Ministry of Justice launched a consultation in 2014, and on 23 March 2015 confirmed that the coalition Government would legislate to create the legal status of guardian of the property and affairs of a missing person. The Ministry recognised the strong support for such an advance in the law. The Justice Minister at the time, Lord Faulks, released a written statement in which he expressed a wish that legislation would follow quickly in the following Parliament.
While the expected legislation did not materialise as swiftly as people would have liked, we are pleased to see practical progress being made today. On 6 June 2016, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport tabled an early-day motion noting the delay in progress and requesting that the Government urgently set out a timetable. However, it is the private Member’s Bill from the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton that has brought us to this position, and we seem to be well on the way to introducing a piece of practical, useful and necessary legislation.
The hon. Gentleman has previously estimated that some 2,500 people could benefit from a law of this kind. As we have heard, it will give the courts the power to appoint a guardian to manage the property and affairs, and act on behalf, of a missing person. The Bill also proposes safeguards to ensure that that guardian is accountable and acts in the best interests of the missing person. Moreover, the Bill takes inspiration from an existing precedent in Australia, which has a legal system that shares some similarities with our own.
To reiterate, it is welcome that the House is legislating to fill the gap in the law. There has been long-standing and consistent cross-party support for legislation to address the issues. Moreover, campaigners and other interested parties, including the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the charity Missing People, support the Bill in its current form. There is therefore welcome agreement across the board on the issue. We must not drag our heels. I am glad that we have the opportunity to see the Bill progress today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate my hon. and long-standing Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton on introducing a Bill to create the new legal status of guardian of the property and financial affairs of missing people and on presenting the case for clauses 1 to 7 to stand part of the Bill.
The Government have indicated on several occasions in recent months—not least in reply to questions from my hon. Friend and other Members from all parts of the House—that we intend to bring forward legislation on the subject as soon as parliamentary time allows. It will therefore come as no great surprise that the Government welcome the Bill and intend to support it. I also very much welcome the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Nothing can cure the emotional and psychological pain caused by the sudden, unexplained disappearance of a loved one, but changes to the law can help to provide solutions to some of the practical problems faced by those left behind. Clauses 1 to 7 provide the core of a legal framework within which the best interests—in a wide sense—of the missing person can be protected and those left behind can be sustained in a way that it is reasonable to think the missing person would have approved, had he or she been present.
The clauses define when a guardian may be appointed, the terms on which he or she may be appointed and the duration of the appointment, where a person is “missing” as defined in clause 1. My hon. Friend has provided a clear explanation of the purpose of the Bill’s provisions, and I do not intend to repeat his observations. I urge the Committee to agree that clauses 1 to 7 should stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 2 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Guardians and effect of guardianship order
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss clauses 9 to 25 and the schedule to the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Quite simply, clauses 8 to 25 cover the guardian’s obligations, the role of the Office of the Public Guardian, the relevant courts that would supervise the proceedings, and the code of practice. On that basis, I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Dr Lee
I thank my hon. Friend for his explanation of clauses 8 to 25. The clauses build on the foundation laid by clauses 1 to 7 and lay out the remainder of the legal framework to which secondary legislation and codes of practice are to be added. The clauses are unified by the theme of the guardianship, but are fairly disparate in their detail.
First, the clauses deal with the obligations of the guardian and the effect of his or her dealings with third parties. In that respect, the guardian is obliged to act in what he or she reasonably believes to be the best interests of the missing person and is to be treated as the agent of the missing person. Third parties dealing with the guardian need to know where they stand, just as they do with any agent.
Clauses 8 and 11 build on the law of agency and the provisions relating to deputies in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Clause 10 allows guardians and others to seek instructions from the court on how to act. Personal representatives and trustees have similar options. Once appointed, a guardian will be entrusted by the court with authority to act on behalf of the missing person, but circumstances may change. Clauses 12 to 15 create a system within which orders can be changed by court order or revoked, whether by court order or automatically, in the light of changing circumstances.
Guardians will be held to account by third parties under clause 11, where the guardian acts outside their authority. They will also be subject to the supervision of the Public Guardian, by virtue of clause 17. Here, too, the Bill draws on the existing legislation relating to deputies, as it does in clause 22, in relation to the issues of codes of practice, to provide guidance to guardians and others.
I welcome the inclusion of the definition of the best interests of the missing person in clause 18, particularly the provision allowing for further definition of that concept through regulations subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. None of the secondary legislation that may be created under the Bill has yet been drafted, but a memorandum on the powers has been sent to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place. I certainly envisage that the draft legislation will be subject to consultation with stakeholders and experts.
I do not think that I need to comment on any other aspects of the Bill, save to say that I hope that all the necessary secondary legislation can be made within a year of Royal Assent, so that if the Bill is enacted, it can be brought into force in 2018. I commend clauses 8 to 25 of the Bill to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 9 to 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule agreed to.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.
Kevin Hollinrake
On a point of order, Mr Hanson. I would just like to thank a number of people. I thank our wonderful doorkeepers and Hansard reporters, all colleagues across all parties who have given up their time today and on many other occasions, the Clerks for their essential guidance, the officials from the Ministry of Justice, particularly the excellent Mr Hughes, who has been tremendous, and of course our superb Ministers, who have been so supportive. Of course, I also thank everyone connected to the Missing People organisation, which has campaigned so hard and for so long for the introduction of this legislation.
I am grateful to Members from all parts of the House and to Members of the other place who have pledged their support. I give particular thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for York Outer and for Selby and Ainsty and to the hon. Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Stockport and for City of Chester, who have been so supportive and worked so hard on this issue. I was simply in the right place at the right time and have hopefully carried the baton over the last few yards. I am also very grateful to the Select Committee on Justice and the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults for their work.
I offer my final and most important thanks to my constituents, Mr and Mrs Lawrence—Peter Lawrence is here today—who have championed the cause of guardianship, even though it can no longer help with their situation. They are, of course, the parents of Claudia Lawrence, a missing person since 18 March 2009, nearly eight years ago, her fate still unknown. As a testimony and tribute to their endeavour, their eternal hope, their endless fight for answers and justice, and their selfless commitment to help others faced with similar tragic circumstances, I very much hope that this legislation, if effected, will always be known as Claudia’s law.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.
Local Government Finance Bill (Ninth sitting)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
On a point of order, Mr Gapes. I would like to highlight to the Committee that on Wednesday last week, my Department published its response to the summer consultation on business rates retention. Alongside that we published a further consultation on the Government’s proposed approach, which provides additional information on the design of the new, reformed business rates retention system.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to that point of order, Mr Gapes. We are delighted that you and your fellow Chair have clearly had some influence on the Minister and finally managed to get those documents released. It would have been helpful, though, if the full 450 consultation responses had been published alongside the summary that the Minister released and if he had given a bit more of a clue about how the system will look by 2019. I have a further point of order.
Mr Thomas
On a point of order, Mr Gapes. You may have followed media reports of a letter from the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to some Members of Parliament about business rates. I have not yet received my copy, and I do not think other Opposition Members have either. I wonder whether you and Sir David might use your influence with the Minister to persuade him to release a copy of the full letter. Obviously we have seen transcripts in the media, but it would be good to have sight of the full letter.
The Chair
I do not think that is a matter for me. It relates to other issues that are not necessarily within the scope of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman is experienced enough to know that there are many channels through which he can make his concerns heard. He has done it here, but I suggest he now goes elsewhere.
Clause 37
Business improvement districts: property owner arrangements and levy
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss that schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
Mr Jones
The Government support clause 37, which introduces schedule 5 to the Bill. Schedule 5 allows billing authorities across England to make property owner arrangements and introduce a property owner levy, which can be raised on property owners in an existing business improvement district.
Business improvement districts have been instrumental in improving the vitality of local high streets and town centres. Property owners are currently able to have their own BID levies, but only in London, due to existing legislation. The Business Rate Supplements Act 2009 introduced property owner BIDs but required a business rates settlement to be enforced in the same area. That has limited property owner BIDs to areas where such a settlement is being implemented, which is currently only for Crossrail. Schedule 5 will remove that requirement, so that it will no longer be the case that a business rates settlement must be enforced in order to set up a property owner levy. We have otherwise sought to ensure that the business improvement district model remains unchanged, so the schedule replicates the existing statutory framework.
Schedule 5 omits schedule 2 to the 2009 Act, which provided for the existing property owner BID arrangements, and inserts new chapter 2 into part 4 of the Local Government Act 2003. Schedule 5 sets out the provisions for the property owner BID. The levy can be introduced only within an existing BID and must be used to fund only the projects that are specified in the relevant arrangements and are intended to benefit those in the district. The levy is raised on those with a relevant property interest. How it is calculated, and which persons with a property interest are to pay it, is left to the discretion of each BID and must be specified in the property owner arrangements.
Mr Thomas
I had hoped to catch your eye after my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton to pick up on one particular concern, Mr Gapes, but I will ask the Minister about it now. As I understand it, there is no definitive and accurate record of property owners in the UK, so property owners wanting to take advantage of the clause and schedule may face difficulties in tracking down their fellow property owners. What further steps does the Minister envisage taking—perhaps through work with the Land Registry or other arrangements—to help to tackle that problem?
Mr Jones
We are certainly looking at that area. In terms of bringing forward property owner BIDs, it is obviously extremely important that the whereabouts of property ownership are clearly identified, because a system very similar to that implemented in current BID legislation will be used to ballot property owners in that regard.
Mr Thomas
I wonder whether I could pursue that a little further. I hear the point that the Minister makes, but I wonder whether the Bill makes it easier for property owners wanting to take advantage of the legislation further down the line. For example, would it be sensible for Ministers to contemplate making it a requirement of property owners that they declare their ownership to the local billing authority, in order to make it easier for the local authority to collect other charges and, in the context of the clause, to make it easier for property owners to talk to each other about a possible BID in future?
Mr Jones
There are no plans to do that at this stage, but I certainly hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I will take that point seriously and consider those comments, as I always do with points he raises. Obviously, as I said before, it is important in the context of what we are talking about that the ownership of property is clearly identified.
Coming back to my original point, a property owner levy cannot be introduced until proposals have been approved in a ballot by those who would be liable to pay it. For a ballot to be successful, it must pass a double-lock mechanism—by receiving a majority of votes cast, and with the total rateable value of the properties of those voting for being more than that of those voting against. Several other important checks and balances remain in the model. The billing authority may veto property owner proposals under prescribed circumstances, and those who voted on the proposals retain the right to appeal to the Secretary of State to overturn that veto. The Secretary of State will also have the power to declare a ballot void if there have been material irregularities in the ballot process.
The levy can be imposed for a maximum of five years, after which the BID body must write a new proposal and go back to the ballot. We have seen the success of occupied BIDs and property owner BIDs in London, which give local businesses the tools to undertake projects that improve their high streets and town centres. Overall, the schedule will give property owners across the whole of England the opportunity to improve their local environment and play a greater role in efforts to shape their local area.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I am a great fan of the schedule, but before I go any further I should perhaps declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on town centres. That group’s secretariat is the Association of Town and City Management, which supports a number of areas in developing their BIDs. As a former town centre manager, I fully understand the struggle that many of our town centres face and the real need through whatever means possible to try to have focused investment, not just in terms of cash, although that is important, but in terms of energy and co-ordination and making sure that all partners in the area—whether the private sector, the public sector or shoppers and visitors—have a shared vision for what that place can be. I see BIDs in their widest sense as being not just about building for additional income to create a pot of money to spend, but about bringing people together to develop that shared vision. So I am a fan of BIDs and I want to see more across the country.
We have seen the success of BIDs, because towns and cities have learned from other towns and cities where the process has been done well and have adopted the principle. Because they are now so well established, with 260 BIDs across the country, there is trust and confidence in the way that the money is generated and in the way in which businesses may be able to steer and navigate how the money is spent and are held to account. There is a great deal of confidence.
Also, of course, a lot of national and particularly regional retailers, with a reach right across the country and regions, support this. At times, supermarkets get a great deal of bad press. My experience in many BID areas is that supermarkets come to the table with a very positive approach. Because they are such a large ratepayer and because the voting mechanism is weighted towards rateable values as well as individual owner occupiers, they are a substantial voice in that process. When they come to the table and are supportive, it is a very important part of the process. We know that, through the BIDs, £75 million a year is generated to support greater activity.
I think about the improvements that have been made in my town of Oldham—to some people this can seem frivolous, but the annual planting that takes place when we enter the Britain in Bloom contest has become a source of pride for the town. People come to visit and local school children take part in planning the contest. It has gone beyond the town centre, with local schools planting allotments and community gardens. There are public displays beyond the town centre. Had it not been for the work of the BID and the town centre partnership in developing it, I do not believe that Oldham in Bloom would be on such a scale or that we would have won the biggest city contest. I will put that on the record. It is very important in creating a sense of place.
I mentioned in previous sittings that town centres are not just about creating retail space for retailers to sell goods to the public; they are the heart of the community. They are where people come together to socialise and mix. For people who live by themselves and have few visitors to their home, it is perhaps the one place they can go where they see familiar faces whom they can talk to and share experiences with. I strongly believe that our town and city centres are more than places to operate from.
However, I am concerned, and I hope that you will indulge me slightly, Mr Gapes, because there is absolutely a connection with the letter from the Secretary of State to Conservative MPs. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West, I feel slightly left out in not being included in the distribution of the letter. I like to receive letters. I read all the letters that come through. It would have been received well. However, this was nothing other than, “This is a contentious issue”. How you teem and ladle the liability for business rates is fundamentally important to the relationship between business and the Government. Business rates are contentious in themselves, but they are an important part of our system of taxation. We rely on property-raised taxes to fund local public services, but there is no doubt that a lot of businesses feel that, in the way council tax has been pushed to the edge, business rates have been pushed to the edge and do not reflect the way that industry and retail are changing very quickly with online retail and globalisation. It seems that we cannot make the transition effectively, from a taxation point of view, from a traditional property-based tax to recognising that companies are now multinational and can be very mobile in the way that they treat their tax affairs. I think businesses feel particularly hard done by.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman is talking about businesses being very mobile. Is that not one of the challenges that we face? One cannot easily avoid paying a property-based tax. That is why generally Governments of all colours have stuck with a property-based tax, rather than moving to a different system, where multinational companies may seek to avoid that situation.
Jim McMahon
I agree. We can see where a property is and we know where to send the bill, and when people do not pay we know which door to knock on. But we can do the same for an online retailer; we know the IP address and where the computer is, and we know the delivery address when parcels are sent from an Amazon depot, for example. We know where transactions on goods happen and where money is being made.
The issue with business rates is more fundamental. They have a role—I support the principle of business rates and property-based taxes as part of a range of taxation—but they must be manageable for the people who are expected to pay them. The outcry that we have heard from some significant businesses has come after a significant outcry from small businesses, which have been saying for a long time that business rates are taking them over the edge and making their existence unaffordable.
In the review and revaluation there has been a shift towards larger retail and towards particular parts of the country, but those businesses are now saying that it has become too much for them to bear, and there will be an impact on their business model. It strikes me that if the quantum is still required, and all that can be done is move it around a diminishing tax base, there will always be a disproportionate effect on some elements of the retail property base, whereas the way people spend and make money is changing quickly.
Mr Jones
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but does not what he says make it all the more important for the Government to stick to their guns and not allow local authorities an arbitrary situation in which they can increase the multiplier, as has been advocated? [Interruption.]
The Chair
Order. I would be grateful if hon. Members did not make such interventions from a sedentary position. It is not helpful to the debate.
Jim McMahon
I do not accept the starting point that the Government are sticking to their guns. If they have guns, they have no ammunition. The guns are weak and meaningless, because ultimately those who are expected to pay will collectively determine whether the pressure applied is something they can bear.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has made some good points about the current state of the business rates system, but is he looking to revise the whole business rates system in this Bill Committee? Various bodies have looked at this, and it is a difficult issue to resolve. I would support taking a cross-party view to consider how we tax business in future, but we are not going to solve it today. What is the hon. Gentleman’s point?
The Chair
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, I remind hon. Members that we are discussing property owner levies in clause 37 and the schedule.
Jim McMahon
Thank you, Mr Gapes. We need to debate the issue here, and it is not for the Opposition to draw out the Government’s policy position; it is for the Government to do that. The Opposition’s role is to hold the Government to account by applying the right scrutiny and asking the necessary questions. We will of course develop our own position through our internal party structures. We will do that by reaching out to those affected to ensure that we co-produce a successful system of taxation that will fund public services properly and be proportionate to the ability of those involved—whether council tax payers or business rate payers—to pay.
What I have been saying is absolutely relevant to the debate, because there is only a certain amount of money that businesses will be able to pay through a property-based tax, in total, from the money they make in their location. If a greater burden is being placed on business rates, as industry says, businesses may think twice about whether to enter into a BID arrangement. It could be that their business rate has gone up significantly anyway, and they might think, “I am paying more than I used to and it is a burden I cannot take.” I really fear what that means for local regeneration, local improvements and a local shared vision about town and city centre improvements. Moreover, I believe that it could be really toxic for the relationship between businesses that are struggling to survive and a Government who seem completely ignorant of the real situation on the ground.
Mr Jones
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I am not sure he is talking much about property owner BIDs, but he is giving his theory on how the business rate revaluation has been conducted and what should have been done. If that is the case, why did he or his party not oppose the independent business rate review when it came through both Houses?
Jim McMahon
There is general consensus; I am not sure why this has become a matter of contention.
Jim McMahon
There is a world of difference in having a property-based system of taxation where regular assessments are carried out to make sure that the valuations placed on properties are relevant to market conditions. We have seen with council tax the way that decision has been ducked for 26 years, and it is right that we make sure that it is kept up on. The principle of a revaluation ought to be supported because it has to reflect the market and property conditions at the most appropriate moment in time. However, the way that is done, its impact and the outcome will be matters for debate. That is the debate that not only I but Conservative Back Benchers are having, and that we read in the papers today. In fact, there is real concern about whether this will get support from the Conservative Benches when it comes before the House.
It is right to challenge whether we should be redrawing the system of business rates within a Bill Committee. Of course we should not be doing that, but neither should we be redrawing it behind closed doors in secret.
Jim McMahon
We say it is rubbish, and I agree that it would be rubbish to do it in that way, but when we have a system where a letter goes out to Conservative MPs, incorrectly stating that many areas will not be affected when in fact they are, and when the truth is discovered, it is very clear that MPs come back—
The Chair
Order. Can we please get back to the content of clause 37? The interventions and heckling are not helping either. Can we please focus on the clause stand part debate?
Jim McMahon
Thank you, Mr Gapes, for bringing us back to this point. I hope that Members on the Government side of the Committee take note of the Chair’s guidance.
The Chair
Order. I am asking all hon. Members, on both sides of the Committee, to take note of what I have said.
Jim McMahon
Thank you, Mr Gapes. I of course listen to every word you say and take your direction.
This issue is important, because the system that we end up with and the amount of money that individual businesses are expected to pay will be a fundamental factor, I believe, in whether they will be willing to enter into a BID arrangement. Until we see what the final package and settlement will be, it is difficult to understand what the take-up of new BIDs will be and what impact the new legislation will have in a real sense, on the ground, in towns and cities throughout the country.
Mr Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept, however, that under the definition of a property owner BID, the actual BID amount will be paid for through a separate bill chargeable to the property owner, not the ratepayer? The ratepayer is obviously the person operating the business from the particular premises that the property owner owns. Will he not accept that the argument he is making is actually pretty flawed?
Jim McMahon
I thank the Minister for that intervention, but I can say with confidence that I have never knowingly made a flawed argument and I do not intend to start today. Landlords are of course there to make money from the rental of their properties. They have an expectation about the amount of money they will receive for the property, and in a number of cases they could well decide to pass the additional cost on to the tenant through rent increases. That could well be the impact, and of course if the tenant has to pay more money, they will look at the overall amount of money that they have to spend as part of their business operation and decide whether or not they can support a BID arrangement.
Mr Thomas
Will my hon. Friend reflect on the point that I made in an intervention on the Minister? Attractive as the opportunity to set up BIDs will be for property owners, the worry that I suspect they will have when they come to do the hard yards of putting the BID together will be access to the information about who actually owns the properties. Does my hon. Friend share my view that the gap between Committee and Report might be a good opportunity for the Minister to reflect on what else could be done to make it easier for the initiators of a BID to find the details of who really owns properties?
Jim McMahon
I absolutely agree with that point, not simply because what my hon. Friend refers to would be helpful—in fact, essential—to support the implementation of BIDs on the ground, but because it would help local authorities in a wider sense. Many local authorities have empty buildings in their areas, and tracking down the property owner can be very difficult. There may be health and safety issues or vandalism, antisocial behaviour or other illegal activity taking place. Finding out who the property owner is in those cases can be extremely difficult. Having a register that makes sense, whereby the owner is easily identifiable, would be important for what we are discussing, but it would also be beneficial for local authorities in a wider sense.
The levy that has been proposed evidently makes sense. This is more of a tidying-up exercise than a groundbreaking initiative, but sometimes tidying up is as important as breaking ground, so on that basis we perhaps should reflect. However, the Government could perhaps do slightly more to assist in the development of BIDs. I think that there is cross-party agreement that the way BIDs can be developed, not just in being able to generate the money but in the process by which local authorities and the business community have to develop a prospectus to get local support and win the vote on the day, is actually quite empowering. I am talking about getting that sense of ownership at local level and of being able actually to do something.
We find that, in many areas, people are looking at their town and city centres declining and asking, “What can we do about this?” It is happening because of the supermarkets and online retailing. It is almost being done to people, as opposed to their being able to get a grip themselves and have that shared vision. I see this route as one way whereby people can assert their own responsibility for taking control, and of course the way businesses can really get a grip of how the money is spent is quite important.
Of course, the money is ring-fenced, so when the prospectus is given to local businesses—local landlords as it will be—the money cannot be used by the local authority for any purpose other than improving the circumstances within that business improvement district. However, how that money is used in the business improvement district can be quite imaginative and flexible. It could be used to attract new visitors or provide events and activities. We have seen areas that pay to have their Christmas lights switched on, fireworks displays, Christmas markets or summer and Easter activities, and others that install CCTV or provide car parks to create a pleasant place for visitors.
The evidence shows that such measures increase footfall, and that people reflect afterwards that they ought to be supported. It would be helpful if the Government—not today, but at some point in future—outlined, perhaps in a letter to our team, what they intend to do to actively promote the further expansion of BIDs across the country, and their assessment of what the total impact of the business rate revaluation might be for the uptake in business improvement districts.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
May I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the courtesy of his letter to me following our discussions? It was on a different matter from the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton spoke about. The Minister wrote to me to clarify the relief for telecommunications infrastructure.
On clause 37 and schedule 5, page 51 of the helpful Library briefing reminds us that under the Business Rate Supplements (Rateable Value Condition) (England) Regulations 2009, with which the Minister will be intimately familiar, properties with a rateable value of less than £50,000, or £55,000 for Crossrail, are exempt from business rate supplements. I had a discussion yesterday with the Federation of Small Businesses, which was helpfully attended by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, because he and I like to do consensual things. I understand the FSB’s approach in saying that when levies of this kind proliferate—one such levy is in clause 37 and schedule 5; another is in clause 38, which I know we have not yet discussed—it is difficult for businesses, and a common floor of £50,000 that could be read across would be helpful. I hope that the Minister will feel able to comment on that.
The Chancellor has trumpeted the change in small business rate relief, which the Opposition support, so that another 600,000 small businesses will not have to pay business rates. However, we risk a proliferation of different benchmarks, floors or ceilings—call them what you will. The landscape is made much more complex by the Bill. I have some background in small business, although the Minister has a lot more. A schedule such as schedule 5, which runs to 11 pages, is bad enough in terms of complexity, but it gets a whole lot worse.
Schedule 5 will amend the Local Government Act 2003 and introduce alphabetised sections after section 59. I will refer to them as they are numbered in schedule 5. New section 59B allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59E allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59F allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59G allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59H allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59I allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59M allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59O allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59P allows the Secretary of State to make regulations. New section 59Q allows the Secretary of State to make regulations.
I say to the Minister that this 11-page schedule to the Bill effectively adds to the tax regime, when “Tolley’s Tax Guide” has grown in the last seven years from 1,000 to 1,500 pages in round terms. Here we have, albeit not in a Finance Act, another 11 pages of legislation in schedule 5, and then—get this—10 sets of regulations within that 11-page schedule. How are businesses supposed to get on with the business of making money and adding to prosperity, which we all want, when faced with a tsunami of red tape?
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
First, I thought everybody would like to share in the great news that Swindon has just voted through its second renewal of its local BID. I have been a long-standing supporter of that. The reason I am supportive, and the reason it works so well, is that it provides a co-ordinated single point of contact.
Let us look at out-of-town shopping centres, such as the McArthurGlen outlet village in Swindon. There are a number of reasons why it is a success, but one of the main reasons—I say this as a former co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on retail—is that there is that single point of contact. Retailers know who to speak to and are given clear costs, rules and regulations, so they can weigh it up and see whether it makes commercial sense to proceed. That then allows them to trade happily. A traditional high street is complex. Is it the landlord? Is it the council? Who do people speak to if they want to secure a deal or they want to do co-ordinated marketing to help the area? This policy is clearly an extension of that successful appeal.
I was a big supporter of the principle of super-BIDs because I would like to see a lot of town centres become collective shopping centres, with all the different owners working in co-ordination to replicate the successes of the out-of-town shopping centres. I think that that has huge potential.
Jim McMahon
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the policy also allows local authorities to look at their town centre as a business unit in its own right? When they are making decisions about the quality of street lighting, CCTV or car parking charges, for instance, they would take into account the economic impact of that and the support for their local businesses.
Justin Tomlinson
That certainly has potential, particularly now that we will be incentivising local authorities to grow their business rate base. The key is to make sure that those that have a vested interest in making their town centre a success are equipped to do so. We have had some very good success stories with the BIDs, and this is a good move by the Government to further unleash that potential.
Mr Thomas
It is always a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Swindon North tempted to speak in this Committee. He gave an interesting southern example to complement the example given by my hon. Friend for Oldham West and Royton of the potential benefits of the clause.
We need to understand why we are having to discuss clause 37 and schedule 5. It appears to be because Ministers did not get it right when the Business Improvement Districts (Property Owners) (England) Regulations 2014 were made. That was an opportunity to solve the apparently odd situation whereby property owner-led business improvement districts could be established only where a business rate supplement was in place.
As the Minister hinted, the only place where a business rate supplement is in place at the moment is in London, where the Crossrail supplement is kicking in. The power of the success of the New West End Company, which has already raised £3.2 million just in its first year, is testimony to the potential strength of property owner-led BIDs. It is a sensible change, although it was brought on by Ministers having made a mistake with the 2014 regulations. Nevertheless, it does provide an opportunity to see whether we can do more to help property owners who want to establish a business improvement district.
I fear that one of the key constraints on property owners will be accessing the details of who owns other properties. Some property owners like to hide their ownership.
Mr Thomas
Perhaps offshore, through myriad trusts or in other ways.
I wonder whether it is time to require the beneficial owner of property or land to be registered and, therefore, accessible to the billing authority. That has got to be good for tax purposes in general but, in the context of clause 37, it surely has to be good for those property owners who, hearing of the success of what has happened in Swindon, Oldham or other business improvement districts, want to lead an effort in their area for such a district. Surely, we ought to make it as easy for them as possible to contact other property owners in their area.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend will be acutely aware, as will the Minster, that compulsory registration of land title in England and Wales came in under the Law of Property Act 1925, which was effective from 1 January 1926, but was phased in throughout the country, and that phasing ended in the 1980s. Here we are, coming up to the 100th anniversary of that Act. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be suitable, by that anniversary, to make registration compulsory whether there is a transfer of title or not?
Mr Thomas
I have always admired my hon. Friend’s prodigious research efforts before he attends a Bill Committee. He makes the fair point that legislation has been introduced to tackle this problem, but the less scrupulous and those who have something to hide have become more skilled and found new ways to hide their ownership.
I gently suggest to the Minister that if, for the best of reasons, we want to make it easy for business improvement districts to be established where appropriate, surely we need to help property owners by making it easier to access the details of who else owns property in their district. I gently encourage the Minister to reflect on that at length and perhaps to bring forward amendments or at least more information on how Ministers are going to make that easier. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Mr Jones
To respond directly to the hon. Member for Harrow West, he just mentioned that we did not take this step in the 2014 regulations. To clarify, that is because new primary legislation is needed to make the change, so we could not have pursued it through the 2014 regulations. I dealt with the ownership of property during his interventions on my initial comments on the clause.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West mentioned the potential proliferation of different supplements. In order to bring in a business rate supplement, one would need a ballot of businesses, unless the supplement was being levied by the Mayor of a combined authority, in which case it would be done in consultation with business. On property owner BIDs, again there would be a ballot, but that would be a ballot of property owners rather than ratepayers, so there is a distinct difference.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Minister says that that ballot would logically be of the property owners rather than the ratepayers. Will he confirm that the same majority thresholds would apply, not just on number but on rateable value?
Mr Jones
I was coming on to rateable value, because the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West also asked that question. We will set out how the matter is to be determined through regulations. It is envisaged that property owners will set their own threshold, but we are clear that that has to be subject to the ballot of those property owners. It is not just something that will be imposed on a particular property owner. That brings me to the conclusion of my comments.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 37 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Clause 38
Power of mayoral combined authorities to impose business rate supplements
Mr Thomas
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 38, page 28, line 38, after “2009”, insert—
“(f) any other billing authority.”
This amendment would add any billing authority to the list of levying authorities with a power to impose business rate supplements.
I hope not to detain the Committee too long on this amendment, although I do have a series of questions for the Minister.
Amendment 19 seeks to put right the rather odd exclusion of non-mayoral combined authorities from the power to levy business rate supplements. It will be interesting to hear why Ministers think that the existence of a Mayor is the only thing that should be pivotal to whether an area should be allowed to raise money for investment in infrastructure. One would have thought that the principle of localism would allow local authority areas to come forward and decide whether they needed a Mayor, and that Ministers would respect the decisions of the people of England in that regard.
In the particular case of business rate supplements, we should remember that a ballot of non-domestic ratepayers is required. A series of checks and balances is therefore built in to the levying of business rate supplements already. Given that, it seems even more unfair that non-mayoral combined authorities should not have the power to levy business rate supplements, if they have identified with their business community a significant need to raise money for investment in infrastructure. That smacks of the nanny state—a mentality that “Whitehall knows best” and should be able to dictate what happens in Swindon, Cornwall, Totnes or Northamptonshire. We believe that the people of England should be trusted to make a decision in their particular areas about whether they have a Mayor. Denying them the chance to work with their business community to raise money for much-needed investment in infrastructure seems to be particularly unfair.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman makes some interesting points. Has he run these plans by any business organisations, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, the CBI, or the chambers of commerce, to see whether they would be in favour?
Mr Thomas
The Federation of Small Businesses raised a particular concern with me about the potential for both business rate supplements and property owner levies in terms of BIDs to be covered. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, that issue probably works best as part of a clause 38 stand part debate. I want simply to equalise what Ministers are giving to mayoral combined authorities with those combined authorities that do not have a Mayor. It is called fairness. I appreciate that that is a concept that Conservative MPs sometimes struggle to come to terms with, but I hope that our efforts in the last two weeks have been helpful, particularly to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton.
Mr Jones
The Business Rate Supplements Act 2009 was, indeed, brought through Parliament during the period of a Labour Government. That was done off the back of the review by Michael Lyons, who recommended not to include district councils in regard to business rate supplements. Does the hon. Gentleman therefore believe that the legislation made by his Government in 2009 was flawed?
Mr Thomas
I think that times have moved on and people have seen the success of business rate supplements as they have worked, particularly in London. Now is the time to make a sensible change. I certainly do not think it was the intention of the last Labour Government to say that if an area does not have a Mayor it must for ever be denied the chance to have investment in infrastructure.
Kevin Foster
A few moments ago the hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to see fairness for non-mayoral—or non-elected Mayor-led—combined authorities, but his amendment states “any other billing authority”, not any other combined authority, in other words deleting the requirement for an elected Mayor. Therefore he is not seeking fairness for areas without a Mayor: he seeks to include a range of things, which could mean that some places end up paying two of these supplements.
Mr Thomas
I used the example of the non-mayoral combined authorities to make a crucial point. This is a probing amendment and I am interested in hearing why Ministers want to exclude non-mayoral combined authorities. I say that in the context of my huge support for the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who is doing an excellent job. I am conscious, though, that many council leaders and councillors have strong relationships with their local business community. I gently suggest that we should trust both business owners and local people who have elected councils to look at the merits of a particular proposal on infrastructure, rather than dictating from Whitehall whether they have to have a Mayor in order to levy a business rate supplement.
Jim McMahon
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an absolute obsession with directly elected Mayors full stop? The Government use an example of a combined authority with a Mayor not even having to consult on the referendum result on business rate introduction. However, a city Mayor directly elected by the population has to have a vote in the same way as a Mayor of a combined authority.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Now is the time to embrace the spirit of localism, which Ministers have previously professed to support, with investment in infrastructure and to trust local businesses. They will be able to smell perfectly easily whether a proposal for a business rate supplement is a sensible suggestion or not.
Kevin Hollinrake
I do not think the hon. Gentleman has addressed my earlier point. My point was simply that he is proposing a significant change to the legislation and he has not said whether he has consulted anybody about it—the Federation of Small Businesses, for example. Has he done that? Does he not think it is right that we have those conversations prior to introducing legislation in this House?
Mr Thomas
We have had consultations with a whole series of organisations which wanted reform to the Bill because of the poor way in which it has been drafted and brought forward by the Minister. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to have patience, as I hope to raise the question of double charging for investment under clause 38 stand part. He is not normally excitable, so I encourage him to be patient. I look forward with interest to hearing from the Minister why he thinks we should discriminate against those areas and people of England who do not have a Mayor.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his explanation of amendment 19. The amendment would add to clause 38 any billing authority to the list of authorities set out in section 2 of the Business Rate Supplements Act 2009 that would be able to use powers under the Act to introduce a business rate supplement.
Hon. Members will understand that we cannot support this amendment for several reasons. Many of these will be familiar from the debate on amendment 29, which proposed adding billing authorities to the list of authorities which could levy an infrastructure supplement. However, I think it might be informative to look back at the report that I alluded to earlier that originally suggested the introduction of a business rate supplement.
Sir Michael Lyons in his 2007 report set out the benefits that he felt could be delivered through a new flexibility on business rates. In doing so, he had reservations about providing the power to a wider range of authorities, particularly with business concerns about the scope for complexity if the settlement applied across all authorities. That was a legitimate point about complexity that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West made earlier.
Sir Michael Lyons recommended, therefore, that the power should be available to upper-tier authorities and unitary authorities. However, importantly, he highlighted the scope for engagement and development of joint plans between both tiers of local government in two-tier areas which could assess how the revenues raised could be utilised to benefit the wider area.
As the Bill that became the Business Rate Supplements Act progressed through Parliament, there was a wide-ranging debate about which authorities should have the power to take forward the supplement. Following those well-informed debates, Parliament came to the conclusion that the supplement should be available in England to the GLA and to county and unitary authorities. The Bill we are now considering includes a clause to add mayoral combined authorities to the list of authorities able to levy a business rate supplement, but essentially recognises that such bodies did not exist at the time of the 2009 Act. However, I do not believe that the circumstances have changed between 2009 and now to warrant extending the power to all billing authorities—that would add further complexity for business, as Sir Michael warned against at the time. Instead, I believe the billing authorities that are not unitaries should engage proactively in partnership with their upper-tier authorities to develop imaginative proposals for a business rate supplement that can deliver benefits for all local businesses. That does not require a supplement at billing authority level.
The hon. Member for Harrow West said that it is a probing amendment and I hope that in that spirit, and having reflected on the points I have made, he will withdraw the amendment.
Mr Thomas
Briefly, I want to raise a concern that the Federation of Small Businesses put to me. It relates to the intervention by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. The FSB’s concern is that the Bill already allows for two levies to be levied on small or medium, as well as large, businesses—the business rates supplement and the property owner-led business improvement districts. The FSB is concerned that that would potentially see another 4% on top of existing business rates as a result of the Bill as it is currently drafted. Its concern is that that would make business rate bills even higher. In particular, in some areas in London and, notably, the south-east—although not exclusively those areas—that would send business rate bills even higher. Given the FSB’s considerable concern about the size of business rate bills following revaluation, it would be good to hear the Minister’s view about the potential for an extra 4% on top of existing business rates.
Mr Jones
Clause 38 is relatively straightforward and makes a number of linked amendments to the Business Rate Supplements Act 2009. The rationale for the amendments is to recognise that at the time that the Business Rate Supplements Act gained Royal Assent, mayoral combined authorities did not exist and therefore could not have been considered for inclusion within the types of authority that were given the power to raise a business rate supplement. The 2009 Act provides that power to the GLA and to upper-tier and unitary authorities. The Government are moving forward with arrangements for establishing directly elected Mayors in combined authority areas, and elections will take place in six areas in May.
We have already discussed the particular functions and roles of mayoral combined authorities that merit the use by such authorities and the GLA of the infrastructure supplements set out in part 3 of the Bill. Clause 38 closes the gap that exists in the 2009 Act and adds mayoral combined authorities to section 2 of it as a levying authority for the purposes of that Act. It also clarifies that the functions of a mayoral combined authority are exercisable only by the Mayor acting on behalf of the authority, providing the focal point for accountability for the supplement. Subsections (3) and (4) of clause 38 make consequential amendments to sections 3 and 5 of the 2009 Act to reflect the addition of mayoral combined authorities to the list of levying authorities for the purposes of the business rate supplement. As I said, the clause effectively tidies up the gap in the 2009 Act that could not have been foreseen at the time.
The hon. Member for Harrow West mentioned adding to the burdens on business, and that is a very important point. In theory, it is certainly possible that businesses could be liable for a number of different settlements. However, the purpose of each of these would be to deliver directly benefits to the businesses, which would also have the opportunity to frame the nature of those improvements, either through ballot or extensive engagement and consultation, so we believe there are significant safeguards. On that basis, the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Rob Marris
I have reservations about this clause, which will not surprise the Minister. Building on what I referred to when we discussed clause 37 and schedule 5, I understand that a business could face a business improvement district levy, a business rates supplement, a BRS bid, the combined authority levy in clause 38, as well as the infrastructure levy that we discussed in part 3 of the Bill in clauses 15 through 36.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West has said, there is a risk, which has been raised by me with the Federation of Small Businesses, of a cumulative effect of a proliferation of tax measures on businesses, including medium-sized ones, if there is a common floor of £50,000. That proliferation, without a cap that would prevent repeated additions, is unhelpful to the growth of businesses in our country. I urge the Minister to look again at the proposals and to provide cohesion so that there is no cumulative overspill with five different local measures.
When Professor Sir Michael Lyons was Mick Lyons and barely out of short trousers in the early 1980s, he was chief executive of Wolverhampton Metropolitan Borough Council, as it then was, and he was already well known and obviously going places. Clause 38 would further a system about which I and some colleagues—I do not know about my Front-Bench colleagues—are deeply uneasy.
There are two factors. The first is taxation by referendum, which has bedevilled places such as California where there can be opposing referendums. One referendum might say, “We want the Government to spend less money,” but another says, “We want the Government to spend more money on education.” Opposing referendums would not happen here, but it is a slippery slope if we introduce taxation by referendum.
The second factor marks a step change in the way in which we do things and I am surprised that this Government have proposed it. It was started under the previous Labour Government, but has been much furthered through this Bill, including in clause 38. Effectively, it is hypothecation. There is hypothecation with the business improvement district, the business rates supplement and the infrastructure levy under part 3 of the Bill. Now, under clause 38, there is also hypothecation with the combined authority levy. A taxation system that is based on referendums and hypothecation is a step too far and the Government ought to rethink rather than extend that approach.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 38 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 39
Power to make consequential provision
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Thomas
Briefly, the clause raises the thorny question of the use of statutory instruments by the Executive and whether Ministers think they should be subject to affirmative procedure, requiring scrutiny in Committee, or allowed to slip through under negative procedure. Given the importance of business rates to our economy and the more general concern about them, we assert that if statutory instruments are used by Ministers further down the line to introduce regulations, they should be subject to the affirmative procedure and open for the public to see our debate in the House. The SIs should be introduced under the affirmative procedure. I look forward to the Minister confirming whether or not that will be the case.
Rob Marris
Clause 39 is a catch-all, and it is part of a Bill that allows the Secretary of State more than a dozen opportunities to make regulations. As if that is not enough red tape, clause 39 then states, “Oh, if we have forgotten anything, we can make a few regulations about that.” I do not think that that is good enough in a democracy. There needs to be much more clarity. Someone should have looked at the gaps in the clause and we should have had specificity, as we do in at least a dozen other places in the Bill, rather than a general catch-all and comments along the lines of, “Oh well, if we make mistakes, we’ll be all right, because we can rely on clause 39.” Frankly, that is not good enough in a parliamentary democracy.
Mr Jones
Clauses 39 to 41 make standard provision in relation to expenditure incurred, consequential provision that can be made, and the Bill’s extent. Clause 39 confers on the Secretary of State a power to make such consequential provision as is considered appropriate for the purposes of the Bill. Although the Bill contains as many consequential amendments as possible, we may find that there are further consequential amendments to make to either primary or secondary legislation.
Before I go on to clause 40—
Mr Jones
Yes, Mr Gapes. I was just coming on to the question about parliamentary procedure in regard to consequential amendments. The Bill makes numerous changes to existing legislation, including changes of terminology. Although the Bill contains many consequential amendments—we have tried to include as many of those as possible at this point—we may need to make further amendments to either primary or secondary legislation. The regulations containing any amendments to primary legislation will certainly be subject to the affirmative procedure, as the hon. Member for Harrow West asked.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 39 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Financial provisions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Jones
Clause 40 provides spending authorisation for any expenditure incurred in consequence of the Bill. That is necessary in relation to, for example, clause 2 and paragraph 23 of schedule 1, which relate to new types of payment—loss payments and safety net reconciliation payments—to be made by the Secretary of State to authorities.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 41
Extent
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Jones
Clause 41 sets out the territorial extent of the Bill: it applies only in relation to England. However, if the Bill is passed, it will form part of the law of England and Wales. Because England and Wales are a single jurisdiction, legislation cannot form part of the law in England without forming part of the law in Wales, even if it does not have effect in Wales. The clause clarifies that situation.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 41 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 42
Commencement and short title
Mr Thomas
I beg to move amendment 52, in clause 42, page 30, line 8, leave out from “14” to end of line 21 and insert
“Schedule 3 and this section.
(2) The remaining provisions of this Act come into force on 1 April 2019.”
This amendment would provide that the provisions of the Bill as enacted, other than the provisions relating to telecoms relief, guidance about notices relating to non-domestic rates and the provision relating to preparatory expenditure for digital services come into force on 1 April 2019.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 54, in clause 42, page 30, line 8, leave out from “14” to end of line 21 and insert
“Schedule 3 and this section.
(2) The remaining provisions of this Act shall only come into force after the Secretary of State—
(a) has conducted a review into the future of business rates, and
(b) has assessed the impact of the future of business rates on local government finances.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the future of business rates and their impact on local government finances before the commencement of the Bill (save for the provisions under sections 8, 13, 14 and Schedule 3).
Mr Thomas
Amendment 52 would allow key provisions, including telecoms relief, the issuing of key bits of guidance and the commencement of digital preparatory work, to be implemented after the Bill receives Royal Assent, but it would delay the coming into force of all other provisions until 1 April 2019.
The reason for the amendment is that the delay would allow more public scrutiny of the impact of 100% business rates devolution after the implementation of some of the other key elements of the proposals, such as the fair funding review, the needs assessment and the detailed regulations. A consultation was also launched by the Minister last week. One would hope that by 2019 the responses will have been made fully public and that we will be able to assess the impact of 100% business rates devolution in each local authority across the country. There might be scope, where there are problems, for further conversations with Ministers before the legislation passes and we are set on a path that might be difficult for one or two local authority areas.
A series of additional annual local government finance settlements will, of course, provide an opportunity to scrutinise the overall position of local government finances as details of the new systems bed down fully. When does the Minister expect the annual local government finance settlement provisions to be implemented? That will tell us whether tomorrow’s annual local government settlement debate will be the last one, or whether there will be other opportunities for hon. Members to raise concerns annually about the state of financing for local public services.
We want key bits of the Bill to proceed, but there are many unknowns about how it will work in practice. It would be sensible to pause once the Bill comes into force, in order to allow more information to become available about how the system will work in practice. Let us remember the particular challenge currently faced by local authority public services: social care is in crisis. I am sure that no one in this Committee would want 100% business rates devolution inadvertently to worsen the situation.
Efforts have apparently been made by the Cabinet Office, which has been tasked with coming up with proposals for the long-term future of social care. By then we might have some clue of what is emerging from that review, which might or might not give confidence to local authorities and the many critical charities such as Age UK that observe carefully what is happening. More importantly, it might reassure those who are getting older that the care they deserve will be in place. If we rush ahead and allow the Bill to become law before all those additional details are available, there is scope for concern about whether the problem will have been addressed.
There are big concerns for those authorities that do not have huge amounts of space for business expansion of the sort provided by property-based, Amazon-style warehouses, of which I think the hon. Member for North Swindon is a fan. He sees Swindon potentially benefiting from that type of expansion as a result of this Bill. Clearly, some local authorities could experience that type of expansion, but others will not. I have given the example of Allerdale Borough Council, which has a whole series of natural barriers to that type of economic growth.
Justin Tomlinson
I rise just to confirm that Swindon is benefiting from huge economic growth and a fall in unemployment of more than 60% since 2010 and that 8,100 more people are in jobs. I would welcome any businesses that want to relocate to a growing, successful Swindon.
Mr Thomas
I welcome that. I can only hope, given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, that there are no businesses in Swindon that are worried about the revaluation of business rates, which is what he implies. Perhaps we can discuss that issue when we consider amendment 54.
We know that the social care system is in crisis. We do not want to make that worse, but we also know that a series of other statutory services are not being properly funded either. Full business rates devolution potentially provides the opportunity to close some of the £5.8 billion funding gap that the Local Government Association has identified. However, there is a “but” to that. One of the few things we do know as a result of the summary consultation document published last week is that Ministers intend to axe the £3 billion public health grant that currently goes to local authorities, plus the rural services grant, which may interest the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. They have also confirmed the abolition of the Greater London Authority transport grant.
Already, therefore, some of that potential additional £12.8 billion of business rates has been spent, just in the two weeks that we have been considering the Bill. Hopefully, by 2019, we will know exactly what additional responsibilities Ministers want to require of local government and whether there will be any section 31 grants to help to pay for those additional responsibilities. As a result, we will be in a better position to assess the long-term financing of local government.
There is also the question of whether the system of business rates is affordable. I will dwell on that issue in speaking to amendment 54. One of the benefits of amendment 52 is that it would delay the triggering of the majority of the Bill’s provisions, which would give us the chance to have a period to assess properly whether the business rates system is fit for purpose. In that context, I offer amendment 52 as a sensible opportunity to pause, to reflect on local authority financing and to consider whether the business rates system is entirely fit for purpose, or whether there are other ways that we need to think about in terms of the financing of local government.
There is huge concern across councils up and down the land—not only Surrey County Council, but across local government—about their finances. The last thing we want to do is to make the situation worse by getting wrong the implementation of this particular proposal.
Let me turn to amendment 54, which you, Mr Gapes, very generously allowed the debate to begin on. The question is: do business rates work for businesses, do they work for local authorities and do they work for public services? It seems to me, given the huge concern that exists about the business rate revaluations and given other concerns about how local government will be financed, that there should be a full review of business rates before this Bill comes into force.
Given that six of Amazon’s nine distribution warehouses are set to have a fall in business rates, given how little it pays in corporation tax and given how high the business rate bill is going to go up by for many small and medium-sized businesses in our high streets, we have to wonder whether we have the system as correct as we might. The British Retail Consortium has repeatedly voiced the concern—and so did we, earlier in the Committee’s consideration of the Bill—that online retailers have an advantage in terms of costs over businesses that rely on bricks and mortar, not just because their liabilities are lower but because they can offer cheaper prices compared with those on the high street who have to pay business rates. What does that mean for the long-term future of our high streets up and down the country? My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton and, to be fair, the hon. Member for North Swindon alluded to the importance of our high streets as community centres and the sense of place that we all value.
Reputable media outlets such as The Times have suggested that online retailers are rated at less than one eighth of the valuation per square metre of some small shops. That is a huge cost differential. Whether it is fair is an open question but, as our economy begins to change significantly and technology moves forward rapidly, we need to think about whether we are levying tax on business in the most appropriate way.
Business rate revaluation hits businesses hardest in areas that have seen rapid property price increases. London is one of the most severely affected areas. It is not just London, though, that is severely hit. I want to come on to Southwold in Suffolk, just south of the Waveney constituency. Sadly, the hon. Member for Waveney is not with us today. He might usefully have reflected on that story. However, we do know that many businesses in Suffolk have raised their concerns.
How significant are the increases in London? You will be interested in this, Mr Gapes, given the constituency you represent. I am sure that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton will take this particularly seriously, even if he does not like London very much. The FSB says that business rates in the capital are set to increase by 11%. In some parts of London, the increases are much more significant than that. For example, in Islington, rates are set to increase on average by 27%, and in the City of London, by 25%. In some areas of Mayfair, the increase will be as high as 415%. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford, the business rate is set to increase by an average of 36%. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham, who could not be here this morning, will see business rates increase on average by 21% in his borough of Greenwich. Forgive me for being mildly parochial, but in Britain’s most important borough, Harrow, business rates are likely to rise by an average of 14%. In Hillingdon, which is next to Heathrow airport—set to benefit from a third runway—rates will increase by an average of just 1%.
Mr Jones
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. He knows that this is an independent revaluation, not a revaluation that has been directly undertaken by the Government. If he is so opposed to the way this revaluation has been undertaken, why did his party not oppose it when it went through both Houses of Parliament?
Mr Thomas
I must gently say that not even we thought that the Government could get this so badly wrong. I want to come on to the question of resources for the Valuation Office Agency, which have been significantly cut and are leading to many delays in appeals by businesses that have genuine concerns about their revaluation, which has not helped either.
There is a more general point. As politicians, we cannot always predict what is going to happen, but we should be willing to react when circumstances change. There is such concern across the business community about the potential impact of the revaluation on small and medium-sized businesses that it is time that we listened to those concerns.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend mentioned a situation I am in. I bear no candle for London, with due apologies, Mr Gapes, but I understand from the Federation of Small Businesses that the Government are really on the back foot. Small business rate relief will benefit 16% of businesses in London but 32% of businesses in the rest of England.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes his point and he may have the chance to expand on it. It is worth listening to the FSB. In a London context, it is calling for higher inner and outer London small business rate relief thresholds to reflect the specific problems faced by small businesses in the capital. In inner London, it argues that the threshold for 100% relief should be a £20,000 rateable value, tapering to £23,000. In outer London, where rateable values have fortunately increased by a slightly lower percentage, it believes that the threshold for 100% relief should be £15,000, tapering to £18,000. It suggests that Ministers might be tempted to look at a system of transitional relief. That has happened in previous revaluations. However, it wants small businesses to have certainty for the future. Although transitional relief would be helpful, its argument is that the system needs a fundamental look-at to reflect the problem properly.
The Chair
Order. I think I have been very tolerant so far in allowing the discussion to range over matters that could potentially not be within the scope of the two amendments. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman focused specifically on the amendments.
Mr Thomas
Absolutely, Mr Gapes. I would not want to do anything other than that. I gently make the point that businesses continue to have concerns about the way in which business rates are levied, and that local councils are concerned about whether the business rates system will provide sufficient revenue for the provision of statutory services. We can understand their concern. Therefore, I think that it is right that we have tabled amendment 54 to require the Secretary of State to review the future of business rates and their impact on local government finances before the commencement of the Bill.
I gently suggest that, if business rates do not have the support of the business community, it will make it very difficult for local councils that want to explore with that community the case for investment in infrastructure in their area, of the type we have been discussing, under the business improvement districts or the property owner levy. We have heard the Minister confirm that there is potential for an extra 4p on business rates as a result of the way the legislation has been drafted. In the context of the anger about the business rates revaluation, Labour Members are worried that local authorities may not have the support they need for investment in their authorities, if they want to encourage businesses to think about business improvement districts.
Mr Jones
All of a sudden the hon. Gentleman seems to want to be the champion of small business—something many of us would find difficult to recognise—by saying that business rate bills are too much for businesses. When this Government bring forward a measure in this Bill to reduce the indexation on the business rate multiplier from the higher RPI, to the lower CPI, which would save businesses hundreds of millions of pounds in its first year alone, he seems to oppose it. What is his position?
Mr Thomas
The Minister is being inaccurate. As he knows full well, we did not oppose that change; we do want to help businesses. We are the party of small business in particular, but the party of business more generally. When business groups make serious representations to us, we listen. They are profoundly concerned about the business rates revaluation. Surely it is also the responsibility of all of us in the House to consider whether business rates will provide sufficient revenue for local authorities to fund essential public services. Local authorities express serious concern to us as to whether, given the huge cuts to revenue support grant, business rates, which will be one of only two key sources of local authority income down the line, will provide enough resource. When one considers too the impact on other public services, such as schools and hospitals—we will look at that, I hope, as part of new clause 4 or 8 I think, this afternoon—
Mr Thomas
Definitely not this clause, but it is important to be aware of that in the context of the need for a full review of business rates. I gently suggest to Ministers that they need to take their fingers out of their ears, listen to the concerns of business, the LGA and others and agree to support amendment 54.
Rob Marris
I shall focus on proposed subsection 2(a) as inserted by amendment 54, asking for a review into the future of business rates, and why I think the Government ought to support the amendment and accede to that request. I will make a few brief remarks as to why I think a wide-ranging review is necessary.
I referred earlier this morning to the fact that businesses could be faced with six different and overlapping rates: business rates, business rate supplements, business improvement districts, BRS-BIDs, the infrastructure levy and the combined authority supplement or levy. It is a very complex system, it is getting more complex, and it is overlapping.
Some proposals in the Bill would be delayed were a review brought in. The Opposition asked for evidence from the Government on the rationale for bringing in the changes and what they would in fact do. We asked whether there is evidence that the incentivisation—much heralded by the Government—will take place. In the course of the Committee’s consideration of the Bill thus far, I have made six direct requests of the Minister. My excellent researcher, Imogen Watson, has dug out the number of occasions on which the Government were asked for evidence for the measures that would introduced under clause 42 and their phasing, which would be delayed by amendment 53. The Government could have put forward evidence 33 times, and they singularly failed to do so on every occasion.
We read all over the press about the absolute mess with the evidence, which has been provided to one set of MPs—apparently it has been produced for Government MPs, but not, disrespectfully, for Opposition MPs. Certainly my four hon. Friends in the room have received no such evidence. Also, there is conflicting evidence. The Secretary of State—he is a west midlands MP, like me and the Minister—has put forward figures that seem to be contradictory.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. According to The Times this morning, an area that was going to be a winner under the system will, under the second round of figures released by the Government, now be a loser. That area is represented by my parliamentary neighbour and the Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson). When the Chief Whip represents a constituency that will now be a loser, some of the changes may be altered or delayed, and delay is what amendment 54 seeks.
I agree with the FSB and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West that the whole system of taxation on businesses at the local level needs to be revamped. Amendment 54 opens the way for that by asking for a review of the future of business rates. Contingent on that review would necessarily be a look at the broader picture. As the FSB’s letter suggested some time ago, we should be looking at a turnover tax, rather than the bricks and mortar taxes that are reinforced by the Bill’s provisions. They are old-fashioned, and we need a more wide-ranging approach.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Member for Harrow West for tabling the amendments, which would delay the commencement of the majority of the Bill’s provisions. Amendment 52 would delay the commencement of the Bill until 1 April 2019, making exceptions for
“provisions relating to telecoms relief, guidance about notices relating to non-domestic rates and the provision relating to preparatory expenditure for digital services”.
In amendment 54, the hon. Gentleman takes an alternate position, this time proposing that commencement, with the same provisions excepted, be delayed until after the Secretary of State
“has conducted a review into the future of business rates, and…has assessed the impact of the future of business rates on local government finances.”
We have been clear that the Government’s commitment is to implement the 100% business rate retention reforms for the financial year 2019-20 and to make the associated arrangements ahead of that to ensure that that is possible.
The hon. Gentleman raised a point about the annual local government finance settlement. The finance settlement as it stands will continue to be agreed, as is the case now, for the years up to 2019-20. For 2019-20, we will need to lay regulations in advance to ensure the details of the new system are in place for April 2019. I hope that deals with the concern that the hon. Gentleman expressed.
The Bill also provides the framework for the reformed system. Establishing the framework now gives us the opportunity to continue to work with local government and business in the coming months on the details of the reforms. We know that councils in particular welcome that approach. It ensures that councils have continued opportunity to shape the design and detail of the system on the basis of the certainty put in place by the framework provided by the Bill.
That approach echoes the implementation of the 50% rates retention system. Given the importance of the change, we are allowing more time to work with local government on the detail of these reforms. We will need to do preparatory work to ensure the implementation of provisions is tailored appropriately, including drafting regulations before the start of the 2019-20 financial year. That will be essential to ensure that local authorities are suitably prepared for the changes made by the new arrangements. I am sure that the hon. Member for Harrow West would agree that that is of the utmost importance.
Amendment 52 would not allow for that timely preparation, nor would it allow a timely commencement of a number of other provisions in the Bill that directly support businesses and premises owners. It would delay the introduction in rural rates relief, meaning that local shops in rural areas would pay more. It would also delay our commitment to enable authorities to grant reliefs for public toilets, ensuring that those important local amenities are protected.
Amendment 54 proposes that progress on reforms delivered in the Bill should be halted to allow for a review of the business rates system. As I hope the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Government undertook a review of the business rates system as recently as 2015. In fact, the Bill seeks to implement some of the important commitments that the Government made in response to that review. Amendment 54 would risk the delivery of them.
The 2015 review asked for views on the future of the business rates system and received 269 responses from councils and businesses of all sizes up and down the country, as well as business groups and others with an interest, such as rating agents and think-tanks. A clear message from those responses was a majority in favour of retaining a property-based tax. Respondents agreed with the Government’s view that property-based taxes were easy to collect, difficult to avoid and had a clear link with local authority spending.
Rob Marris
I have just checked the Bill. The Minister indicated that were the amendments to be agreed that would delay the implementation of relief for rural shops under clause 7. However, under clause 42, clause 7 would not come into force immediately anyway.
The Chair
Order. Please can we refrain from the personal remarks and get back to the point?
Mr Jones
I will certainly get back to the point, Mr Gapes. As I was explaining, there was a very clear message from the responses we received to the business rate review undertaken in 2015: the clear view then, including from the business community, was that they wanted to retain the current system.
Mr Jones
I will make some progress and then I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
There were also other clear messages from that review. People called for more protection for small businesses, and we have permanently doubled small business rate relief as a result. That means that 600,000 small businesses —a third of businesses overall—will pay no business rates at all. Understandably, many businesses wanted their rates cut and, in particular, for business rates to be uprated by CPI. The Bill delivers that change, which represents a cut in business rates every year from 2020—a saving of around £370 million in the first year alone and even more in each and every year after that.
People also called for the administration of business rates to be modernised. Again, we have listened and are taking action, including measures in the Bill to make it easier for businesses to receive and pay their bills. Importantly, local authorities called for greater rates retention and increased devolution of rate setting. They said that that would help them to get control of their finances as well as boost growth and respond to the needs of businesses in their areas. Does the hon. Gentleman still want to intervene?
Mr Jones
Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes again, perhaps he will explain his position on the measure in the Bill to reduce the multiplier. We are reducing the multiplier through the provisions in the Bill and we have clearly said that the multiplier will be based on an indexation of CPI rather than RPI from 2020. That will save business £370 million in the first year of that system alone. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that? He has seemed to disagree throughout this Committee.
Mr Jones
I think I am going to move on because I have answered that question on several occasions.
The Bill delivers on providing a framework for local government to retain 100% of locally raised business rates, giving councils new powers to reduce business rates in their areas to boost growth and providing for Mayors in combined authority areas to seek investment in local infrastructure projects. Amendment 54 suggests that those reforms should be delayed until after further consideration of the impact of business rates on local government finances.
As I have said many times, the move to 100% business rates retention is a reform that councils have long campaigned for. Councils are right to argue that the reforms will help them move to greater self-sufficiency. At a national level, business rates are a relatively stable tax. We recognise that there can be change and volatility locally, and we have been clear that we want to design this scheme in a way that helps councils to manage better those local changes. That is why we are taking measures in the Bill to help councils manage the impact of successful business rates appeals.
We have been clear from the outset that we will continue to make sure that there is a redistribution between authorities so that no council loses out because it currently collects less in business rates. That is why there will continue to be a safety net to help cushion councils from significant falls in their business rates income. Our continuing engagement with local government on the detail of the scheme will help ensure that the aspects of the new system work in a way that helps councils to manage local volatility.
As I have demonstrated, the amendments are clearly unnecessary and would prevent us from delivering on a range of commitments that business and councils have called for. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.
Mr Thomas
I do not intend to press amendment 52 to a vote at this point, not least because I take the Minister’s point about rural rate relief. We would certainly not want to stand in the way of that additional support for businesses in rural areas. We may well come back on Report to the question of a delay.
The Minister has not been convincing on amendment 54. I am disappointed that he has cited previous looks at business rates as an excuse for ignoring the very real difficulties that many businesses will face as a result of the revaluation that has taken place. He ignores the difficulties arising from the cutbacks at the Valuation Office Agency in relation to enabling businesses to have their revaluations considered on appeal in good time. He also ignores the real concerns of local authorities about how much business rates income there will be when Ministers finally decide what additional responsibilities are to be handed over.
We know that just over £3.5 billion of extra responsibility has just been handed to local government, reducing the £12.8 billion pot that Ministers boldly said would be passed over as extra money for local authorities. Those specific additional grants have been cut back. We have heard the Minister confirm that businesses could face an extra 4p on business rates in respect of the multiplier, as a result of the business rates supplement and the BID.
The complacency from Ministers—not just the local government finance Minister, but across the Government—about the situation faced by businesses and local authorities means that I am going to seek to divide the Committee on amendment 54. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 52.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 54, in clause 42, page 30, line 8, leave out from “14” to end of line 21 and insert
“Schedule 3 and this section.
‘(2) The remaining provisions of this Act shall only come into force after the Secretary of State—
(a) has conducted a review into the future of business rates, and
(b) has assessed the impact of the future of business rates on local government finances.”—(Mr Thomas.)
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the future of business rates and their impact on local government finances before the commencement of the Bill (save for the provisions under sections 8, 13, 14 and Schedule 3).
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Local Government Finance Bill (Tenth sitting)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Sir David. We are always grateful to see you in the Chair. You will have missed the exchange we had with Mr Gapes in which we asked for his help—perhaps with your influence—to see whether the whole Committee, as opposed to one half of it, might have access to a letter that the Secretary of State sent to some Members of Parliament about the future of business rates, which is obviously pertinent to the Bill. We believe that the letter was sent to every Conservative MP, and some of them have helpfully shared it with the media, but the Opposition have not had the chance to see it in full. If you can bring any influence to ensure that it is released to us, that would be extremely helpful.
The Chair
I had not been alerted to the fact that this matter was raised this morning. The Minister has heard what has been said, but I am afraid that it is not a matter for the Chair.
Clause 42
Commencement and short title
Question (this day) again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir David. The clause makes standard provision in relation to the commencement of provisions in the Bill, as I explained in relation to amendments 52 and 54 before we broke. Subsection (1) sets out that the provisions relating to the telecommunications relief guidance about notices relating to non-domestic rates and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs expenditure for digital services will come into force on Royal Assent. Powers to make regulations in the Bill as well as the final standard provisions of the Bill will also come into force on Royal Assent.
Mr Thomas
One of the things that is missing from the Bill is any reference to local enterprise partnerships. The Minister may remember that before the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), was sacked for incompetence by the new Prime Minister, he made reference to 100% business rate devolution and, crucially, infrastructure supplements that require the consent or support of local enterprise partnerships, but there has been no mention of local enterprise partnerships in any of the clauses, or indeed in the Minister’s speeches. Will he set out why there appears to be a change in the involvement of LEPs?
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I suppose it would have been more pertinent to our earlier deliberations in considering the Bill, when we were dealing directly with supplements that can be charged by directly elected Mayors and the consultation process that will be gone through with businesses. I do not want to dwell on that point, other than to say that we clearly set out how the matter will be considered. We consulted widely with the business community, including local enterprise partnerships. That is why we came to the conclusion and took the view that we did on how Mayors will have to consult with business if they wish to implement a business rate supplement for infrastructure.
In my response to amendments 52 and 54, I set out the reasons why the Bill commencement regulations should not be delayed until 2019. We have had several discussions on delegated powers. As I have explained, the Bill provides a framework to establish a new business rates retention system. Our approach allows us to continue to work with local government over coming months and years on the details of the reforms, which councils will welcome.
In line with the approach taken in the previous local government finance legislation, the Bill necessarily contains a number of delegated powers, as set out in the delegated powers memorandum, which describes each power’s purpose, justification and proposed procedure. The Bill takes a similar number of powers to the previous legislation. As I said at our previous sitting, the majority of those powers amend or replicate existing legislation, predominantly the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the Business Rate Supplements Act 2009.
Where replicating existing powers, the Bill retains the procedure for each from previous legislation. Where the Bill creates new powers, the majority will provide for parliamentary procedure but, as is normal for this type of legislation, the Bill contains new powers that do not have a parliamentary procedure, such as the commencement regulations under this clause.
Mr Thomas
On the commencement proceedings, the Minister might remember that I asked specifically when he intends the abolition of the local government finance statement to kick in. Does he see tomorrow’s as the last such statement, or will there be another one for 2018-19? What is the commencement date for that provision?
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman has listened intently to every word I have said in this Committee, so he knows that earlier in our deliberations I confirmed to him that this year’s local government finance settlement will not be the last settlement of its type. The local government finance settlement process will continue until the new policy is implemented in 2019-20. Regulations will therefore have to be put in place by 2019, in advance of the forthcoming settlement for local government for that year. I hope that clarifies the matter for him.
The central principle of our approach to implementation of the business rate reforms is that we have developed and continue to develop the detail of provisions through close work with local authorities and businesses. By way of assurance to the Committee and to ensure openness, where possible we will publish draft regulations or policy statements on the content of the provision to be made under the powers in the Bill.
Given the above assurance, I ask the Committee to let the commencement clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Thomas
I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the local government finance settlement debate will continue to take place. It is an opportunity for Members across the House to continue to scrutinise not only local government finance as it operates at the moment but, crucially, as we get more clarity, how business rates might end up working when 100% devolved—goodness only knows, we need that clarity.
We have no sense of how the so-called fair funding review will work for each individual local authority. We have no sense as yet of the consequences of the detail of the financial regulations to accompany the Bill. It will therefore be helpful for us to continue to have the opportunity to debate such matters on the Floor of the House and to explore what they mean for each of our local authorities and the public services that they provide to the people of England generally.
It would be helpful to hear a little more from the Minister about any further arrangements for consultation with business. It seems a little odd that before the Bill is commenced, in the light of the huge concern about the business rates revaluation that has hit the media of late, there will not be further detailed consultation with business through local enterprise partnerships. Here is a quote from the Treasury press release that accompanied the previous Chancellor—before he was sacked for incompetence by the current Prime Minister—which outlined how the infrastructure premium would operate:
“Directly elected mayors—once they have support of local business leaders through a majority vote of the business members of the Local Enterprise Partnership—will be able to add a premium to business rates”.
Yet there has been no mention by the Minister of local enterprise partnerships in any of his speeches to date. He might prefer me to have mentioned it earlier in the proceedings—perhaps his memory might have come back to him at that point about why he made the change and decided to cut out local enterprise partnerships from the Bill. It would be good to hear a little more from the Minister about how local enterprise partnerships will be involved in the coming months.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
I am a little surprised, given that when we were talking this morning about timing and implementation of the various clauses in the Bill, the Minister prayed in aid clause 5, on indexation, and clause 7. When he talks this afternoon about developing policy in conjunction with local authorities and liaising—my verb, not his—it would be good if we had some evidence. He challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West on whether Labour supports clause 7, on rate relief for rural shops, and clause 5, on indexation, to which my hon. Friend gave a clear answer. The Minister relied on those clauses as examples of clarity and the way forward, but if they are so clear, why will their implementation be delayed?
Mr Jones
We have made it quite clear why those matters are to be implemented in that sequence. I made it clear earlier, in answer to the hon. Member for Harrow West, that we consulted widely with business groups, including local enterprise partnerships. This Government do listen. We have decided to bring forward a system in relation to business rate supplements that reflects the views of business, and when proposals are developed in local areas they will certainly need to take into account the views of the business community in that particular combined authority area.
Mr Jones
As was shown earlier, the hon. Gentleman seems to have undergone a complete transformation while scrutinising the Bill, having previously advocated that local authorities should be able to increase the multiplier at will and therefore increase the tax rate on business rates. He then seemed to have a conversion, given that he now wants to look at a review. I set out our reasoning earlier, carefully and in some detail. As I said, the Government considered the issue of business rates as recently as 2015. We looked at the issue carefully and consulted business groups and local authorities, which at that time thought the system we had, although not perfect, was one the Government should continue with. On that basis, I will curtail my comments and commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 42 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 2
Needs assessment prior to each reset
‘(1) Before any alteration to the Business Rate Retention Scheme, an independent body must conduct a full needs assessment of every billing authority.
(2) The conclusions of the assessment under subsection (1) must be taken into account when considering any changes to calculations under paragraph 2 of Schedule 7B to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 that are made as part of the BRRS reset.”—(Jim McMahon.)
This new clause would require a full needs assessment to be carried out for every billing authority in order to inform the new tariff and top ups system at each BRRS reset.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 3—Local Authority Needs Commission—
‘(1) There shall be a body called the Local Authority Needs Commission (“the Commission”).
(2) It shall be the duty of the Commission to carry out assessments of the matters specified in subsection (4) from time to time as it thinks fit, but no less than once every two calendar years.
(3) It shall be the duty of the Commission to carry out assessments of the matters specified in subsection (8) when requested to do so by the Secretary of State.
(4) The matters specified in this subsection are, in respect of each billing authority in England, all matters which the Commission considers are relevant to an understanding of the resource need of each billing authority, including, but not confined to—
(a) the extent of social deprivation in the area,
(b) the resident and day-time populations of the area,
(c) the condition of housing stock in the area,
(d) the economic profile of the area,
(e) the population density of the area,
(f) the ethnic composition of the population of the area,
(g) the extent to which the population of the area has a first language other than English.
(5) It shall be the duty of the Commission to assess the impact of any new requirement imposed upon a billing authority—
(a) by legislation, or
(b) by direction from the Secretary of State
as soon as is reasonably practicably after the introduction of the new requirement takes effect.
(6) An assessment under subsection (5) must include a needs assessment of the billing authority in relation to the new requirement, having regard to the matters specified in subsection (4), which must be made publicly available.
(7) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, before making a grant to billing authorities under—
(a) section 78 of the 1988 Act, or
(b) section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003
to inform the Commission of the billing authorities intended to receive a grant and request the Commission to undertake an assessment in accordance with subsection (3).
(8) The matters specified in this subsection are, in respect of each billing authority in England intended to receive a grant, all matters which the Commission considers are relevant to an understanding of the resource need of each such billing authority, including, but not confined to, the matters specified in paragraphs (a) to (g) of subsection (4).
(9) Any assessment made under subsection (2), (3) or (5) shall be laid before the House of Commons by the Secretary of State as soon as practicable after the final version of the assessment has been provided to the Secretary of State by the Commission.
(10) Schedule (Local Authority Needs Commission: further provision) makes further provision about the Commission.”
New schedule 1—Local Authority Needs Commission: further provision—
Membership, chair and deputy chair
1 (1) The member of the Commission are to be—
(a) a chair appointed by the Secretary of State, and
(b) at least four other member appointed by the Secretary of State.
(2) Before appointing members under sub-paragraph (1)(b), the Secretary of State must consult the chair.
(3) The Commission may appoint one of the members as the deputy chair.
(4) The Secretary of State must have regard to the desirability of securing that the Commission (taken as a whole) has experience in or knowledge of—
(a) the management of local government finances,
(b) research into matters relating to social and economic needs and their assessment.
Term of office
2 Members are to hold and vacate office in accordance with the terms of their appointment, subject to the following provisions.
3 Members must be appointed for a term of not more than 5 years.
4 A member may resign by giving notice in writing to the Secretary of State.
(a) resigns that office by giving notice in writing to the Secretary of State, or
(b) ceases to be a member.
6 A person who holds or has held office as the chair, or as the deputy chair or other member, may be reappointed, whether or not to the same office.
Staff and facilities
7 The Secretary of State may provide the Commission with—
(a) such staff,
(b) such accommodation, equipment and other facilities, and
(c) such sums,
as the Secretary of State may determine are required by the Commission in the exercise of its functions.
Research
8 (1) The Commission may at any time request the Secretary of State to carry out, or commission others to carry out, such research on behalf of the Commission for the purpose of the carrying out of the Commission’s functions as the Commission may specify in the request.
(2) If the Secretary of State decides not to comply with the request, the Secretary of State must notify the Commission of the reasons for the decision.
Payments to members
9 The Secretary of State may pay to or in respect of the members of the Commission such remuneration, allowances and expenses as the Secretary of State may determine.
Status
10 The Commission is not to be regarded—
(a) as the servant or agent of the Crown, or
(b) as enjoying any status, privilege or immunity of the Crown.
Sub-committees
11 The Commission may establish sub-committees.
Validity of proceedings
12 The Commission may regulate—
(a) its own procedure (including quorum), and
(b) the procedure of any sub-committee (including quorum).
13 The validity of anything done by the Commission or any sub-committee is not affected by—
(a) any vacancy in the membership of the Commission or subcommittee, or
(b) any defect in the appointment of any member of the Commission or sub-committee.
Discharge of functions
14 The Commission may authorise a sub-committee or member to exercise any of the Commission’s functions.
Public records
15 In Schedule 1 to the Public Records Act 1958 (definition of public records) in Part 2 of the Table at the end of paragraph 3 at the appropriate place insert—
“The Local Authority Needs Commission”
Parliamentary Commissioner
16 In Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 (departments etc subject to investigation) at the appropriate place insert—
“The Local Authority Needs Commission”
Disqualification
17 (1) In Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 (bodies of which all members are disqualified) at the appropriate place insert—
“The Local Authority Needs Commission”
Freedom of information
18 In Part 6 of Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (other public bodies and offices: general) at the appropriate place insert—
“The Local Authority Needs Commission”
Jim McMahon
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. We have had a lot of debates in this Committee about moving to a new system of self-sustaining local government. There have been great calls from central Government for a level of independence, and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West has challenged the Government on just how independent local government will be and what safeguards will be in place to ensure it is funded adequately so it can carry out its legal responsibilities. We are effectively being asked to agree the framework without knowing what the method of assessment will be. We are understandably nervous about that, as is local government, particularly given the kick-off with the business rate revaluation. We are not sure whether the Chancellor or the Secretary of State will grant concessions that mean that even less money is available to deliver local public services.
With these new clauses and the new schedule, we want to set out a positive alternative and show what we could do in a constructive, cross-party way to put local government funding on a fair and firm footing. These are not new ideas. I will be honest and admit that we copied and pasted them. Why reinvent the wheel? If somebody has gone to the trouble of doing the work, carrying out the investigation, understanding the evidence base and consulting with the industry, the sector and those affected, we ought to listen to what they have to say and consider it in the right way.
Members might be aware that the Local Government Association commissioned an independent review into local government finance and whether it is sustainable. The review recognised that we are in a period of austerity, but that demand for public services is increasing all the time. It also recognised that the world is changing, and that how people access and interact with public services is changing, too. How people work is changing, and the part of the workforce that works across different institutions is changing, too.
In the review, the Independent Commission on Local Government Finance highlighted a number of things and set out its vision of a self-financing system that promotes self-reliance and self-sufficiency in local government, encourages areas to be innovative, promotes local decision making on service delivery, ensures transparency in how it works and in the division of responsibilities between central and local government, and maintains support for the most vulnerable people in the community. It came out with a series of recommendations, which are directly relevant to these clauses and are worth talking about in some detail. If we can get agreement on this today, we will not only show the country that some things are above party politics—in my view, funding vital frontline services should be one of them—but show local government that the work it has undertaken in previous years to research and develop an alternative idea has paid off and been respected and adopted by the Government with the support of the Opposition. That is our intention, and I hope the Minister responds with the same degree of charity. Hopefully, we can make some progress.
Critical to the recommendations was the establishment of an independent body to advise the Government on funding needs in each local area and on the allocation of funding to local areas and sub-regional areas that have combined authority arrangements in place. The report talks a great deal about how local freedoms should be in place—in particular, the freedoms to set local discounts and to decide how much, if any, council tax should increase without the Secretary of State imposing a referendum cap. It also talks about a business rate retention scheme that could be introduced.
At times, reports come out of Parliament that say, “Local government just doesn’t get it right,” and reports come out of local government that say, “Parliament just doesn’t get it,” but what inspired me about this report is that it is not like that at all. It says, “The system isn’t working for any party, so we need to find a new model that works for all concerned.” The language used throughout the report is very much about working together. When it talks about an independent body being set up, it is not saying that local government does not trust national Government; it is saying that having an independent body to one side, to advise, would add to decision making and help Government. Government would still have the ability to hold the ring, but they would have the depth and quality of an independent body sat to one side. There is a great deal to be commended in that.
The report should be read, and read in the spirit in which it is intended. The commission’s membership is significant: it has the experience of former civil servants, people who have worked in the private sector, people who have worked for health authorities and accountancy firms, and entrepreneurs who have experience of creating value from the ground up and being successful in their industries. It includes people who have experience of working all over Europe and around the world who are, at their core, used to setting up complex financial systems and making them work in their practical application. That has been quite absent from the debates we have had.
We have talked about systems and processes, and we have talked about governance to a degree, but we have not really talked about the pounds and pence. That matters to the communities we are here to serve. When we have asked questions about that, we have been told an assessment will be made at some point that will take into account a range of criteria, all of which we have discussed over the course of the Committee’s sittings, but we are still none the wiser as to what that will mean in practice. What will it mean for a town like Oldham or a city like Oxford? The truth is that, today, we just do not know.
If we believe that the best public services are formed around communities and individuals rather than governments and institutions, maybe the answer will not derive from this building. Allowing freedom at a local level to co-produce and having an independent body that liaises and interacts at a local level, reporting and feeding back to Government, would add a lot of value to the work that Government are doing.
I am not the Secretary of State; I am not even a Minister, but I imagine that if I were in either of those positions, I would not relish the current annual responsibility to produce a financial statement to Parliament. There are two ways of dealing with that: we either do what the Government of the day propose, which is to delete that requirement altogether, or—this would be my preference—we have the assessment in place but ensure that we have the cover of a strong evidence base, that the assessment is tested and supported by rigorous criteria that can be objectively assessed and challenged by anybody interested, and that the process is one to which people can contribute if they are affected by the decision that will ultimately be taken. That would be a far more forward-thinking way of running Government post-Brexit.
When people went to the polling stations and voted to remain or leave, I do not believe for one second they were talking about repatriating powers from the EU to this building. I think they were saying, “I want more power and determination over my life. I’m sick of having things done to me. When my son, daughter, grandchildren or I need a new house, I want there to be a home to get. When the quality of the school isn’t good enough, I want it to improve and be the best it can be. When I want to get a better job, I want to know that the route to that is available to me and I won’t have barriers put in front of me.” The truth is that our communities are so diverse and different that we cannot design that here; it has to be designed within the community, and there has to be a funding model to support it.
We can talk as much as we want—warm words are great. We are all aware that Brexit means Brexit, but we do not know what the new world means, if we are honest. We do not know what a United Kingdom is and whether we will have one if we carry on. Even if we know the place of a further devolved Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, not many people can draw out where the Government intend to take a devolved England. The fragmentation of devolution we have seen so far, the absence of a framework and the complete lack of fair funding to support the delivery of local public services and economic growth are a major barrier to having a post-Brexit solution that works for our communities.
This is more important to the Government of the day than just a technical exercise to establish a body to report to the Government; it is about a fundamental reset of the relationship between local communities and their directly elected local authorities, which determine how much money is spent on local priorities, public services and inward investment.
I do not intend to detain the Committee for much longer, but we think that these new clauses are important. We tabled several amendments, having locked ourselves away in a room and thought, “This is going to be a good debating topic,” or, “I’m sure the Government haven’t done their work on this; we might expose one or two weaknesses.” That is the nature of opposition and, to be fair, those amendments worked quite well, but new clauses 2 and 3 and new schedule 1 were not tabled with that intention at all. We are trying to be the voice of local government in this place and to ensure that its interests are represented. As I said, I think the answer has been presented. If the Government of the day do not recognise that they have a gift, which has been adopted by local government on a cross-party basis, and do not take it, they will miss a trick and face further disquiet from their local government ranks.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir David. I rise to speak to these new clauses because they are extremely important for the local government sector and would add huge value for the Government. Not only are we struggling to work our way through the Bill without the evidence that we need about the fair funding settlement and so on, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West has said, but year after year, when we come to the local government funding settlement, the Government have to defend themselves against accusations of unfairness, pork barrel politics and so on, in the face of quite extreme evidence—particularly in the last few years as cuts have been applied—of unfairness in the way that local government funding is distributed. Opposition seats are often the hardest hit, and areas of need have seen the hardest cuts. I urge the Government to defend themselves to some extent against such accusations, and these new clauses would provide them with a positive way to do that.
There has been a total lack of clarity in the way that the funding formula is applied. In last year’s debate about local government funding, we even saw Conservative MPs stand up and say to the Minister, “I was going to vote against the local government funding settlement, but since our conversation and since I was given some transitional arrangements, I have decided to support it.” That is obviously extremely distressing to Opposition Members, who are trying to fight for our communities and have seen our constituencies ravaged by local government cuts. There seems to be a preference: people who can get in and advocate their case to the Minister will get funding. That lack of clarity exposes the Government to criticism, and we are offering them an opportunity to defend themselves and give the rest of the country, the local government sector and Opposition MPs some confidence in the way they distribute funding.
There is a second important issue: if we devolve business rates and give local authorities more power to decide on the future of funding, we could leave them in a difficult situation. During the evidence sessions, I asked one of the local government representatives whether she felt local government could co-operate and work in partnership or whether there would be competition, with local authorities essentially fighting each other for the biggest slice of the cake. I have to say that her answer did not fill me with confidence that there really was a united sense of partnership. In my view, having an independent commission and the evidence base on which to proceed would be extremely helpful to both the local government family and the Government themselves.
My biggest concern is that we hear from Government Members: “We have had enough of evidence.” We seem to live in a post-truth, post-evidence world. We are offering the Government the opportunity to have evidence about demand, need and how we can best serve our local communities through local government funding. This is an opportunity for the Government to respond fully and ensure that they are fair and above any accusations or criticism. This seems like an obvious one, and I cannot understand why the Government would object, so I urge them to accept these new clauses.
Rob Marris
I salute my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham West and Royton and for Redcar for their perseverance. As I said this morning, the Opposition have solicited evidence from the Government 33 times before today in Committee—and evidence came there none. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton said a moment ago, he wants a strong evidence base, and so does my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton also said—I think I have got this right; it was a double negative—that he was not saying that local government does not trust central Government. I have to tell him that I am saying that. I do not trust central Government, and the reason is that they do not want the evidence, because it would lay bare the unfair nature of local government funding and, in particular, local government cuts over the last six years. I suspect that those cuts have taken their toll in communities such as Redcar and Oldham, just as they have in Wolverhampton. The Government keep hoping that people will not notice and, thus far, they have done not a bad job of keeping away from it. New clause 3(4) would solicit evidence on
“the resource need of each billing authority”.
Subsection (5) states:
“It shall be the duty of the Commission to assess the impact of any new requirement imposed upon a billing authority”.
Well, the Government do not want that evidence.
Using my own local authority in the west midlands as an example, the evidence is clear that over the last seven years almost, the cut in the central Government grant to Wolverhampton residents has been more than £200 a head, in one of the most deprived cities in England. Correspondingly, the alliterative Wokingham, in one of the most advantaged places in England—good luck to them—has seen a slight increase in funding per capita. I hope that the Minister is going to get up and astound me and say that he accepts these amendments, but I would be extremely surprised, because they would require evidence to be generated and the Government do not want such evidence.
Mr Jones
The distribution of resources and the assessment of the relative needs of local government is an essential feature of the local government finance system, but those elements do not require legislation to determine them. However, I thank Labour Members for providing me with the opportunity to outline the work we are doing in that area.
Before doing so, I would say that I have heard what has been said, particularly by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton. It was unclear whether the commission would be there to simply divide the money available at the time between local authorities, or whether there is a role for it to determine the total money available and national policy on council tax. Were it the latter, it is important to set out that those issues have been determined for many years by central Government. Successive Governments, including Conservative Governments, the coalition Government of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, and Labour Governments, have held to those principles.
In regard to the work already under way, we announced the fair funding review last year, which was universally welcomed by the local government sector. The review is conducting a thorough examination of what a relative needs assessment formula should be in a world where local government spending is funded by local government resources and not central grant. The findings of that review will set the initial baseline for the 100% business rate retention system.
From the start, we have recognised the essential role that local government has to play in shaping those reforms. That is why we have been working collaboratively with the Local Government Association, which is responsible for representing a broad range of views held by different sections of local government and their member authorities. That effective working relationship has already seen the establishment of a steering group supported by a number of technical working groups, which my officials co-chair with colleagues from the Local Government Association. That gives local experts a unique opportunity to help shape the review, and all the work of those groups is available online, adding real transparency to the progress of the review.
The process for assessing the relative needs of local government is well precedented and was, of course, followed by the Opposition when Labour was in power. Our collaborative and transparent approach represents a significant improvement on that process. In the summer, we published a call for evidence that set out key questions that the review will address. The Secretary of State has confirmed that he will report back to the House on the progress of that review.
Creating a new commission to consider needs assessment and new burdens, as these new clauses would do, blurs accountability for that important work and would add another significant layer of unnecessary bureaucracy, over-complicating the process for assessing the relative needs of local government. It is important to point out that it would undoubtedly lead to a situation where it simply costs the taxpayer more money.
Our proposals offer a better guarantee of a transparent process, supported by the best available advice from local government and elsewhere. On that basis, I ask the Opposition not to press the new clause.
Jim McMahon
Thank you, Sir David, for the opportunity to respond to the Minister. I cannot understand why the Government are so reluctant to accept these measures. Of all the changes in the Bill, some are extremely minor and it would not require legislation for the Government just to get on and make them. Their argument is that they have put them in the Bill to give clarity and to ensure that there is a clearly understood framework in place. If they were to establish an independent body to look at a needs-based assessment, potentially with redistribution, it would be right for it to form part of the same transparent framework that has been proposed for far more minor changes.
Rob Marris
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Minister on decrying the amendments with a straight face, claiming that they would add another layer of bureaucracy, when he has introduced a Bill that will bring in at least 12 sets of new regulations?
Jim McMahon
I absolutely share that point. There are 12 sets of regulations and something like 56 new powers for the Secretary of State. We are not seeing a loosening of what binds the hands of local government; it is much more a tightening. I do not think that that will be well received.
The main thing is how we move forward. There is so much uncertainty now, not just with the amount of demand in the system for public services. We have seen the social care demand, but there will also be child safeguarding and educational attainment demands and mental health and disability support pressures very soon. That is notwithstanding all the other 700 services that local authorities deliver on a daily basis to support our residents.
We are seeing a genuine crisis in public services in many parts of our country. Some have been more protected than others and some have been more affected than others, but there will be an impact across almost every community in the country. Either the Government are lining up to continue to ignore the scale of that problem and what it means to individuals, families and communities—following a similar pattern of behaviour to that which we have seen under the coalition and the current Governments—or they genuinely want to get a grip and put in place a more sustainable system that would prevent such shocks to local public services. If local government is saying that, through an independently commissioned report that has been agreed by every party political party—including the Conservative party—on the Local Government Association, I cannot understand for the life of me why the Government do not just take that with both hands and run with it. At the moment, their defence seems to be, “That would cost money. It would cost money to have this independent system in place.”
Let us be clear about what the role of that independent body would be. It would be there to assess the need in each area against some objective criteria that would be agreed with central and local government. The Government have said they are going to do that anyway, so let us put that to one side; it will happen whether this body exists or not.
We then talk about redistribution. We know how much money will be required, because a thorough and in-depth review would have taken place. We then need to understand how much money we have and how much we distribute to meet the demand that has now been identified. What Government would not want the ability to say, “This is an independent recommendation”? It would be a gift. We know that they are fearful of scrutiny. We have seen that in the decision that the annual financial settlement will not come to Parliament in the future—they do not want that parliamentary debate. But this gives them a gift to say, “This is not the Government’s saying this; this is an independent body that has worked in consultation with local government.”
Where we are going and what the end looks like is extremely unclear. We have been promised an independent assessment of need. We do not know the criteria, the timescale, the membership or the status. We do not know whether it will be inside or outside the Government or completely independent. Will it sit within local government? We do not know the detail of any of that. We do not know what the new business rate devolution will be. We do not even know which different schemes have been negotiated in each of the pilot authorities, let alone the sweetheart deal that has been agreed with Surrey, which is the only single authority negotiated business rate retention pilot in the country—I am sure the Minister will say whether this is right or wrong. All the rest have been done through a devolution deal through their combined authority arrangements or the imposition of directly elected Mayors. Surrey is being treated in a very special way—a way that other local authorities are not. The Government cannot craft a special sweetheart deal for everybody. At some point, we have to accept that the quantum of money is a quantum of money and we have to teem and ladle.
Mr Jones
I think the hon. Gentleman knows in his own heart that I have been quite clear that we need a pilot in a two-tier area. Councils across that part of the local government sector will be invited to put their name forward to be part of that pilot. No decisions around that have been made.
Coming back to the quantum of funding that the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned: I am still unclear on this. Is he saying that the commission that he wants to set up would determine the overall quantum of funding and things such as council tax setting? While he alludes to that, he has not actually said that as yet.
Jim McMahon
I hope that the Minister does not mind too much. We have done our best to be helpful and constructive and to offer ideas. Ultimately, there is only one person in this room drawing a ministerial salary and being driven around by a chauffeur and it is not me, yet.
Jim McMahon
You have to earn the perks that come with the job. I am not going to give way. We need to make progress. I am happy to receive a letter from the Minister if he feels it is necessary to justify his position. What is most important is not to conflate a number of different points that have been made that are legitimate and stand on their own two feet—they are not one and the same thing. There is a world of difference between establishing an independent financial commission to understand the need in each area for public services and then to advise back to the Government what that assessed need should be. Government may well say as part of the remit of that review that there is a quantum of money that is limited and within the criteria that are set, they may well seek advice from the independent body on how to teem and ladle within that quantum. There has been no suggestion that the independent body would take away the right of the Treasury to determine how taxation is generated and spent in the country. It is very clear if the Minister reads the new clauses and the new schedule that the remit is to advise Government.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that it would help the Minister, whether chauffeur-driven, well-paid or not, with all his officials, to do the Opposition the courtesy of reading new clause 3? If he reads new clause 3, it is entirely clear that the proposed commission would not usurp the power of the Secretary of State to decide on the grant.
Jim McMahon
That is absolutely right. I suppose that in some ways I took it for granted that the Minister would read the papers. Perhaps I should not have done that and I should have read it out line by line. What the new clause intends to do is very clear. I am a new Member so perhaps I am entitled to a degree of naivety— some other people do not have that excuse. We were so prescriptive because we did not want it to be conflated or confused, and we wanted it to be accepted as a constructive amendment on that basis. I hope that the Minister has read it. It is clear what it is intended to do and what it is not intended to do.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 8—Relief for public buildings—
‘(1) The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, introduce provision for relief from non-domestic rates in respect of hereditaments used principally for the purposes of a public body.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a public body means any body funded principally through funds voted by Parliament.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make provision for business rate relief for public buildings, defined by reference to public funding of the body for whose purposes the building is principally used.
New clause 9—Relief for licensed markets—
The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, introduce provision for relief from non-domestic rates in respect of hereditaments used principally for the purposes of a licensed market.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make provision for business rate relief for licensed markets.
Mr Thomas
Sir David, could I first dwell on the two new clauses that are linked to new clause 4? New clause 8 draws attention to the fact that many public buildings have business rates bills that they have to pay, particularly in local authorities. Essentially, that money comes back, so public services funded by revenues from Westminster have to pay a business rates bill back to the Exchequer or the billing authority, creating paperwork and bureaucracy. One wonders whether the system would not be more efficient if we tried to exempt those public buildings from business rates in the first place. Obviously, there would be a commensurate reduction in the grant or whatever to the public body in those premises, but that might help to ensure a slightly more efficient system than essentially allowing flows of money around the system, with the additional costs that that generates. New clause 8 would reduce some of the inefficiency in the business rates system.
New clause 9 would introduce a relief for licensed markets—small business at its very best. Licensed market owners essentially provide a platform—for want of a better phrase—for small businesses to come and ply their wares. One wonders whether there should not also be some benefit in relief to allow those markets to continue to operate. They are often crucial to the footfall in town centres. One wonders whether Ministers have properly thought through the potential appeal of town centres and high streets in terms of licensed markets. It would be helpful to hear the Minister’s response to those probing new clauses and what the thinking is in those areas.
I want to concentrate my remarks on new clause 4, which would ensure that relief from business rates was given to schools and hospitals. We know from the current revaluation process that NHS hospitals and GP surgeries in England, and indeed in Wales—I appreciate that Wales is not covered by the Bill, but this figure is illustrative—face a £635 million hike in their business rates in the next five years. In the context of the scale of the financial crisis affecting the national health service, one wonders whether, as a small immediate contribution to solving the crisis, Ministers could offer hospitals and GP surgeries an exemption from business rates.
Some of the country’s biggest hospitals will see their business rates bill double over the next few years, so one wonders how they will find the money to pay for that increase without having to find further savings. Many NHS trusts say that they are already cutting to the bone on the staffing they need. Analysis by Gerald Eve, a firm that advises businesses on rates, found that business rates for hospitals would rise from £328 million this year to £418 million in five years’ time, while GPs and health centres would see their costs rise from £257 million to £332 million a year over that same period. As I understand it, those figures are for England and Wales, and we are talking about only England in the context of the Bill, but the figures are illustrative and helpful to the debate.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentions GP surgeries, which of course are private businesses. Does he think that dispensation should also be given to private businesses?
Mr Thomas
Let us be clear: GP surgeries provide a public service. I will come on to some of the difficulties that GPs face. On the news just the other day there was a report by the BBC’s excellent health editor, Hugh Pym, on GP surgeries that had had to close because they could not make the finances add up. One wonders whether, had they faced the business rates hike that we are talking about now, that would not have exacerbated the problems.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend will be aware—as will the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, given that I am sure he has read the proposed new clause—that new clause 4 does not cover GP surgeries, because they are primary.
Mr Thomas
I will in a second; I have one further point. Some trusts, including Peterborough City Hospital, will see rates rise from £2.5 million to £4.8 million by 2021, while the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust’s bill is set to rise from £4.2 million to £7.6 million. A further example is the Royal London Hospital in east London, which according to the Gerald Eve consultancy will see its business rates bill rise by nearly 60% to £9.7 million. I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman; presumably he is going to say how he thinks these bills should be dealt with by the hospitals concerned.
Kevin Hollinrake
I wonder whether the shadow Minister will comment on whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West was paying attention to his own comments, or whether he switched off in the middle, on the basis that it was he who mentioned GP surgeries? I was responding to that point.
Mr Thomas
All I will say is that I have never known my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West be anything other than switched on. I learned that to my cost in a statutory instrument Committee a long time ago.
When the NHS is under such huge budgetary pressures, the fact that hospitals face these new, potentially huge, business rate liabilities may result in pressure for further reductions—for instance, in staff. That must be profoundly worrying, not only to Opposition Members but to Government Members who represent hospitals facing similar business rate increases. When we consider that NHS trusts posted a deficit of £886 million at the end of the third quarter of this year alone—£300 million more than the target for the end of this financial year—we have some sense of the scale of the pressures on NHS hospitals. If Ministers were so minded, perhaps a little business rate relief now might help to ease some of the pressure on finance directors and chief executives in NHS hospitals who are trying to make hospital budgets balance.
You will know, Sir David, because you are very knowledgeable about these things, that the Secretary of State for Health, clearly as a result of the scale of the pressure that hospitals are under, has suggested that the four-hour A&E target might be downgraded and no longer apply to minor injuries. One wonders whether he would have gone to those lengths had there not been the scale of pressure on NHS hospitals that we are seeing at the moment, particularly financially. He might have been more willing to defend what is an essential management target and an indicator of the quality of healthcare in our communities. I gently suggest that abandoning the four-hour target is a total admission of failure by the Government. One can understand the context for that abandonment in the light of the financial pressures, which new clause 4 seeks to ease a little. One wonders whether the Secretary of State for Health would welcome ministerial support from the Department for Communities and Local Government in negotiations with the Treasury, perhaps through the easing of the business rates burden, to reduce some of the financial pressure on NHS hospitals.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend remember a single winter between 2001 and 2010 in which there was a so-called winter crisis in the NHS?
The Chair
Order. I am listening very carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying and to how he is tempted to respond to that intervention, but I call on him to make his remarks conform much more closely to new clause 4.
Mr Thomas
I am very grateful to you, Sir David. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West has long experience on Public Bill Committees and, out of respect for him and the experience that I suffered at his hands on a previous occasion, I always try to respond to him. However, I am grateful for your help on this occasion.
Let me turn, as I was about to before my hon. Friend’s intervention, to the second element of the new clause, which is the issue of whether schools, too, should receive business rates relief. I was minded to make a case to my hon. Friends in the closed room to which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton has alluded. We thought about issues to raise in amendments and discussed the problems with school funding. The Conservative party is overseeing the first real-terms cut in school budgets for more than two decades and the steepest cuts our schools have faced since the 1970s.
You might reasonably wonder, Sir David, whether the new clause is needed. I would point to a National Audit Office report on the financial sustainability of schools. It said there will be an 8% real-terms reduction in per-pupil funding for mainstream schools between 2014-15 and 2019-20 “due to cost pressures”. Those are the words of the National Audit Office—no one can fault its impartiality. It is not a Labour body, a Conservative body or a Liberal Democrat body; it is an independent, impartial body, and it has set out clearly and explicitly the scale of the funding cuts that our schools will experience. Were Ministers willing to protect funding for pupils in the future, they might be tempted to use business rates relief as one part of the package to help our schools.
Anna Turley
Does my hon. Friend share my view that it is absurd to the point of offensive that private schools in this country get business rates relief, on the basis of being a charity, of up to 80% of their costs? Those schools are educating children on the basis of their parents’ ability to pay, not the child’s right to an education. They are reinforcing social inequality in this country and are getting rates relief of up to 80%. Would the new clause not go some way to creating a level playing field for our maintained schools to compete on?
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I would put it slightly differently. It seems odd that some schools offering a service to one group of children benefit from business rates relief, while other schools offering a service to another group of children in the maintained sector do not. My hon. Friend’s broader point about equalising the treatment of schools has considerable merit.
Mr Jones
I will give the hon. Gentleman some background. He is right to say that local authority maintained schools do not get the charitable relief that, say, an academy school does. However, as I am sure he will be aware, those schools are compensated for the business rate they have to pay in the funding formula provided by the Department for Education through local authorities.
Mr Thomas
Let me address the question of the funding formula, because that opens a whole can of worms in terms of the financial pressures facing many of our schools. Some immediate business rates relief, without the compensation to school budgets suggested by the Minister, might provide an additional increase in funding to schools at a time when they most need it.
It is important that we discuss new clause 4 and relief for schools in the context of the funding formula. Almost half of the schools in this country will lose funding. They are already being hit by the 8% real-terms cut that the NAO has identified, but almost half face further cuts in 2019-20 under Department for Education proposals that are on the table for consultation.
At the Public Accounts Committee recently, a number of headteachers laid bare the scale of the challenge facing their schools. Liam Collins from Uplands Community College told the Committee that his school had reduced staff numbers by nine teachers and five support staff over the past four years. He argued:
“We cannot afford to buy text books...We cannot afford to send staff on training.”
That is a dire financial situation. Perhaps a little bit of business rates relief, without a reduction in school budgets, would provide one way to help that particular school.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am struggling to understand the relevance of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, for two reasons. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Opposition’s manifesto pledges on education at the last election completely mirrored ours with regard to the funding pot. In addition, their manifesto did not specify or propose anything about business rates relief, including for schools. The hon. Gentleman is playing cheap party politics.
The Chair
Order. Before the hon. Member for Harrow West replies, this is revisiting old ground. I hope he will talk about his proposals for prospective funding.
Mr Thomas
I am grateful to you, Sir David, for the offer of protection from that outrageous slur from the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. I suggest that Government Members might usefully remember the old maxim: when circumstances change, good politicians have to recognise that that has happened and try to adjust to the financial realities that, in this case, schools are facing. My amendment, in the context of the Bill, is simply one small effort to offer a bit of additional financial support to schools that have very serious financial problems, and Government Members should not make light of that.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend will be aware that one circumstance that has changed—and that this measure would help address—is the apprenticeship levy, which will be paid by maintained schools but not by academies. That is a change of circumstance; hence the change of our position.
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. A series of additional costs, some with the best of motives, are causing financial pressures on maintained schools. New clause 4 might be one way to provide additional financial support to deal with some of those costs and pressures.
Mr Jones
Despite the fact that grant maintained schools are compensated for the business rates they incur, the hon. Gentleman wants to exempt them from business rates, although he does not want the same treatment for academy schools, which by definition of the policy he advocates would be out of pocket compared with maintained schools.
Mr Thomas
With all due respect to the Minister, I want the terrible financial situation facing schools across the country to be sorted out. I am merely proposing new clause 4 as one potential route to address one part of that problem.
Stuart McLaughlin, head teacher of Bower Park Academy, said:
“I have cut my teaching to the bare bones. Every teacher is teaching at full capacity. I have very little spare capacity in terms of spare lessons on the timetable, so I am now starting to hit the support staff. My worry about that is that it is going to affect the most vulnerable students.”
Another example of a school in serious financial trouble for which new clause 4 might provide one route for a bit of additional support.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has also backed up the National Audit Office conclusions about the scale of pressure on schools. It did not identify the apprenticeship levy but it talked about the additional costs from the public sector pay settlement, the increased employers’ national insurance contributions and the increase in the employer pension contribution to the teachers’ pension scheme that started in April 2015 and was not funded by the Conservative party. All that leads up to the 8% cut in real terms that our schools are facing. That situation is exacerbated by the new funding formula for at least half the schools in the country, which will see significant losses.
Organisations within the schools sector, such as the National Association of Head Teachers—not the sort of body to sound the alarm unnecessarily—are also profoundly worried about the funding situation facing schools. It is in that spirit that the Opposition tabled new clause 4. I look forward to Ministers saying why they are so determined not to solve the financial crisis facing schools and hospitals. I also look forward to the Minister’s response to new clauses 8 and 9.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling the new clauses, which would require the Government to provide a range of additional reliefs from business rates. New clause 4 would require the Government to introduce a relief from business rates for non-domestic properties used for the provision of NHS secondary or tertiary care or the provision of education in maintained schools. New clause 8 would include a similar but wider requirement for relief to be provided to all properties used principally by public bodies.
Although I appreciate the intention to provide support to important public services, I do not agree that exempting public bodies from the payment of business rates would necessarily be a helpful step. It may help if I remind hon. Members that buildings occupied by the vast majority of public services, including NHS hospitals and maintained schools, have been subject to non-domestic rates since they were introduced in 1990. That is part of delivering a fair and consistent system of non-domestic rates.
Given that long-established position, I am sure Opposition Members will appreciate that operational costs associated with property occupied by public bodies are taken into account in determining the overall funding level for the relevant public services. More importantly, I should highlight that granting an exemption of such a nature would ultimately reduce the income under the direct control of local authorities through 100% business rate retention. It could also have a disproportionate impact on those authorities that receive a greater proportion of their business rate income from public bodies.
Jim McMahon
I am not sure whether the spirit of the new clause has been understood. To clarify, my understanding is that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West is trying to achieve a reduction in what is effectively a paper transaction in the system. If the money were taken away from the council because a business rate was no longer payable, it would be taken away from the public body and given to the council in a different way. The money would still get to the council; the new clause would just stop the in-and-out transaction that takes place.
Mr Jones
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. As I have said, the current system has been employed since 1990, and for 13 years of that period we had the misfortune of a Labour Government, who did not seek to change the system because they recognised that it was the fairest way of applying non-domestic rating to non-domestic property, including public sector buildings.
Jim McMahon
This is about fairness. I am interested in the Minister’s response to this. It makes no sense for a school that was a local authority school yesterday and is today an academy to be exempt today from paying business rates.
Mr Jones
I think I made it clear earlier that there is no disparity in the system in that example. Local authority-maintained schools are given a dedicated sum to pay their business rates. Academy schools do not get that sum because they are exempt from business rates. There is an implication, particularly in terms of when the new clause would come into force. The way in which the system currently operates is that at a spending review, when the spending decisions about need are determined in relation to a particular public service, the cost of the business rate is taken into account.
I am not absolutely certain of the hon. Gentleman’s intention in tabling the clause, but if, as is implied by what has been said today, the Opposition want to apply this more quickly than the next spending review, that would involve a cost for the Exchequer. That would have to be met either through increased borrowing or additional taxation. Of course, as we all know, the Labour party does not mind racking up a deficit or taxing the public for its spendthrift nature.
Kevin Hollinrake
The Minister is absolutely right. The shadow Minister was saying exactly that: that the hospitals would be better off. That implies that the money is not going in and out; it is just not going out any more. The £360 million would have to be found from somewhere. Would the shadow Minister find it from increased borrowings or increased taxation? There are only two places it can come from.
Mr Jones
That is a really good question and very pertinent in this context. It highlights one of the challenges we have with the Opposition. One party at the general election pledged significantly more money to the NHS than the other party. The Government are now putting an additional £10 billion into the NHS, while the Labour party committed to £1.5 billion extra for the NHS; that shows that the Labour party is raising a bit of a red herring, I think, to hide its embarrassment about not being willing to back the NHS as the Conservative Government have.
Rob Marris
May I caution the Minister about praying history in aid and going back to 1990? He referred to 13 years of a Labour Government. Under 13 years of a Labour Government, the real-terms increase in funding for Wolverhampton City Council was 40%; under a Conservative Government, the real-terms cut has been 40%. Under a Labour Government for 13 years, the national debt fell; under a Conservative Government, it has gone up by 70%.
The Chair
Order. Before the Minister responds, I should say that I get the sense that the Committee is becoming demob happy. I ask the Minister and the Committee to deal specifically with the response to new clause 4 and not to become partisan and drawn by what has gone on in the past.
Mr Jones
Thank you, Sir David. I was tempted to go down the route of mentioning the £150 billion deficit that was left over, but I entirely take your point.
I turn to new clause 9. I am grateful to hon. Members for raising the important issue of support to licensed markets. I am sure that the Committee will agree that markets are an important and valued part of our local economies. When I was Minister for high streets, which included responsibility for markets, I was a very keen supporter of our markets and supported the “love your local market” competition, towards which the Government contributed and supported.
While we should certainly be supporting our markets to survive and thrive, I do not agree that introducing a new relief targeted at market stalls through new clause 9 is necessary or justified. At Budget 2016, the Government announced a package of cuts to business rates worth over £6 billion over five years. That included the permanent doubling of small business rate relief and an increase in the relevant threshold for 100% relief from £6,000 to £12,000. That will be of significant benefit to stall holders in licensed markets, many of whom qualify for the relief. As a result of the change, more than 600,000 small businesses will pay no rates at all.
It will be for the valuation office to decide on the facts of whether individual market stalls are rateable. Typically, temporary and infrequent markets in the street are not rateable, whereas permanent markets in their own dedicated hall or site will pay rates. I hope Committee members agree that where market stalls are rateable, it is right that they are subject to the same rules as other non-domestic properties. Again, that ensures they are treated fairly in comparison with other properties, whether a small high street shop, a café, a fishmonger’s or a baker’s.
Jim McMahon
Does the Minister accept that there is a fundamental difference between a market site or a market operator and an individual market trader who operates from that site? A small business will most likely be under the threshold for attracting the relief. Because the business rate is paid by the operator of the market, a market trader will almost certainly be above that threshold and liable for business rates.
Mr Jones
I have been clear that the liability for rates will operate differently in relation to different types of market. I have also been clear that the same type of regime should apply to non-domestic property, which is certainly the case in this sense. It is for the valuation office to decide on the facts whether an individual market stall is rateable or not.
To conclude, I hope the Committee is reassured that the new clauses are not necessary and would not further our collective aims to support an independent and self-sufficient local government sector. I ask the hon. Member for Harrow West to withdraw the new clause.
Mr Thomas
I am grateful for the opportunity to sum up our debate on new clauses 4, 8 and 9. New clauses 8 and 9 were very much tabled as probing amendments. Although I am not 100% satisfied by the Minister’s response—something that I have had to get used to—I do not intend to divide the Committee on the new clauses.
New clause 4 was also a probing amendment, to find out the extent to which the Minister and his colleagues have really grasped the scale of the financial crisis facing both schools and hospitals. What we have had back from the Minister and from some Government Members in interventions suggests a profoundly worrying complacency about the financial situation in schools and hospitals. One has to hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer sees things slightly differently, but we are where we are. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 7
Duty to ensure no loss of funding following withdrawal from the European Union
‘(1) This section applies where any funding is provided to a billing authority or Combined Authority by the Secretary of State in consequence of funds made available by EU institutions in the financial years beginning on 1 April 2017, 2018 and 2019.
(2) Where this section applies, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that, in the five year period beginning with the date on which the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, the funding made available to a billing authority in question is not reduced in respect of any funds that were made available by EU institutions in the period specified in subsection (1).’—(Jim McMahon.)
This new clause would ensure that funding available from EU institutions is replaced by funding from the Secretary of State for the five years after exit.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Jim McMahon
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I do not intend to spend a great deal of time on the new clause, which does what it says on the tin: it would secure the money that is currently provided to local areas through European funding post exit from the European Union. For many of our areas, that money is integral to their local economic development plans, to their education and training plans and, in many cases, to their devolution submissions. In a number of our areas, particularly those with combined authority arrangements in place, the local authority is the accountable body for EU funding in its area.
There is one thing that Members may not appreciate about European money. We always discuss whether it is being spent in the best possible way, although that is usually determined by the local community and not by the European Union. It is the communities themselves, through their councils, that make the applications, not the European Union. We talk about the north-south divide, but it is really London and the south-east that has a significantly different financial settlement from everywhere else in England. European funding and the way it is allocated by region provides an element of rebalancing.
I remind Members of the transport investment figures that have come out just this week, which highlighted that London gets £1,940 per head compared with £220 per head for those in the north-east, £680 per head for those in the north-west—although quite a lot of that is temporary funding; it is time limited—and just £190 per head for those living in Yorkshire and the Humber.
London gets £93 per head in European structural funds, compared with £285 in the north-east, £161 in the north-west and £150 in Yorkshire and the Humber. Therefore, there is a strong argument to say that European Union funding is being used partly to counterbalance a centralising Government in Westminster who advantage the London boroughs.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
On that point, will the hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the Government for today awarding £235,000 to my constituency for smart traffic management, showing that they do look well beyond London?
Jim McMahon
I will join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating the residents of Swindon on that investment. I have no idea what it has got to do with the new clause though.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I note with interest that the hon. Gentleman did not include any figures for the south-west or Cornwall. Historically, Cornwall has received just about the lowest level of investment in its transport infrastructure, yet it receives the highest level of EU funding. Despite that, Cornwall voted 62% to leave because we recognise that the EU programme is so prescriptive we cannot spend the funding on the things we actually want and need to spend it on to improve our local economy. I believe we will be far better off running our own programme. I am not worried about it being pound-for-pound matched, but I do want it to be fit for purpose for our local needs.
Jim McMahon
I am absolutely delighted that Government Members are supporting the new clause on that basis because that is exactly what the new clause is there to do. It is not there to stick with the current assessment criteria outlined by the European Union; it is not even there to ensure that the programme activity is continued. The new clause is about maintaining the amount of money being provided to those regions at current levels.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I would like to pick up on an earlier point made by the hon. Member for Harrow West, who talked about the antipathy to London. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think London is a wonderful place. It is so successful economically, but that is because it has had more investment. That is the point that is being made.
Southend-on-Sea, for example, is very badly treated in terms of local government funding—it receives around £720 a year per head, when many rich London authorities get £1,200 a year per head. It is simply not fair. The position is similar with transport projects. This is not a metropolitan versus rural issue; it is a London versus the rest of the country issue.
Jim McMahon
The rebalancing discussion was more about making the point that there has to be a recognition that more public sector investment goes into London. There will be reasons for that. This is not about London not being entitled to the money it gets. However, there is a call from other regions, not to say, “We want London to get less,” but to say, “We want the same.” A conversation on that basis is far more productive than setting one part of the United Kingdom against another, which other parties might to seek to. No one in this room would want to do that.
On that basis, there would be an open door for retaining European funding to the regions and, absolutely, allowing flexibility on how that is spent, even tied to negotiation with Government. However, as it stands, there is no certainty that that money will continue when we leave the EU. More than that, there is concern that in order to pay the divorce bill—not just for the lawyers, but for the settlement in terms of pension costs and historical and ongoing liabilities—the nation may have to provide a lot of money up front, which could be used for regional funding in the way that has been discussed.
If the new clause is agreed today, at least we will be able to lock down the funding that is sent to the regions to ensure that they are not paying a price for that divorce. There is a world of difference between people saying, “I’m going to vote to leave because I want more determination by my nation of the future of my nation,” and “I voted to leave because I want less investment for my community.” We need to be careful. Our challenge to the Government is to prove that their flavour of Brexit is not going to leave our constituents poorer than they were before. The new clause would help to show that they will not necessarily be poorer and that the Government understand that our regions need to be supported.
I should perhaps confess that it is a probing new clause. However, if it is not supported by the Government, we run the risk of providing further evidence to our local authorities that those in this grand place simply do not get it.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman for providing the opportunity to discuss the new clause, which aims to ensure that local authorities see no loss in funding following our withdrawal from the European Union. The Government will want to consider the future of all programmes that are currently EU funded once we have left the EU.
Over the coming months, we will consult closely with stakeholders to review all EU funding schemes in the round to ensure that any ongoing funding commitments best serve the UK’s national interest, while ensuring appropriate investor certainty. We will, of course, ensure that local government’s voice is heard in negotiations with the EU. I think that is what the hon. Gentleman was alluding to with some of his concerns. The Government have already announced that local authorities will be guaranteed EU funding for European structural and investment funds projects that provide good value for money and meet domestic priorities that are signed off before the UK’s departure from the EU, even when those projects continue after we have left the EU.
I hope the reassurance I have provided means that the hon. Gentleman will stick to his confession and decide not to put the new clause to a vote.
Jim McMahon
I thank the Minister for his comments. We have had a good debate but I do not think we have had clarity that the Government have committed to ensure that the EU funding will be in place over the life of the programme. The programme, of course, takes us only to 2020. Beyond that date, our regions have no idea how much money they will receive for research, development and skills investment. I do not accept the Government’s response as sufficient to give comfort to those areas. However, it was important to table the new clause in order at least to elicit that response. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 10
Non-domestic rating: exemption for nursery grounds
‘(1) Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (non-domestic rating: exemption) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 3(b), after “market garden” on each occasion where it appears, insert “or nursery ground”.—(Steve Double.)
This new clause would provide that the definition of an agricultural building for the purposes of the exemption from non-domestic rating includes a building which is or forms part of a nursery ground and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations at the nursery ground.—(Steve Double.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Steve Double
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
With the new clause, I seek clarification of the legislation and confirmation of my belief of the original intention of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 regarding the agricultural exemption from non-domestic rates for nurseries and market gardens. This has been prompted by a court case brought by the Valuation Office Agency in 2015 against Tunnel Tech Limited, mushroom growers who grow their product under polythene or glass.
For more than a century, legislation has dictated that agricultural land and, latterly, buildings have been exempt from rating liability. The principle of an agricultural exemption is well established. The Court of Appeal, however, interpreted the legislation as not to include nursery grounds consisting wholly of greenhouses, polythene tunnels or buildings with the exemption.
The horticultural industry in the UK has undergone significant changes in recent years in order to increase our home food production, something I am sure we all support. That has included more and more crop-growing operations taking place under the cover of polythene tunnels and other buildings. It has also led to more sophisticated growing techniques being explored.
There is no longer a distinction between enterprises that would have been classified as a “market garden” and those classified as a “nursery ground”, as per the legislation. They are instead simply “food growers”. Many growers are a combination of both “nursery ground” and “market garden”, operating from the same premises with no distinction of areas. The Valuation Office Agency argument in the case centred around the fact that Tunnel Tech did not produce mushrooms that were ready for market.
In order to become more productive and cost-effective, the industry has become increasingly segmented in its approach to production. There has been a move towards businesses specialising in niche production. Growers may now only produce one stage in the development of an end product, such as plug plants for vegetable production. That is more economical for the industry, allowing it to be more competitive in the global marketplace. Significant increases can be made in production, where each stage can be carried out at individual premises designed solely for each specific stage of production. Dealing with all production stages on the same premises has substantial limitations.
With more and more agricultural land being taken up with housing provision for our expanding population, there is a need to be able to produce food for the country over smaller areas more efficiently and more reliably. That can, to an extent, be addressed by growing more product under cover.
The Tunnel Tech case has highlighted how outdated or ambiguous the current legislation is in that regard. It makes a defined distinction between “market gardens” and “nursery grounds” and treats them differently for exemption purposes, whereas enterprises today are, in reality, simply growers.
It is unlikely that, in drafting the legislation, it was Parliament’s intention to limit UK horticultural production, as will be the case potentially should the legislation stand as it is. A significant ratings bill in addition to other rising costs will prevent investment in growing businesses. It will prevent growers from exploring new techniques requiring under-cover operations. It may also have a reverse effect on operations that already do grow under cover, forcing them to abandon these growing methods. I have tabled the new clause simply to clarify the relevant legislation, which is the Local Government Finance Act 1988, and to ensure that the agricultural exemption from ratings liability is protected as the industry evolves and modernises. I do not believe that there will be any significant fiscal impact to the Treasury from this change, as it is not revenue that the Treasury has historically been receiving.
Mr Thomas
I am sympathetic to the new clause. I just wanted to clarify the question of cost. We would not want to support anything without knowing whether there were cost implications. It would be helpful for the hon. Gentleman to clarify whether he has checked with the House of Commons Library or with other sources about the potential financial cost to the Treasury of the new clause.
Steve Double
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and indeed for the revelation that he has come to the view that we need to consider the costs of all new moves, which is welcome. I have not got the figures from the Library, but my understanding, from speaking to people in the Treasury and people from the National Farmers Union, is that this is not money that the Treasury has historically been receiving. This is a recent development; it has happened only in the last few months. Therefore, if the change happens, this will be new money—increased revenue—to the Treasury. It is not something the Treasury has been receiving historically; I believe that is the case. Therefore, I am seeking support for the new clause to restore the position that I believe was Parliament’s original intention when the legislation was introduced in 1988, to clarify the position in the light of the court ruling and to continue this vital support to our food producers.
I do not intend to push the new clause to a vote. I simply seek the Minister’s response and put down a marker that I believe that this issue needs to be addressed by the Department and by the Treasury to provide clarity and certainty for our food growers that they can continue to enjoy the relief, which I believe was the original intention.
Rob Marris
I rise in support of the new clause. As the hon. Gentleman has said, the background is that for the past 20 years at least, food security in the United Kingdom has been much overlooked. We import an increasing proportion of our food and the strain on our food security may increase or decrease because of Brexit, depending on what we do. The measure proposed by new clause 10 is very helpful in that regard.
The Tunnel Tech case, as I understand it, related to the tunnels where mushrooms are produced, ready for market. Paragraph 2(1)(a) of schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 provides the definition of agricultural land, whereas paragraph 3 provides the definition of an agricultural building. The definition of agricultural land includes meadows, which are extremely important, whether they are in Cornwall or elsewhere. However, as I understand it—I am not an agriculturalist or a horticulturalist—meadows do not produce food that is directly ready for market. Even so, they are an important part of our landscape and can contribute to the food chain. Therefore we have an anomaly. Paragraph 9(1) of schedule 5 to the 1988 Act exempts fish farms, so the provision applies more widely than suggested by paragraph 2, which defines agricultural land as
“pure arable meadow or pasture ground”.
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not intend to press his new clause to a vote, but I understand his reasons for that. In supporting his amendment, however, I advise him—he may have liaised with others on this— to consider whether a change needs to be made to paragraph 2, which provides the definition of agricultural land, as well as to paragraph 3, which provides the definition of agricultural buildings. He and I both want clarity so that the matter is not ventilated before the courts again, and I suspect that a tweak to the definition of agricultural land would also be helpful.
Mr Thomas
I am minded to press the new clause to a vote, such was the clarity of the argument of the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West has made a compelling case in support of it. The hon. Gentleman has reassured me that, having had conversations with the Treasury, there is no cost associated with it and he clearly has the support of the NFU. The Minister will have to make a pretty powerful speech to convince us not to press the new clause to a vote.
Mr Jones
It looks as if there is no pressure on me to satisfy the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay for raising this important issue. The Valuation Office Agency faces a challenging task of maintaining non-domestic rating lists covering a vast array of different types of property throughout England.
The background to the amendment originates from a rating case concerning a property producing mushroom mycelium, which is essentially the material from which mushrooms are grown. It is then sold on by the ratepayer to mushroom farms, which then produce the final product. The VOA felt that, because the property was not producing the mushrooms itself, it was not able to claim the agricultural building exemption and therefore should not be rateable. The ratepayer disagreed. Eventually, the matter reached the Court of Appeal which ruled that the property should be rateable.
On business rates, there is nothing unusual about that chain of events. Usually, further discussion of such technical rating cases would be confined only to the most dedicated members of the ratings profession. The Government are not usually involved in that sort of discussion, but the Court of Appeal decision has wider implications in this case.
The judgment clarified that there is a difference between market gardens and nursery grounds where buildings are involved. In effect, that means that there is a difference between the exemptions available for market gardens and nursery grounds. The Court of Appeal judgment means that where the activity at a nursey ground takes place only in buildings, it is not exempt because it is not an agricultural building as defined by the legislation. Previously it was a long-held practice to treat such buildings as though they were exempt from business rates. The VOA has been discussing with the industry what the decision means in practice. We understand that it would mean that some ratepayers operating nurseries producing plants prior to the point of sale to the consumer could face a rate bill for the first time. However, the proposed new clause would ensure that those nurseries were again exempt from business rates.
I stress that the Government believe that the exemption for agricultural property is an important part of the rating system. It ensures that large areas of agricultural land and buildings are not liable to pay a property tax that could have a significant impact on the cost of farming. We firmly believe that it is necessary for a line to be drawn for all exemptions and the Court of Appeal has clearly done that in its judgment. It is also important that reliefs and exemptions are targeted where support is most needed. I have therefore asked my officials to look at the impacts of that decision, how it will be applied in practice by the VOA and what it means for the companies affected. I will also meet the NFU to discuss it. The Government keep all taxes, including business rates, under review and I assure my hon. Friend that that includes the implications of the Court of Appeal decision.
Mr Thomas
Given that one should support even Government Back Benchers when they suggest very sensible amendments, I want to clarify whether the Minister will take a serious look at the merits of the amendment and potentially bring something back on Report, or is he just going to go through the motions of a quick chat with the NFU on the back of something else, while his colleague is sent away with nothing?
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman is taking an interest in this subject, but I have spoken a number of times to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay, who came to me with this important issue, and I have also spoken to several other hon. Friends on the Government Back Benches who are concerned about it. I have been clear today that the Government take the situation seriously and I have asked my officials to look at the impacts of the decision, how it will be applied in practice and what it means for the companies affected. I will also speak to the NFU. Given the gist of my comments, I hope that hon. Members are assured that we take this matter seriously and that we will consider it carefully before we get to the next stage of the Bill. I hope therefore that my hon. Friend will withdraw his amendment and that, in the spirit of my comments, Opposition Front Benchers will not seek to press it to a division.
Steve Double
I thank the Minister for his response and I am grateful for the support of Opposition Members. I am happy to take the Minister at his word at this stage and hope that they will, too. I have put down a clear marker and believe that the Minister takes the matter seriously, but I will be watching closely to ensure that it is addressed in the near future. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 11
Power to remove or reduce mandatory reliefs in cases of business rates avoidance
(1) Part 3 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (non-domestic rating) is amended as follows.
(2) In section 43 (occupied hereditaments liability) after subsection (8C) insert—
“(9) For any hereditament for any charging day to which this section applies, if the relevant billing authority has reasonable grounds to suspect that the occupier is taking inappropriate steps to reduce liability for business rates, the billing authority may treat that hereditament instead as if section 47 (discretionary relief) applied to it.”—(Jim McMahon.)
This would enable billing authorities to have powers to treat mandatory reliefs (which are specified in section 43 of the Local Government Finance Act) as discretionary reliefs, which are dealt with in section 47 of the same Act, if they had reasonable grounds to suspect that liability was being reduced through business rates avoidance.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Jim McMahon
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Again, like the best ideas, this one has been nicked. It was taken from the LGA, which has been consulting its members on how the business rate scheme has been abused by some landlords who have sought to avoid their liability to pay business rates. During the consultation, which was held in 2014, the LGA asked local authorities what types of tricks and techniques were used by companies and landlords who wanted to avoid paying business rates.
Some of the methods shared included repeated short-term periods of occupation; declaring that vacant properties are intended for future use by a charity; and fictitious occupation of properties by charities: for instance, certain window displays are used to decorate the building, but the activity carried out inside is quite different. Landlords also use insolvency to rack up high bills. When the moment comes for them to face court, the company is wound down, and people avoid paying them. Avoidance also results from properties not being on the rating list at all; people not reporting where properties have been split and should be subject to separate assessment for rating liability; the use of shell companies or offshore companies; and the use of vacant properties whose ownership is not known, although the owner might be local and using a fictitious address or name to avoid liability.
The new clause would ensure that when such techniques are discovered, safeguards are in place to ensure that the same occupier is not entitled to apply for a discount in future. They have effectively abused their chance to play the system fairly; the intention was to support those businesses and landlords who need it. I hope that the Government see that it is about fairness and balance. It is also about showing that where fault is discovered and people are proven to have been abusing the system, the Government have no truck with them and will hold them to account and restrict them from taking advantage again in future. If the Minister supports the new clause, he will win friends in local government and show that the Government have listened to what they have said.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving us the opportunity to discuss the important matter of business rate avoidance, which the new clause seeks to address. New clause 11 would provide billing authorities with power to treat any hereditament to which section 43 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 applies as if it were subject to section 47 of that Act where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the occupier took inappropriate steps to reduce their business rates liability.
The effect would be to provide the billing authority with the discretion to grant or withhold any mandatory relief that the hereditament would otherwise be eligible to receive under section 43. That would include charitable relief, rural rate and small business rate relief; however, it would not extend that discretion to empty property rates relief.
The Government have been clear that we wish to retain the benefits that the system of mandatory reliefs brings. Mandatory reliefs provide businesses and charities with certainty and a consistent framework within which to operate and grow. For example, the small business rate relief scheme provides uniform support for all small businesses, applied evenly across the country. I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s intention to ensure that mandatory reliefs and exemptions are used appropriately, and I recognise some of the questionable methods used to avoid paying business rates; I have seen them in my own area. However, I do not agree that giving local authorities a power to decide whether to grant mandatory reliefs where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that steps are being taken to avoid business rates is the right approach. Nor would it follow due legal process to enable a local authority to withhold reliefs without evidence, solely on having reasonable grounds of suspicion. It would create inconsistencies in the application of reliefs and risk penalising legitimate charities and businesses that are rightly entitled to these important reliefs and penalise those whom the policy is designed to support.
Jim McMahon
We had intended to press the new clause to a vote. We are committed to it and are convinced we had the support of local government, but equally we appreciate the Minister’s constructive response. We will watch with interest how those conversations with the LGA develop. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 12
Removal of provision for referendums relating to council tax increase in England
(1) Part 1 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (council tax: England and Wales) is amended as follows.
(2) Omit Chapter 4ZA (referendums relating to council tax increases in England).—(Jim McMahon.)
This new clause would remove Chapter 4ZA of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, inserted by Schedule 5 to the Localism Act 2011, which provides for council tax referendums.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Jim McMahon
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
You will be pleased to hear that this will be a quick speech, Sir David. It should not be for anybody in this building to determine the relationship between local authorities and the council tax payers in their area. It is for local people to hold decision makers to account through the ballot box, as they do with central Government. When people go to vote in a general election, they take a view on the decisions of the Government during their period in office and whether their fiscal decisions have been good or bad for them and their families. Local people should have the same ability to do that with local government. It should not be for the Secretary of State to impose an arbitrary referendum limit. The LGA, a cross-party organisation, supports that view, too.
I would appreciate a response from the Minister. I am sure he appreciates the growing calls from local government to tell the Secretary of State to mind his own business, and I hope the Minister will look at the new clause and take that message back.
Mr Thomas
This is, if you like, Sir David, the David Hodge memorial clause. Surrey County Council has blown out of the water the rationale that the Government once used for referendums. There is a deep irony in the situation this year, where the one council that is likely to impose a 0% council tax rise will be a Labour council and the one council that proposed the single biggest increase in council tax this year is a Conservative council. We have to admire the chutzpah of Mr Hodge. He has managed to get himself a sweetheart deal by completely blowing away the rationale Ministers once had for referendums. It is in that spirit that we move this probing new clause.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton for his explanation of new clause 12. It was a slightly more constructive effort than that of the hon. Member for Harrow West, who seems to be preoccupied with sweethearts. Perhaps that would have been best placed last week, when the House was in recess and it was Valentine’s day. He seems to persist with a misplaced line of questioning.
The new clause would remove chapter 4ZA from the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and thereby abolish the system of council tax referendums. That would allow local authorities to set whatever increases they choose, without having to seek the approval of local voters.
Arguments in favour of abolishing council tax referendums, or for not setting any referendum principles are certainly familiar to the Government. However, they are not arguments that the Government accept. Government defining an excessive increase has been part of the council tax system for decades. Council tax is currently 9% lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11. It will still be lower in real terms in 2019-20, but only if the Government continue to work with local authorities and maintain a referendum threshold, as promised in their manifesto.
The referendum threshold is not a cap. Councils can set any council tax increase that they like, provided that they have obtained the consent of their local electorate in a referendum. That is direct democracy in action. Local people have the right to choose whether they wish to pay extra council tax for additional spending and councils have the right to make the case to them.
In setting the referendum threshold, the Government listen to the views of local authorities, but clause 4 will formalise that by requiring the Secretary of State to consult their representatives. I believe that that flexible and constructive approach to setting excessiveness thresholds is crucial in striking the correct balance between funding for local services and protection of council tax payers.
Council tax is 9% lower than it was in 2010. That makes a significant case—unlike the 13 years before then, when council tax actually doubled during the Labour Government. I hope that, having reflected on the points I have made, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton will consider the challenge that this proposal would present to many council tax payers and withdraw his new clause.
Jim McMahon
It was interesting to hear that response from the Minister. I am not sure that the spirit of where the new clause is trying to get to was fully appreciated. This is not about the appropriateness or not of council tax increases; it is about the balance of power in the relationship between local government and central Government. The fact is that the Secretary of State in this place wants to determine what goes on in every single community in the country. I do not think that that is in the spirit of localism. We have seen in Surrey, where the 15% proposed increase—
Kevin Hollinrake
Surely the point is that the power is not with local government or central Government. The power is with the people. All any local authority has to do is go to the people and ask them to endorse the proposed rises, and they can have whatever rise any local authority may propose.
Jim McMahon
The funding of the new elected mayors for our combined authority areas is being met by council tax payers in those areas, as an additional burden. There was no referendum about whether local people wanted that, so talking about seeking a referendum if local people are to be expected to spend more money does not, I am afraid, hold water.
We will not make progress on the point today, because I think there is a fundamental gap between the spirit of localism—which can be heard from the Opposition Benches and is about empowering local communities and giving them the tools and levers to effect change, and the resources to make change happen—and the centralising, command and control way in which the Government are seeing through their devolution of financial settlements.
Jim McMahon
I am about to wind up. Local government will say that the issue is beyond party politics, but when they look to this place they will see that the party speaking for local government devolution is the Labour party. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 13
Power to impose a charge for business rate appeals
‘(1) A billing authority or major precepting authority may charge a ratepayer a fee in connection with activities undertaken as a result of an appeal by that ratepayer to alter the authority’s local non-domestic rating list under section 55 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988.
(2) The amount of fee payable must be calculated by reference to costs incurred by the authority when undertaking activities relating to that ratepayer’s appeal and the amount of fee payable must not be calculated by reference to costs incurred by the authority in the undertaking of any other activities.
(3) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, make provision about the circumstances in which those fees are to be refunded.’ —(Mr Thomas.)
This new clause would enable billing authorities or major precepting authorities to charge fees on a cost recovery basis to ratepayers in connection with business rates appeals.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr Thomas
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I understand that Ministers intend to charge £300 for large businesses and £150 for small businesses that want to make a business rate appeal. The new clause is a probing measure to explore how Ministers arrived at those figures. Given that there are likely to be substantially more appeals as a result of the current business rates revaluation, it would be good to understand what the thinking has been about the charges.
In the context of business rates bills being reduced on six out of nine warehouses of a very large business such as Amazon, one wonders whether £300 is not rather low. It costs £250 to submit a claim for unfair dismissal and £950 if the case goes to a tribunal. Funding has been cut from the Valuation Office Agency and I wonder whether a fee of £300 for a big business submitting a speculative revaluation claim is truly appropriate.
It would be good to hear what Ministers have to say and whether they will keep the matter under close review, with the potential for amending the charges as evidence begins to emerge.
Rob Marris
The charge for business rate appeals is understandable, given the regrettable trend of recent years, which started under a Labour Government, of charging for access to justice. However, we also need to see things in the context of something that was raised with me and the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton—the margin of appreciation, as I think it would be called; the flexibility. A business pays a charge and there is an appeal. It wins, but is told that the difference between what it would have been charged and what it will be charged post-appeal is less than 15%. Then it has lost—even though it has won. That does not seem to me to be a good way to proceed.
Mr Jones
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harrow West for tabling the new clause as it gives me a further opportunity to remind the Committee of the work that we are doing to improve the business rate appeal system.
The system has always suffered from too many speculative applications clogging it up, causing delays and uncertainty for those ratepayers with genuine cases. It has for far too long been too easy for rating agents to lodge speculative appeals with little or no supporting evidence.
More than 1 million appeals have been made against the 2010 rating list, using the system that was put in place on 1 April 2010. Of those that have been resolved, only 29% resulted in a change to the rating list. With the introduction of a new rating list on 1 April 2017, we have a fresh opportunity to reform the system. Our check, challenge, appeal system will introduce a new three-stage process. We will put the emphasis on early engagement and resolution by all parties to ensure that, where ratepayers and rating agents decide to make a formal challenge, they must bring forward proper evidence cases. In turn, it will support local government, giving it greater certainty over its rates income.
Mr Thomas
I do intend to withdraw the new clause. I am grateful to the Minister for the clarification; I think it is something that he should keep under review, but we have had a useful trip around the issue. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Jones
On a point of order, Sir David. I would like to thank you and Mr Gapes for the skilful and diligent way in which you have chaired proceedings over the past few weeks. There were times at which the Committee may have stepped near to the edge of being in order, and at every opportunity you and Mr Gapes kept us on the straight and narrow, so I thank you and Mr Gapes for that.
I also thank the Committee Clerks for the part that they have played in this Committee and the assistance that they have provided in supporting members of this Committee. In that context, I would also like to thank the people who are here from Hansard. I also thank the Government’s officials for the hard work that they have put into the Bill so far and for the support that they have given to me throughout the Committee stage.
Finally, I would like to thank the members of the Committee. At times, it has been an interesting Committee and although not all Committee members have always seen eye to eye, I think that we have conducted it in a reasonable spirit. Despite the fact that both sides have not seen eye to eye on a number of amendments that have been put to a Division, debate has always been conducted in a respectful way. I would like to thank the members of the Committee for the part that they have played.
Mr Thomas
Further to that point of order, Sir David. I echo the thanks to you and to Mr Gapes for chairing the Committee. The way that your interventions have been very helpfully timed to stop Members going off track is remarkable. You have the perfect knack of intervening at just the right moment to stop temptation getting the better of us.
I should add the Committee’s thanks to the Clerks, who have ensured that amendments that were debated were in order, to the Doorkeepers and to the Hansard writers for the important job that they have done. I thank too those who crucially submitted evidence and who have appeared before the Committee. Their contributions without doubt made the Committee’s deliberations more informed.
It would be entirely remiss of me not to also thank my hon. Friends on this Committee. In Bill Committees, the odds are always stacked against Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, but the quality of my hon. Friends has meant that it has not felt quite such an imbalance on this occasion. I thank in particular my fellow shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton, whose expertise has been particularly welcome. That of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West has been particularly important too. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar made an important contribution this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham has been a lurking presence throughout, which brings me lastly to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford, who has helped to make sure that we have stayed firmly in order on this side. There have on occasions been moments of edge, as there should be between two different political parties but, as the Minister says, in general this has been conducted in a friendly, good-hearted and provocative way, which is surely exactly the purpose of a parliamentary Bill Committee.
The Chair
I thank hon. Members for their kind and generous remarks. Mr Gapes and I have thoroughly enjoyed chairing the Committee, because proceedings have been conducted with good temper throughout. Hon. Members have fulfilled their duty of thoroughly scrutinising the Bill and being kept in good order. I thank the Hansard writers and the Doorkeepers for their support, and I particularly want to thank our Clerks, whose wisdom has prevailed at all times and whose firmness has ensured that I have not been as lax with the Committee as might otherwise have been the case.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Westminster Hall
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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A Better Defence Estate Strategy
(8 years ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered A Better Defence Estate strategy.
In November last year, it was announced that 91 military bases across the country would close. That represents a 30% reduction in the Ministry of Defence estate. The announcement was part of the “A Better Defence Estate” strategy, and closure dates for bases ranged from 2017 to 2032.
One of the barracks earmarked for closure in 2027 is Invicta Park barracks in Maidstone, in my constituency. The Government argue that their aim is to improve military capability and rationalise the estate. Of course, those goals are well understood. We are told that decisions have been taken based on military advice and extensive engagement. I have serious concerns relating to the nature and extent of the advice and engagement, and to the lack of information regarding costs, benefits and environmental safety. I would like the Minister to provide further details when he speaks, but today I want to focus most of my time on the extremely negative impact that the decision will have if it goes ahead.
First, site closure will affect thousands of service and civilian personnel and their families, who still do not know what it means for them. Will they need to commute further, move house, or move their children from schools? Will they have a job at the end of it all? That uncertainty washes over everyone in the family. It also impacts socially and economically on local communities. Businesses, schools and places of worship will all be affected by the departure of those people. There will be a loss of military heritage, and of support and connection with towns and counties around the country. Many of these connections span hundreds of years, and are the source of the close bond between our armed forces and communities.
There will also be a reduced ability for the military to recruit and retain the best service personnel at a time when recruitment and retention figures for regulars and reserves are especially worrying. The increased uncertainty, coupled with wives and families being moved from vibrant and popular towns such as Maidstone and York to isolated “super-bases” such as Catterick and Salisbury Plain, will have an adverse effect. Some even feel that the Government have simply got the policy wrong in terms of military capability and effectiveness. Indeed, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Awford, who is now retired but who was a commanding officer at Invicta Park barracks, believes that:
“The decision to close Invicta Park Barracks is unsound. It will be a negative step for the army”.
Large garrisons with many shared facilities will become the norm. They will be separated from local populations and distant from specialist training bases. There will be no jobs for wives and no girlfriends for soldiers. The quality of life will decline. It will do nothing for morale or recruitment, which comes from the good liaison between the Army and the local population.
Many of those negative outcomes are shared by colleagues across constituencies, but in addition we each harbour unique vulnerabilities that deserve consideration. In my case, it is the plight of serving Gurkha soldiers and their families, and that of Gurkha veterans. Invicta Park barracks is the home of the 36 Engineers and the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers. Unlike the 36 Engineers, who expect to be posted and moved from time to time, the Gurkhas tend to remain located at one base, which they make their permanent home. All Gurkha soldiers who have joined the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers since 1994 have been based at the barracks for their entire career. They are, of course, seconded from time to time, but they always return to Maidstone and to their families, who remain in the town.
That is part of a long-standing, balanced understanding between the UK and the Gurkhas. They come from afar and take great risks in fighting for us, while being able to retain around them the support of their veterans, their wives, their children and the wider Nepalese community. To wrench serving Gurkhas and their families from their cultural base and permanent home denies them the benefits of that equation. I do not believe that to be right or fair.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making very strong points and I want to support her on that one. I represent the other side of Maidstone and recently met a group of Nepalese ladies, many of whom are wives of Gurkhas at the barracks. Does she agree that the Gurkhas are very much part of the community in and around Maidstone? The fact that they are there permanently is an important factor that should be considered as part of those decisions.
Mrs Grant
My hon. Friend and neighbouring MP—we also share the same first name, which makes for a bit of confusion—makes a very good point. As I will go on to say, the Gurkhas and the Nepalese community are cherished and respected. There is wide opposition to the closure, so much so that a petition against it that I have been running for just a few weeks already has 2,500 names. That expresses the strength of the feeling from the people of Maidstone that we do not want to lose our Nepalese community. The soldiers and their families have worked hard for many years to integrate and to become part of the fabric of the area. As I have said, they have succeeded, and are widely respected and cherished.
One former Army wife, Mrs Jean Ruddell, who lived at the barracks for seven years, told me how difficult it had been for the Gurkha wives when they first arrived in 1998-99. She said that it was a real culture shock and that they had been a little like rabbits in headlights. However, they worked hard, learned English and enrolled in classes to assist them in finding work. They fully immersed themselves in Kent life and in the county town. She said there was mutual respect for different traditions and beliefs. She described it as real harmony and as multiculture at its very best. She remarked on what a tragedy it would be to see all of that broken up, at a time when togetherness and commonality are more important than ever. Another lady summarised well how many Nepalese people feel:
“We will miss the close connection with the Maidstone community. We love it here and have made it our home. We will need to start all over again if we move. It is so hard to build such relations.”
To illustrate the cross-generational feeling, one 85-year-old Gurkha veteran told me: “If our soldiers move, their wives and children will move too. We will be left stranded. We will lose the help and support given to us by our younger generation. We rely upon this heavily, especially those of us who have been injured or who are disabled”.
In 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.”
I fully support the covenant, and the Minister should be rightly proud of the role he has played in establishing it within society. A key pillar of the covenant, as the Secretary of State said, is to treat our service personnel and veterans and their families fairly. However, if the decision to close Invicta Park barracks goes ahead, the Government will not, I believe, for all the reasons I have stated, be acting fairly, and will be in breach of the covenant.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She outlines passionately the impact on her constituency. Does she agree with the wider concern that, if the rationale and thinking behind the estate strategy pervades the training and reserves estate, we could see other problems right across the United Kingdom?
Mrs Grant
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and if he makes a speech today we will hopefully hear more about that. There are a number of important contributions to be made by Members on both sides of the House and it is important that they are all heard. I also want the Minister to have plenty of time to speak and to address the issues that will no doubt be raised.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important subject. On the wider question of the management of the defence estate, does she agree that there are some immensely important, significant, historic buildings, some of which are of national importance? It is vital both that they are treated with great sensitivity and care and that, within the period of the rationalisation, the most careful plan for their use is arrived at?
Mrs Grant
As always, my right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I agree with everything he has said. There are some wonderful, beautiful, old, historic, listed buildings. I have one—the old officers’ mess—as part of Invicta Park barracks. I agree that there has to be a plan and that the buildings must be looked after and treated with great sensitivity and care.
In closing, I ask the Minister please to look again at the decision to close Invicta Park barracks. It cannot just be about houses and money. Although I recognise the need to rationalise the military estate, super-garrisons might not always be best. Our military is about people and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) recently said, without the human capital, all our ships, submarines, jets, planes, helicopters and tanks across the world are of no use to us. In that case, and in my case, with the Gurkhas and the Nepalese community in Maidstone, it is about the maintenance of a vibrant and highly successful military and civilian multiculture, the value of which should not be underestimated.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. In view of the number of Members wishing to speak, there will be a time limit of four minutes.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
What a great pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for leading the debate. I have found the Minister who is here today to be a listening Minister. He has engaged with me as much as I have engaged with him, and I am grateful for that.
I wish to speak about the situation in Chester, at Dale barracks. Some 2,000 years ago, a bunch of Romans came along and set up a camp—a castrum—in what was to become my city. The castrum gave its name to Chester, which has been a garrison town ever since Æthelfrith defeated the Welsh at the battle of Chester—apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who is on the Opposition Front Bench. The first Earl of Chester built a chain of castles around Chester castle in 1071. We have a history that goes right through the second world war, when we had RAF Sealand—still in place today—and the headquarters of the Western Command. That history is very much part of the city’s DNA, and we are proud of it. We are proud to have those links to the military and to have an Army presence. We have the Westminster Centre for Research and Innovation in Veterans’ Wellbeing at the university, we have a recruitment office in the centre of the city and we have Dale barracks, which is now under threat.
The barracks was traditionally home to the 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment, and then the Cheshire merged with the Worcesters and Foresters and the Staffords to form the Mercian, so I understand that things do not stand still in the Army. Things move and things change—we also had the Royal Welsh based there for a while. Although we are not an Aldershot, a Catterick or a Colchester, we are a military city and proud of it. There are advantages to that. Chester is an attractive place to live, and so many of my constituents are former servicemen and women and their families who have made their home in the area. Schools in the Upton area are set up to cater for children facing the disruption of military life, for example when their parents are sent away on duty at short notice. Personnel retention rates in Chester are therefore much higher than elsewhere, because families are happier and there is less pressure on the servicemen and women themselves. Closing the barracks may well be a saving in the short term, but it would be a false economy.
The super-garrison structure in the south-west of England is part of the Ministry of Defence’s investment of more than £800 million in infrastructure in the Salisbury plain area, with a similar development proposed for the north-east, but super-garrisons do not cater for where troops are recruited from, and we have a high recruitment rate in the north-west. The net effect is that service personnel—in the Army in particular—find themselves bouncing around the country on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons trying to get home or back from work. I know of one former officer living in Chester who spent two years driving up and down to Sandhurst. He described being so far away from family as a reason why people might leave the Army. The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald referred to that. The armed forces attempt to post service personnel close to their home town during their final years in the Army to help their and their families’ transition, and closing the Dale will further reduce that option for those from Chester and the north-west, which, again, will have a negative impact on retention rates.
I ask the Minister whether all options have been exhausted regarding the utility of Dale barracks. Could we provide other services and place other units there, perhaps a centre for combat stress and psychological therapy to link in with the work of the university? Can we beef up the presence with cadet forces? The facilities are modern; they were upgraded only in the past 20 years, so it will be a false economy for the Army and the MOD, as well as damaging to the local economy, if we close them simply, I believe, because of the high land values in Chester and move servicemen elsewhere. I am most grateful to the Minister for his time.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing this important debate. I represent the home of the British Army—Aldershot—and I am well aware that there are facilities around the country, principally in Army rather than Royal Air Force hands, that have been allowed to deteriorate. It is necessary, therefore, that we examine the military estate.
Having said that, I have a success story to report. No one has heard of the most successful private finance initiative project, the £8 billion Allenby/Connaught project run by the award-winning contractors Aspire Defence for the refurbishment of not only Aldershot garrison but Tidworth. As a result of the sale of military land in Aldershot, the garrison has been transformed, with fantastic new buildings. Apropos the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) made about buildings, I have to say that Grainger—it is running the Wellesley programme, which involves the release of land in accordance with a master plan—has spent a great deal of time ensuring that some of the historic buildings in Aldershot have been maintained. It has made its headquarters at the Smith Dorrien House, a 19th-century brick building that it has restored fabulously.
That is a very good story, but I am concerned by the fundamentals of the review. We know why it is being done. It is not to ensure that we have a better estate; it is to raise money. That is the brutal truth. The Treasury is not giving enough money to the Ministry of Defence. We have our national priorities completely wrong. We are spending an immoral amount of money on overseas aid, and we are neglecting our armed forces. The review is one of the consequences of that.
The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) is absolutely right about the footprint of the estate. I have the Welsh Guards stationed in Aldershot. Come Friday afternoon, the whole lot decamp down the M4 to Wales. We will not be able to recruit if we remove military establishments from other parts of the country and concentrate them all in the super-garrisons such as the one in Aldershot—I accept that it is doing a great job, but I am looking at the bigger picture nationally. The points that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald made about that were absolutely right.
The programme is misconceived and being done in a rush. The Minister knows that Minley Manor was sold in great haste. I had a furious bidder on the phone to me saying, “Why was I not offered the opportunity to make a best and final offer on that property?” The Old War Office in Whitehall is also being disposed of in something of a hurry. There is a gathering rush to remove military facilities, and we will pay a big price. As a Minister I went to Leuchars to announce its closure as a RAF station. Fortunately it was not closed, because it is now an Army station. It enabled us to accommodate soldiers coming back from Germany. We had somewhere to put them, but the way the Ministry of Defence is going now, we will not be able to have that flexibility. Our armed forces are the smallest they have been since the time of Wellington, but look at the dangerous world in which we are living. A policy simply to cash in on the value of the estate seems misguided when we may well need to build up our armed forces in the future, given the state of the world we find ourselves in today.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing this debate and on all the efforts she has made to co-ordinate attempts by Members to ensure that this matter stays at the top of the agenda.
I am speaking today because I was very disappointed to find out that Redford cavalry barracks and Redford infantry barracks in my constituency are earmarked for closure in 2022. The closure of Redford barracks would remove a truly historic site from the military estate and leave families who live and work in my constituency in a position of great uncertainty. The Redford barracks has been situated at the foot of the Pentland hills for almost 100 years. When it was built in 1909, it was the largest military base built in Scotland since Fort George. The announcement that it faces closure is a dark day for the military and for military heritage in Scotland. In their proposals, the Government have said that the military estate “has failed to adapt” to meet 21st-century needs, but it is the task of Government to adapt the military estate. The responsibility for its not having been so adapted lies with successive UK Governments.
The proposals in the publication set out a commitment to deliver:
“Regional centres of mass for light infantry battalions supporting national resilience and community engagement”,
but it is not clear which of the centres in Edinburgh the MOD plans to use for that purpose. The obvious choice for the Scottish Army HQ would be Redford barracks, as it is situated in the capital city of Scotland. More importantly, the closure of those infantry and cavalry barracks will be devastating for the local community of Colinton and the people who work and live in that area. It is important to note that the buildings at Redford barracks have category B listing, and it will prove very expensive for any developer to convert them into housing.
The Government have said that they will consult local authorities and the Scottish Government where necessary. It is a pity that the UK Government have consistently refused to engage with the Scottish Government ahead of such decisions being taken. However, there is still time to consult. As the local MP for the area, I would be happy to meet the Minister to help facilitate constructive engagement between the UK Government, the Scottish Government, civic society in Edinburgh and the relevant local authorities. To that end, it would be helpful if he could confirm when the consultation will begin, how long it will last and the format it will take.
I have been in correspondence with the Minister and his Department about the prospective closure of Redford barracks, and I have been given various assurances that there is the intention to do this and that. It would assist the consultation process if undertakings could be given at the very beginning on Redford cavalry and infantry barracks. I stress that they are of historical significance and are situated in the capital city of Scotland, so they are the natural and appropriate site for any Scottish Army HQ.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing this important debate. This is the second time I have talked about Kneller Hall, which is in my constituency, and I am grateful for the opportunity to reiterate the arguments. It is interesting that those views are shared by many other Members here.
I want the Minister and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to use some military expertise in their defence estate strategy. I am not a soldier—my background is more in peacekeeping—but I know that wars are not won with destruction or bullets; they are won with hearts and minds. That is what the estate is about. Kneller Hall in Whitton has the heart and mind of the community. The Minister will know that it was the Duke of Cambridge—not the current Duke of Cambridge but the second Duke of Cambridge—who realised that military music is incredibly important in inspiring courage, strength and loyalty in the military and the other services. When I talk about the heart of the community, I am not talking just about the sons of people in Twickenham who serve in Kneller Hall. It is not just about fathers who see their sons go into Kneller Hall; mothers and daughters also serve at Kneller Hall. It is part of our heart and our mind.
Will the Minister ask the DIO to use some military intelligence? I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for giving me some new ideas—I hope that the military will take this on—about what can be done for Kneller Hall. We have precious listed buildings. I am interested in some partnerships that could be created to renovate Kneller Hall. We were told recently that the military stopped investing in the building in the 1990s, but there are ways to get round it.
Kneller Hall is part of the community, but it is also about military strategy. We could be recruiting more people. As everyone knows, Twickenham is one of the best places to live. It is in London and is great for young people. It is the home of rugby. It is a brilliant place to have a joint band, which I know the Minister is considering. Kneller is the place. It is where young people can be inspired. I know that the Minister has some medals, but, as I have said before, I will pin another medal on his chest if he can enhance and improve Kneller Hall. Thousands of people have signed petitions. I submitted a petition in the Commons, but the Facebook petition continues. I am talking not only about people in Twickenham; Kneller Hall has influenced people across the globe. It needs to be at the heart of our communities. The Minister must use his military expertise and military strategy and win hearts and minds for us.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on setting out the case so effectively. I will make a few specific comments about Northern Ireland.
As a former member of the Defence Committee—my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) is now a member—I regard this strategy as a matter of grave concern. The facts are plain. The estate is costly and somewhat ungainly. On paper it is easy to see how selling off pieces of the estate will not only bring to an end maintenance costs for the property or the area but will bring in a windfall. If we add the magical phrase “affordable housing”, how could anyone say no to that? I am sorry, but I wish to stand against some of the proposals in the footprint strategy.
The Ministry of Defence says that its estate, which covers 1.8% of the UK land mass, is inefficient, expensive to maintain and incompatible with the needs of the modern armed forces; the future estate will be smaller and clustered around areas of specialisation. I have no doubts whatever about the accuracy of those claims. However, I wonder whether someone can explain to me how we can possibly meet defence needs and the obligations to our armed forces in consolidated, precise little blocks. On paper, I can see how Northern Ireland per head and for surface area should have limited military input, but the reality of our history in Northern Ireland demands a strong presence. The service history of our residents demands home bases that cater for families. I remain to be convinced how the plans will fit the needs of our armed forces. The excuse that the estate needs work is not one that flies with me. It is not good enough to run something down to dispose of it when that will leave gaps in our estate strategy and, more importantly, our defence strategy. There is a significant risk that the poor condition of the estate will affect defence capability. I want to put that on the record as well.
I have great respect for the Minister. I appreciate his help in responding to all the different issues and how hard he works as a former soldier and as a Minister. Kinnegar Base in Holywood, on the boundary of my constituency, has been a thriving hub of activity, employing up to 1,000 civilian staff and providing much-needed support for the Army during the darkest days of the troubles. I understand that there is perhaps not the need that there once was for bases in Northern Ireland; bases have been steadily disappearing in the natural course of the reduction in troubles. However, we cannot be complacent about security in Northern Ireland. With a police officer shot last month and other threats, there is a very real need for Army support that surpasses population levels.
When I joined the Ulster Defence Regiment, I trained at Ballykinler. The sell-off of Abercorn barracks is a backwards step, not least as the accommodation should be retained for social housing rather than sold as a development opportunity. With respect to the Minister, I question that. Redevelopment in co-operation with communities to provide housing is a much better way to use the site than to sell it to the highest bidder. If that is what we are doing, I respectfully say it is wrong. The selling of the family silver can no longer be allowed. We are looking at future generations who will not have meaningful pensions. We have sold our children’s inheritance before they are born.
Hailing from Northern Ireland and a military background, I cannot support the closure of all three bases. It is my sincere nightly prayer that my little country of Northern Ireland never again finds itself in need of the Army support and presence that was once a part of everyday life. However, the practical side of me feels that the basic structure must still exist.
I know that other Members in this Chamber, such as the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who represents the Woolwich base where I once trained and of which I have very fond memories, are also asking for a rethink of decisions. The Government should and must rethink the strategy and cut costs without cutting the defence capabilities and leaving us vulnerable and our military families vulnerable and unsupported. The Minister must consider those points before making decisions.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for securing the debate and for her kind words earlier.
The Defence Secretary’s announcement that 91 sites across the UK will be disposed of is part of a long overdue defence estates rationalisation strategy. Although I wholeheartedly support the Department’s determination to assess its asset base—nearly 4% of the UK—and to work out what it does and does not need for the 21st century, we need to be very careful how we do this. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I led our hearing a few weeks ago to assess how the review was going. Sadly, so far I am dissatisfied that the detailed and holistic economic cases have not yet been done for each of the sites identified. That risks achieving financial and operational failures rather than gains for both the MOD and the taxpayer.
As one of several MPs taking up reservist roles —I recently applied to join the Royal Navy Reserve—I want to highlight my concerns by using the proposed closure of HMS Sultan and Fort Blockhouse in Gosport, as they are a good example of the concerns that we identified on the Public Accounts Committee. One aim of the better defence estate programme is to release land for house building, but scope for housing in Gosport is severely limited by the local plan and the lack of local demand. Sale to commercial developers is complicated by high onsite maintenance costs. HMS Sultan contains heritage assets and listed buildings—that is an issue with a lot of the sites identified—including two Palmerston forts, a site of nature conservation and land protected as open space, which is also an issue in several of the sites identified.
Fort Blockhouse contains designated nature conservation sites, open space and important heritage assets, as well as a sea wall with an estimated annual maintenance cost of £1 million to £3 million. A local expert estimates that it would cost £10 million to repair the wall fully, which could rise to £100 million if there was a breach. Maintaining the sea wall is essential for the physical integrity of Portsmouth harbour, which will soon be home to our marvellous Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, which the Minister will be pleased to hear I look forward to seeing tomorrow.
At Blockhouse the local authority is optimistic about the significant potential to regenerate the site as part of a mixed-use leisure and maritime allocation, but the MOD’s decision to retain the waterfront part of the site—the most commercially attractive segment—significantly jeopardises the opportunity to generate employment.
The business case for disposing of HMS Sultan remains unclear. Estimated renovation costs are considerably lower than costs associated with relocation. Work to improve Sultan’s accommodation is necessary, but generally the site is fit for purpose, as evidenced by Ofsted’s recent outstanding rating for its training provision. Furthermore, a recent investment of some £850,000, with £470,000 coming from the LIBOR fund, to renovate the warrant officer and senior ratings mess, which serves more than 500 trainees and permanent staff, will be completed next month. It seems a contrary decision to get rid of something that has such a significant investment. Second-order consequences of dismantling an excellent training provision for the Royal Navy are worrying. The Navy is short of engineers, and to undermine an important educational pipeline could have significant operational ramifications. The local population offers an excellent recruitment pool. The density of retired officers also provides a source of teaching professionals.
I have summarised many of the key problems. Releasing the 91 most expensive sites makes surface-level financial sense from the MOD’s perspective, but it ignores the reality that in some cases the sites may be the most difficult to sell to developers. I know that the disposal process is in its early stages across all the sites, and I welcome the MOD’s commitment to explore development opportunities fully with local authorities and development agencies. It is disappointing that analyses of the sites earmarked for disposal are taking place after disposal decisions, but I sincerely hope that a business-minded approach will begin to drive disposal decisions alongside the military requirement.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate this morning, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing the debate.
The armed forces have more than 1,000 years’ history in the city of York, which was built on trade and also on defence. Imphal Barracks in my constituency, now listed to close in 2031, was built between 1877 and 1878. Two years ago my predecessor received assurances from the Ministry of Defence that the Army would stay in York. The Army basing plan on 5 March 2013 secured York as a garrison for the future, and serious investment was put into upgrading the buildings on the site. The city therefore believes that the Government are wrong to close the barracks.
No economic or social impact assessment has yet been carried out, even though MOD procedures say that it should be. Can I turn the Minister’s attention to joint service publication 507? It says that an impact assessment should include
“redundancies or impact on the local economy”
and goes on to say that
“MOD investment appraisals are concerned with appraising public value; that is the value to UK society of a proposal or option rather than just to the Exchequer or the Department.”
That work has not even been undertaken—I understand from discussions with officials that it could take at least 18 months—so it is rather premature to announce the closure of Imphal, without that essential work being done first.
The Army provides some of the largest employment opportunities for the city of York. We have 728 serving personnel, who of course bring with them their fantastic families. We know that the MOD is wrestling at the moment with the issue of spousal employment, and there is no better place to look for opportunities than in a city such a York, with its two universities and a college, which provide excellent education, as well as York schools. The opportunity for armed forces personnel to base their children in York schools, where they can catch up with their education and do well, is so important. There are 376 highly skilled civilian jobs based in York—a city where the average wage is below the national and regional average at around £22,000. That is important for our local economy. If we also consider the more than 100 contractors as well, and the jobs at Strensall that will disappear, we are talking about 1,500 jobs in a city the size of York. That will have a very serious economic impact, and the impact assessment of that is yet to be done.
I am grateful to senior armed forces personnel who talked through the operational issues with me. As the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) highlighted, these measures will have a real detrimental impact on recruitment and retention in the armed forces. In France, this experiment was tried, and was halted in its tracks because it created real difficulty for recruitment and retention. There is already a retention problem for the Signals, which are based in York. This will escalate that and clearly destabilise the armed forces, which is not what we want.
I wear this khata today as we have a Gurkha community in the 246 Signal Squadron based in York. They form a central part of my community; their families are integrated. They worship at the barracks and are part of the reach into the city. I met with them on Saturday night—they pleaded to remain part of York, because they see it as their home, where they want to settle.
The reality is that the work has not been done behind the scenes. This is a Treasury-led issue, not a Defence-led issue. It is about time a pause button was hit and we reviewed the reality of the impact that these closures will have.
Sir Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing the debate and on her excellent speech. Let me be clear: I agree with the principle of what the Government are trying to do. We have to take some painful decisions and some of those decisions will inevitably have effects on individual constituencies that some of us will not like. However, I share the concerns of a number of other speakers that we are in danger of losing our national footprint.
I should like to introduce two specifically defence elements into the equation. First, spousal employment continually comes up in the top three reasons for leaving the armed forces. The second factor is local house prices. I do not support the idea of an allowance to replace service family accommodation, but I do support aspirations for more members of the armed forces to have the opportunity to buy housing.
In terms of those two factors, if we look at the footprint of what is proposed, we find all too often that the bases under threat are places where there is plenty of spousal employment and plenty of affordable housing—Canterbury in my constituency, which closed recently, Maidstone in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald, Chester, Ripon and so on. The expansion is increasingly taking place in places such as Catterick, completely isolated and in the middle of nowhere, or in areas such as the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), where housing is desperately expensive. That cannot be retention-positive. It is not fair to ask my hon. Friend the Minister to take account of wider community issues beyond a certain point, but those points are critical for the future manning of the armed forces.
I echo a point made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I happen to know Redford barracks quite well. When I had some responsibilities for Scotland, I visited it a couple of times. It is a prime historic military site on the edge of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Unlike the hon. and learned Lady, I am a passionate Unionist. That site should be one that we make more of, as we get rid of some of the frankly uneconomic and unmanageable garrisons in the edges of Scotland. I know Fort George and the rest are unhappy, but I support those closures. Redford should be a place we concentrate on. I am not going to ask my hon. Friend the Minister for the figure because that will be commercially confidential, but I will ask him to write to me to reassure me that the estimate for the value of Redford barracks in his considerations takes account of the fact that it is listed and, as such, is of very little value to a developer. I understand that even the outbuildings are listed.
That point is paralleled all over the country. To take the point through, there is the alternative of moving more units to Leuchars, which is a very nice base—my son happens to be serving there. Unfortunately, the local community is not large enough to provide spousal employment for a large expansion and, because it is right next to St Andrews, house prices are among the most expensive in Scotland.
My hon. Friend the Minister has to take difficult decisions. I am with him on the fact that difficult decisions have to be taken within our shrunken defence budget, which I, like others, would like be greater. However, in deciding where we focus the armed forces of the future, we must take account of the two key factors of spousal employment and house prices, and the overall footprint.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I commend the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for securing this debate. I was delighted to join her at the Backbench Business Committee to make the case for it.
When the announcement was made, the shockwaves went through my constituency of Midlothian, where the closure of Glencorse barracks has been intimated. Understandably, the community were upset at the lack of consultation before or after the announcement, but there are two glaringly obvious issues in Midlothian that compel me to speak in the debate today: first, the huge loss that the base would be to service personnel, their families and the wider community, but also to infrastructure and the local economy; and secondly, the enormous financial investment made by the Ministry of Defence a number of years ago, which now seems entirely pointless.
The position I take today is an entirely cross-party one. Every elected member at all levels for the community representing the Glencorse barracks supports the position. All six local councillors, Christine Grahame MSP and myself have joined together and have met the local community. This is an entirely united position. A petition is on its way and, in due course, we will look to present it to the House—I am sure many hon. Members will do the same.
The history of Glencorse barracks is well-known, from its start in the Napoleonic war as a prisoner of war camp, through to its current situation. Unlike many other bases, Glencorse is fit for purpose following a £60 million upgrade in 2003 to 2005, at which point it was hailed by the MOD as benchmark accommodation for our forces. It is frustrating that some of the information around that investment is difficult to come by—it was announced not in Parliament, but on a visit to a construction firm by the then Defence Secretary. When we ask the MOD for information about the investment, we are simply told that the information requested cannot be provided in a format that would not incur a disproportionate cost. As an elected Member, it is very frustrating trying to get to the bottom of some of the details. It would appear that I am able to get more information from Midlothian Council and through the Scottish Government than from the Ministry of Defence. I ask the Minister to reflect on that experience—Members of this House ask questions to be better informed when making cases in situations such as this one.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about Glencorse. Does he agree that, in the case of Fort George in my constituency, very little evidence has been supplied to say that it would save the MOD money? In fact, it will simply leave a £12 million to £16 million annual hole in our economy.
Owen Thompson
I agree. That is certainly true for many of us who are making the case for retaining our local bases.
Given the investment in Glencorse, it makes no financial sense to close the barracks. It has already been upgraded to the condition of a modern Army base, and it meets the criteria set out in the most recent defence estate reviews. It would be financial suicide to throw away such an investment.
There are rightly concerns that closure would damage the local economy, given the number of troops that are based there. Penicuik is a thriving community, but it needs more to support it. Given the investment in local schools and the special training given to local teachers to support our armed forces, if those Army personnel and their families were removed from the community, the impact would be felt down the line well beyond any closure.
Lastly, I must address the disappointing regard that the MOD has shown to Midlothian councillors and the Scottish Government following the announcement. I urge the Minister to take that on board and engage with all of us in the future. If the closures go ahead, what happens afterwards is vital. This ill-thought-out decision is financially unsound and strategically absurd, and it needs to be urgently stopped.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for securing this debate.
I am here to speak about Brecon barracks—I am the only Welsh Member here apart from the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David)—which is an important part of Brecon and Wales. There has been a barracks in Brecon for 200 years. In fact, the buildings that are currently used have been in existence for 200 years. Not only has it been home to the British Army in Wales, but many detachments from it have gone across the world—the South Wales Borderers’ visit to the Anglo-Zulu war was immortalised in the film “Zulu”. The adjacent museum contains 11 Victoria Crosses—one of the largest collection of Victoria Crosses outside Lord Ashcroft’s hold. The Secretary of State, in his announcement about the better defence estate strategy, said that the museum will be unaffected, as will Dering Lines and Sennybridge, the infantry battle school. The barracks has been an integral part of the garrison town of Brecon.
It was interesting to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) talk about house prices. House prices would plummet in Brecon, because more than 100 civilian jobs are involved in the barracks, and many retirees from the military come back to live in the Brecon area. It is vital in economic terms that the barracks remain.
The infantry battle school trains over a vast swathe of the Breconshire national park, but the defence estate does not own all that land—a lot of it is owned by local farmers. The relationship between those farmers and their families, many of whom have civilian jobs in the barracks, will be tarnished and damaged immeasurably if the barracks closes. I ask the Minister to look again not just at the economic issues but the emotional ties and the relationship between the military and civilians. That is vital, and we cannot put a price on it.
Brecon is home to the 160th Infantry Brigade and Headquarters Wales. I would like the Minister to solve a conundrum that I cannot get to the bottom of. I have spoken to the Army—in fact, I was at Brecon barracks for the 138th commemoration of the battle in the Zulu war. When I speak to the officers and the commanding officer, they tell me that they have had no conversations with politicians at a senior level, but when I speak to politicians at a senior level, they tell me that the Army is pushing for the closure of the estate. Both seem to say that the Defence Infrastructure Organisation is the middle organisation, but I wonder how much it listens to politicians and the Army. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that in his response.
Finally—there is much more I would like to say, but time is against me—Brecon barracks is not Chelsea barracks, as much as I would like to say it is. In economic terms, I am afraid that the sum that would be raised from Brecon barracks is minuscule compared with building a new HQ somewhere else in Wales. I ask the Ministry of Defence and the Minister to think again.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for securing this important debate and for making such a passionate contribution on behalf of her constituency. My remarks will focus purely on the local issues in my constituency, and on the impact on the community of Strensall.
Strensall, a rural village in the north of my constituency, is the site of Queen Elizabeth barracks and Towthorpe Lines, and is home to Headquarters 2 Medical Brigade, 34 Field Hospital and the training sections. Under the plans, the MOD is due to dispose of both sites by 2021. Imphal barracks, which is just outside my consistency on Fulford Road in the south of York, is scheduled for disposal by 2031. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) has already touched on it, so I will not go into too much detail about it. There are 54 civilian support staff employed at Queen Elizabeth barracks and Towthorpe Lines, and 365 at Imphal.
Ministers want to support our armed forces as well as possible by directing resources into new equipment and personnel, rather than using them up on maintaining buildings and land. I appreciate that the current defence estate is vast, ageing and expensive to maintain, but it is only right to express the deep disappointment many local residents feel at the proposed changes.
York garrison has a long, proud history. There has been a barracks at Fulford since 1795, and in recent years Strensall has taken pride in its role as a centre of excellence for military medicine. However, I am encouraged by the fact that the Minister and his Department seem committed to engaging with the affected communities and managing any proposed changes in York as sensitively as possible. I thank him for having a constructive meeting last month about this issue.
The units at the site in York are scheduled for redeployment, and the MOD is still assessing the future of the civilian staff employed at Strensall and Imphal and the option of retaining some MOD facilities in the York area. My personal view is that the MOD has an obligation to offer people new or alternative roles wherever possible. As many have strong links and family ties with the city of York, I and many residents believe that the retention of some kind of military presence in York is essential.
However, the disposal of those sites and their potential development for housing and local infrastructure will have the widest impact on the city of York. The announcement in November has already had a significant impact on York’s local plan. Completion of the plan has been delayed by six months while the council undertakes a full technical consultation regarding the sites so they can form part of a comprehensive and accurate plan that includes the brownfield sites that are potentially available. It is likely that the sites will be developed into residential housing. For a small community such as Strensall, that represents a significant change, so it is vital that it is carefully managed through early and comprehensive engagement with local residents, especially given the established place of the barracks in the local community.
I would like the MOD to set up a local working group to involve local residents in the process. I hope the Minister will take that idea forward, because community engagement is key for the future of the barracks in Strensall.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Rosindell, and I thank the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for securing this important debate. All hon. Members who have spoken have made interesting and valuable contributions.
The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald quoted the words of the Ministry of Defence, that the aim is “improving military capability” and “rationalisation of the estate”. She spoke about the extensive “engagement”, but expressed serious concerns about whether that had taken place. She was right to have those concerns.
The hon. Lady also spoke about a real lack of information and huge uncertainty for serving personnel, their families and the wider communities. Her points and those of the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) about the potential impact on the already poor figures for retention and post-service employment were particularly well made.
It is important, as the hon. Lady said, for the whole process to be viewed through the lens of the armed forces covenant. I am, however, no more convinced than she is that that has been the case, particularly in relation to the impact on families. The points that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) made on spousal employment were especially important.
Interestingly, the debate is titled “A Better Defence Estate Strategy”, although in reality that is simply not true: it is not better, and it stretches credulity to describe what has been announced as a strategy, which would suggest some forethought and a plan. The Government do not have a great history with plans, and this is a case in point. We heard, for example, from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the staggering lack of ongoing investment and maintenance over recent years. The strategy, if we may call it that, is in essence a farce. It aims for the loss of a fifth of the entire Scottish defence estate, which is extremely important and very concerning. Furthermore, the plans will have a real impact on the ability to provide conventional defence.
We heard about the lack of consultation, either with the public or with the Scottish Government, yet the aim is to close so many bases, many of which are of historical and cultural significance to our communities, as has been described so eloquently today, and all of which provide stability and important economic value to serving personnel, their families and their host communities. The lack of proper consultation leaves it somewhat unclear whether any of those factors have properly been taken into account. We anticipated that there would be cuts, but the volume proposed for Scotland is crushing and the justification for it is simply missing in action.
I asked the Minister some written questions about the plans, because I was keen to understand what was proposed and what financial projections could have led to such devastating decisions. The answers I got back left me, sadly, no clearer. I queried what savings would be achieved in running costs in each of the 10 years of the infrastructure reform programme. The Minister, for whom I have great respect, told me what savings it was hoped to achieve across the piece: £140 million over 10 years, rising to nearly £3 billion by 2040, all apparently to be reinvested “back into Defence”. Interesting, but not an answer to my question, which was a valid one, so I tried again.
This time I asked what capital investments were planned and what receipts were planned to be realised in each of the 10 years. I thought that was quite straightforward—clearly, the MOD would not have a plan that it had not based on proper financial metrics, would it? This time the answer was—well, the same as the first answer, although it helpfully clarified that the profile across the 10-year programme was “being refined”. In plain English that means that the MOD does not know—the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) said the same a little more politely.
The MOD has therefore announced this hugely important and hugely destructive programme for the Scottish defence estate without doing the maths. That is outrageously irresponsible. Scottish armed forces personnel, their families and the local communities will feel gravely let down by that back-of-a-cigarette-packet approach to their lives. The hon. Member for City of Chester, for example, spoke powerfully about the impact on personnel and children, which is hugely important. The rest of us might reflect on how comfortable we are with our conventional defence footprint being planned with that kind of so-called strategy.
What exactly are we looking at? What is the scale of the cuts? My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) pointed out that the Black Watch will leave its historical home at Fort George with a loss of more than 700 jobs and £16 million a year to the highlands economy. The Army barracks at Redford and Craigiehall in Edinburgh, and historic Glencorse in Midlothian, which is home to 2 Scots, are to be axed.
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument about the financial cost, but promises to people have been broken as well, including the solemn promise that the Black Watch would have a permanent home at Fort George. How will the Minister respond to that betrayal of the people who have served in the Black Watch?
Kirsten Oswald
My hon. Friend’s point is particularly well made. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Interestingly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) pointed out, although it is only 13 years since a £60 million investment in Glencorse, which was described by the then Secretary of State for Defence as a “super-barracks”, even Glencorse has not been saved from this Government’s financial mismanagement of and disdain for the defence of Scotland. No wonder Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, expresses such concern about the plans, saying that they throw the future into doubt for thousands of staff.
Even if numbers of service personnel remain steady, significant numbers of civilian jobs will be lost, estimated at 700 at Fort George and 200 in Stirling. Unite described the closures as “brutal” and emphasised the impact on our local communities. As the MOD should know, in many instances the bases earmarked for closure are at the heart of their local communities, providing a source of decent and secure employment. Not only is the MOD weakening the defence of Scotland, but it is creating real problems for thousands of people.
All we can say with certainty is that, in the MOD’s own words, there is “reprovision intended for Scotland”. Meanwhile, a massive upheaval and a great deal of uncertainty for service personnel and their families will certainly result. All of that is accompanied by the staggering lack of detail and clarity that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) described so well, which is causing huge concern and uncertainty and throwing huge doubt on the programme and on defence planning and provision for Scotland.
The National Audit Office has identified a black hole of at least £8.5 billion of unfunded costs caused by the steady decline in the condition of the estate. It states that there is significant risk that the poor condition of the estate will affect the Department’s ability to provide the defence capability needed. In addition, the UK Government’s military priorities are all wrong for Scotland: we are a maritime nation with no maritime patrol aircraft and not one conventional ocean-going vessel in our ports. We have grave concerns that as our conventional capability shrinks further and further to pay for nuclear weapons, the United Kingdom’s last line of defence is increasingly becoming its first and only line of defence.
The announced closures are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey put it so well, the latest in a series of betrayals and the breaking of promises made to the Scottish people before the independence referendum when we were told time and again that defence jobs could only be protected in the Union. We were threatened with dire repercussions in the event of a yes vote. The then Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), claimed that in the event of independence “the Scottish people” would not benefit
“from anything like the level of security the UK armed forces currently provide, or the level of prosperity that Scotland’s defence industry currently delivers.”
Just as with the non-existent national shipbuilding strategy, the Trident safety issues that we can hear about on CNN but not in this House and the national equipment plan that the auditors say simply does not add up, we have vital questions about our future defence estate going unanswered. The Government are full of warm words for our forces—perhaps the Minister will also take the opportunity to update us on what he is doing to secure the return of Billy Irving and the Chennai six—but in reality such words are sometimes seen as just that, words. The UK Government seem quite unable to ensure the defence of the realm. The UK Government have failed in their first duty to their citizens and betrayed the people of Scotland yet again. An independent Scotland would have a proper conventional defence force built in our national interests.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
We have had an excellent debate this morning. I congratulate the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on raising the issue and on speaking so eloquently about her own constituency and the Invicta Park barracks in Maidstone. All of us have natural empathy for the Gurkhas, recognise the huge contribution that they have made to the defence of this country and are deeply concerned about their treatment and that of their families.
We have heard from a number of Members about different areas, but I will mention in particular the contribution about Kneller Hall, which I feel strongly about as a musician myself. I recognise the contribution to music generally, not only in the armed forces. As a Welshman, I have a long appreciation of the barracks in Brecon and was tempted to burst into “Men of Harlech” when the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies) talked about “Zulu”. I am very pleased to be going up to Brecon this weekend to hear the band Rorke’s Drift. I am sure it will be a superb performance.
This is an important issue. As we all appreciate, 1.8% of the UK’s land mass is currently taken up by the defence estate, and we are talking about a massive contraction in the size of that estate: 91 sites will close and the estate will be cut by 30% by 2040. I have several concerns, which in part echo what Members have already said, and I will distil them into three areas.
First, I am deeply concerned by the apparent lack of rationale behind the closure programme. It appears that we are embarking on an arbitrary voyage rather than embracing a long-term strategy driven by changing military need. I suspect that the Treasury is lurking in the wings and demanding that this kind of change takes place as quickly as possible. We are talking about a potential reduction in the workforce of 18,000, or 30%. We are talking about relocation. We are talking about individuals having to travel long distances to work—or, I suspect, large numbers being transferred to the private sector. I am mindful of the Public and Commercial Services Union’s concern that the programme may well be a smokescreen for the privatisation of the workforce and a reduction in their terms and conditions.
Secondly, I am concerned about the impact of closures on local communities. That concern has been articulated by several Members, and there is no better example than the one the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald provided about how the Gurkhas are very much integrated in the local community. They feel as though they are part of the community, and the community welcomes and embraces them. It would be a great shame if we simply severed such an important link on the basis of short-term financial expediency. I must question whether this is all about value for money.
The National Audit Office said that past actions that the Ministry of Defence
“took to live within its means are now leading to increased costs overall and creating risks to military capability.”
My concern is that that ill-thought-out approach is being replicated. We can all point to the example of what happened with MOD housing and Annington Homes, which the Public Accounts Committee looked into in some detail. Unfortunately, the MOD sought to make savings by selling service family accommodation to the private sector but failed to achieve a good sale price. The result was a continued deterioration in the MOD estate and accommodation for service personnel. That is a great shame for the armed forces as a whole and the British Army in particular, and we need to learn from those mistakes and ensure that we do not replicate them.
That leads me to my concern about the involvement of the private sector in this process generally. I am especially concerned about the key role of Capita, which leads a consortium. Capita was awarded £90 million between June 2014 and July 2016, half of which went into its profits. That is a cause for concern. The National Audit Office highlighted that, saying that the MOD has
“failed to set contractual safeguards to ensure savings are achieved from operational improvements, which was the primary aim of the contract”
given to Capita,
“rather than one-off cost-cutting.”
The NAO added that Capita
“has not met all milestones or performed adequately against agreed key performance indicators.”
In other words, the taxpayer, the MOD and the armed forces are being short-changed by an ideological move by this Government.
Those are my concerns. My general concern is that there is a genuine fear that land will be sold off below market value. We are told that there is a need to build more houses. We all agree with that, of course, but the Ministry of Defence so far has not demonstrated that it has put its important talk about new houses into practice.
Sir Gerald Howarth
One of the statistics that I omitted in my reference to Project Allenby/Connaught is that the Ministry of Defence is delivering on that talk with 3,850 new properties in Aldershot. Somehow, the Ministry of Defence stumbled on a good idea and appointed Grainger to manage the release of that land, and that is what is happening.
Wayne David
Indeed. That is commendable, but it is the exception rather than the rule. That is not being replicated elsewhere across the estate. It shows what can be done if a clear strategy is in place, but as we have heard, there is no clear strategy. The Government are taking a ham-fisted approach towards the estate on a very short timescale and in a manner that has not been properly thought out. What has happened in the past is a clear indication that we are unlikely to see the 55,000 new homes that the Government have promised.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
I wonder how a strategy that runs to 2031—that is in some 14 years’ time—can be described as having a short timescale.
Wayne David
It is important, first, to have a strategy in place. The strategy is absent. Secondly, once the guidelines for the approach have been worked out, there should be proper consultation. As we have heard, in so many cases, consultation is retrospective. Once consultation has taken place, we should move to a contraction of the estate. I agree in principle with many Members that the estate is too large, but we need a proper, structured approach, not for decisions to be made and justification provided retrospectively.
Let us have a proper strategy, a debate and a consultation, and then let us seriously and sensibly approach the contraction of our estate. I would like to hear the Minister’s response not only to those points but, more importantly, to the concerns that several Members have articulated this morning.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) on securing this debate, and welcome the opportunity to discuss our strategy for a better defence estate.
Some Members, especially the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), seemed to question whether there is a strategy, so I will spend the first half of my time trying to explain exactly how that strategy was put together—it was based very much on military capability. I will then try to address some of the individual points that colleagues have raised. Realistically, I will be unable to do that in the 10 minutes I have—I must allow my hon. Friend time to wind up—so I commit to writing to hon. Members.
Until I became a Defence Minister, I did not appreciate the sheer size of the Ministry of Defence’s landholding. We are the country’s third largest landowner, after the Forestry Commission and the National Trust. Our defence estate represents almost 2% of the United Kingdom land mass—it is equivalent in size to Luxembourg. Whatever comparator we choose, it remains a fact that our estate is vast and vital to our military capability. It is where our people work, live and train, and where advanced equipment is maintained, cutting-edge research is undertaken, major exercises are conducted and major operations are launched.
The estate is vast and vital, but it is also too inefficient. To give hon. Members an idea, our estate costs £2.5 billion a year to maintain, 40% of our assets are more than 50 years old and, because of long-standing budgetary pressures, we simply have not been able to spend enough on maintenance in recent years through successive Governments. Many units are housed in bases and locations that are not fit for purpose and that are neither geographically nor logistically efficient. What is more, while the armed forces are 30% smaller than they were at the end of the last century, the estate has reduced by only 9%.
Sir Gerald Howarth
The whole point is that the armed forces are now at their smallest size. What strategic thinking is the Ministry of Defence doing to consider how it will cope with an increase in all three services to meet future demands? Once we have scrapped an airfield, it will take an awful lot of compulsory purchase to get one back.
Mark Lancaster
As I described at the start of my speech, we own 2% of the United Kingdom. Even if we reduce the estate by 30%—someone can do the maths— we will still own 1.4% of the United Kingdom. After the reduction, we will still have an area twice the size of Greater London. There is still scope, if needed, to expand.
In these straitened times when budgets are tight but the threats to our country are growing, efficiency and productivity are the watchwords of successful defence. Let us not mince our words: an inefficient defence estate undermines the effectiveness of our armed forces and the security of the nation they exist to protect. Those are the hard facts. We need to act, which is why the 2015 strategic defence and security review committed to invest in a better built estate that will reduce in size by 30% by 2040, and that will, most crucially, better support the future needs of our armed forces and enhance our military capability, ensuring that our armed forces are the best they can be.
In November, we set out how we plan to do that, when the Defence Secretary unveiled our strategy for a better defence estate, which is the most significant change to defence land since the second world war. The strategy is based on advice from the service chiefs and all decisions in it have been predicated on military need. It has two strands, the first of which is to rationalise our estate, selling off sites that are surplus to defence needs and bringing people and capabilities into new centres of specialism. Secondly, we will invest, spending £4 billion over the next decade on improving our infrastructure and modernising our accommodation. In short, our vision is to create a world-class estate for our world-class armed forces.
Those are lofty words, but what does that mean in practice? For the Royal Navy, it means continuing to focus on operating bases and training establishments around port areas and naval stations, with surface ships in Portsmouth and Devonport; all the UK’s submarines on the Clyde; a specialist amphibious centre in the south-west, based around Devonport; and helicopters based at Yeovilton and Culdrose. For the Army, it means specialised infantry will be concentrated in Aldershot; mechanised, wheeled capability, including two of our new strike brigades, will be in Catterick; air assault forces in Colchester; armoured and tracked capability around Salisbury plain; medical services in the west midlands; and hubs of light infantry battalions in London, Edinburgh, Lisburn, St Athan, Blackpool and Cottesmore. For the RAF, it means building on its existing centres of specialism, with combat air in Coningsby, Marham and Lossiemouth; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at Waddington; air transport at Brize Norton; force protection at Honington; and support enablers at Wittering and Leeming.
The strategy will also see our joint forces command consolidate as much of its capability as possible in centres of specialisation, with defence intelligence at RAF Wyton, the defence academy at Shrivenham and information systems and services at MOD Corsham all due to absorb units relocating from elsewhere. No less importantly, for our servicemen and women and their families, it will mean a better quality of life, which is a key factor for us when we consider that the welfare of our personnel and their loved ones is the key to efficient and effective armed forces. By locating our servicemen and women together with capability, we will provide better job opportunities for their partners, more stable schooling for their families and increase their ability to buy their own home. For those continuing to live in service accommodation, we will invest in creating more modern and more comfortable homes.
Rachael Maskell
I thank the Minister for giving way on that point, because that is contrary to what the armed forces families are saying. They want to be integrated into the wider community. Personnel are saying that, too, because they want to know that their families are stabilised while they are focused on operations.
Mark Lancaster
The whole purpose of consolidating into larger garrisons, often near large centres of population—York is one but not the only one—is to give that stability so that people are not constantly being moved. For example, the consolidation of three armoured engineer regiments around Salisbury Plain means that, as a soldier progresses in their career and is posted between the three regiments, they can stay in the same home. That is the sort of stability that we want to create, rather than having them posted from one end of the country to the next every three years.
Finally, a better defence estate will deliver better value for money for taxpayers. By releasing sites we no longer need, we can help build the houses that we do need. Our strategy includes plans for the release of sufficient land to build up to 55,000 homes in this Parliament. Yes, some areas will lose their military establishments, but the timely publication of our better defence estate strategy will give the MOD and the affected communities both the time and the opportunity to plan the future uses of those sites.
My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald gave a passionate opening to the debate. I understand her concerns, but the simple fact is that her barracks, Invicta Park barracks, is too small. I know it well as a Royal Engineer. She knows that the Engineer regiment currently on that site has to have one of its squadrons displaced at Rock barracks up in Suffolk. It is difficult for a commanding officer to command a regiment when one of their sub-units is more than 150 miles away, and there is no opportunity to expand the site of their barracks.
Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) mentioned the Gurkha community. As my hon. Friend knows, I joined the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers—the regiment she talked about—as an 18-year-old in 1988 and served for three years in Hong Kong. Subsequently, the regiment moved to Kitchener barracks in Chatham and has now moved to her location. I think only four of us in the Chamber were in Parliament at the time of the great debate about our fight to try to equalise the terms and conditions for Gurkha soldiers in the British Army. That was absolutely the right thing to do, but she and the hon. Lady now seem to suggest that we should treat Gurkhas differently from other British soldiers. I find that worrying, and it could be the wrong thing to do. As someone who is a strong advocate for the Brigade of Gurkhas and probably the only Member of Parliament who has served—twice—in the Brigade of Gurkhas, I urge a degree of caution about how we make progress on that front.
I met the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) recently and talked about Dale barracks. I confirm that Fox barracks—the reserves barracks—will remain in place, and the Mercians will relocate in the north-west, co-locating in the King’s Division.
In many ways, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) articulated the vision for the future. We want to invest in our infrastructure in the years ahead to create the first-class environment. Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber spoke of their concern about the lack of infrastructure, but no one who argued against the estate strategy explained where the money would come from if we do not have the opportunity to dispose of some of the estate. I confirm that all of the money we will release from disposal of the estate will be reinvested in defence.
Mark Lancaster
I will not give way because we have no time and I have to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald one minute to wind up at the end.
My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) and I had a debate almost exactly a year ago in this Chamber. She realises that it will cost £30 million simply to refurbish Kneller Hall. We are currently looking at three other sites for potential relocation—no one has started to leave yet—but it is the sort of constrained site that, as we discussed last year, is simply not an ideal place for future investment.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) underlined the need to invest in our estate. That is exactly what the strategy does—it releases the funds that we can reinvest into the estate. I am running out of time, and I have to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald one minute in which to wind up.
Mrs Grant
I thank all hon. Members present for supporting the debate, and for their valuable contributions. Many of the negative points that have been raised are shared, but I am pleased that we have also heard about some unique vulnerabilities, whether historical or geographical, including the case of the Gurkhas and the Nepalese community in my constituency. I want to clarify for the Minister that I ask not for different treatment, but for fair treatment.
I listened carefully to the Minister’s remarks about capability and rationalising, but I still have concerns that the desire for cash and housing is clouding thinking. I think there will be a negative long-term impact on military communities and the country. I shall finish where I began, by asking the Minister, a man who has valuable personal experience, to look again at the decision to close all 91 of the barracks and bases in question, and to return with a reconsidered Government position.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Education Funding: Southend
(8 years ago)
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Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered future funding provision for education in Southend.
And now for something completely different, Mr Rosindell—education in Southend, and the impact that the new national funding formula would have there if it went ahead without any changes. I have never been in favour of officer-led local authorities. Councillors are elected; they form an administration and should give instructions to officers, who carry them out. I have never been in favour of civil servant-led Governments. The civil service in this country is wonderful, but Governments are elected and Ministers should be strong enough to tell civil servants what their policy is, be aware of political ramifications and make sure their directions are carried out. I am giving my right hon. Friend the Minister the benefit of the doubt. He and I have known one another a long time and I hold him in great regard; he will not take offence when I say that I do not want him just to read out the civil service brief and palm me off with a lot of nice old platitudes at the end of half an hour. Let there be no doubt: if the proposed changes go ahead I shall vote against the measure needed to bring them in—and we have a majority of only 11. I am not going to mess about on the issue.
In the years since I became an MP I have listened to so many rebrandings of schools that I am sick to death of hearing what we are to call them—academies, grant-maintained and all the rest. We keep coming up with new ideas, but in the end it is down to the leadership of headteachers. I just want all children to be given the best possible opportunity, and I want fairness in the system. Leadership is essential, and I am glad to tell the House that the leadership of schools in Southend is magnificent. Before I turn to the general thrust of my argument, I have a point to make gently to the Minister. I was in Parliament when the community charge was proposed and I do not for a moment regret my support for it. If it had been introduced in a certain way it would have been an enormous success, but unfortunately we listened to the civil service proposals at the time, no exemptions were allowed, and we all know what happened. Eventually the policy resulted in the removal from office of the greatest politician I have ever known. I do not want the new funding formula to end up like the community charge.
My right hon. Friend the Minister will have the same briefing that I have, telling him that the national funding formula is aimed at addressing the unfairness of similar schools and areas receiving different levels of funding, with little or no justification. I am told that it will distribute the majority of funding directly to schools, to ensure that every child with the same needs will receive the same funding regardless of where they live—all very worthwhile. Under the formula, funding will be divided and allocated into four notional blocks—schools, high needs, early years and the central school services block, which is due to be phased in from 2018-19.
A hard national funding formula will, I am told, apply from 2019-20 for each mainstream school’s budget. Its purpose is that there should be a national standard for funding, which will remove the haphazard multiple funding formula in every local authority area. In addition, notional budgets will be calculated for the schools block funding in 2018-19, according to the national formula, using national averages as a starting point, and will be aggregated and allocated to local authorities in line with the locally agreed formula. I am trying to save my right hon. Friend some time, so he need not repeat those things in his reply.
I am not here to support the National Union of Teachers. I am glad that it has a new general secretary; I had no time for the last one, who I will never forget hearing shouting through a loudhailer about accident and emergency unit closures, outside party conference—it was terrible leadership. I hope that the new post holder will provide better and more sensible leadership. However, I am not presenting an NUT brief—or a House of Commons Library brief; the latter are normally the fountain of all truth. I am presenting a brief from local residents, making local points. I should point out that Southend has a Conservative-controlled council under the excellent leadership of John Lamb. The education portfolio is with James Courtenay.
I want now to make the case for changes for Southend. The proposed national funding formula for schools would be likely to have a devastating impact on every school in Southend West. Initially, somewhat naively, I welcomed the NFF as a potential major improvement in the current funding situation, but the weightings and the lack of stress testing have produced shocking consequences. Southend is now one of only four local authorities in which every school will lose out under the new arrangements. That amounts to making it the 11th biggest loser of all local authorities, and nationally the 84th worst-affected constituency. Those figures were given to me in a briefing by Councillor James Courtenay.
The impact of the NFF on schools in my constituency was brought to my attention in December 2016 in a letter from Mr Badger, the chairman of the governing body of Southend High School for Boys, which, together with the other three in Southend, is one of the finest grammar schools in the country. He stated that the proposals would, “shockingly”, see funding reduced by a further 2%. For that school and many others in the borough the proposed changes are bewildering. Southend High School for Boys was recently rated outstanding in every category of its last Ofsted inspection, and was ranked 67th in national key stage 4 secondary school performance for 2016. Moreover, it has demonstrated prudence in budgeting and expenditure, and was even cited in the White Paper “Educational excellence everywhere” last March as a model case study of an efficient school.
While the aim of the national funding formula is, so we are told, to address the unfairness of similar schools and localities receiving different levels of funding through the setting of a mainstream school budget nationally, it fails properly to recognise the differing needs of each school’s cash-per-pupil funding. It will hinder rather than help schools in the area that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) represent. He may, if he catches your eye, Mr Rosindell, speak about the schools in his constituency.
Illustrative figures suggest that if the hard formula for 2019-20 were to be introduced now, without any transitional protections, schools in my constituency such as Chase High School—which was prayed in aid as a centre of excellence when it was visited by Baroness Morris years ago—would face a £173 reduction in per-pupil funding. That would be a total cash loss of £163,000. Perhaps I may remind the Minister about Belfairs Academy, a wonderful school, which he opened—so he has seen how good it is at first hand. That school would lose £147 per pupil in funding, with a total cash loss of £168,000. Westcliff High School for Girls, where one of my children went, would lose £133 in cash per pupil funding, with a total cash loss of £109,000.
Moreover, even with the NFF 3% floor, schools in my constituency will not see a tangible funding increase for many years to come. Westcliff High School for Girls is set to lose 5.6% of its budget; with the floor in place, that will be reduced to a loss of 2.9% over two years. That school will not receive a further increase in its funding until the difference between the 5.5% and the 2.9% has been reduced through increases to the school’s allocation in the education budget. In short, if the school receives a 1% addition to its funding, there will be no improvement to its cash funding for about five years, which does not paint a rosy picture of fairness.
Primary schools in the area that I represent will also be hit hard. According to Darren Woollard, who is an excellent headteacher and the chairman of Southend Primary Headteachers’ Association, reductions in funding will seriously undermine vulnerable learners who need help the most. Furthermore, the NFF’s funding cuts to early years provision and the impending 30 years will have a major impact on capacity across the borough. I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will not mind if he has slightly less than 15 minutes to respond; I would like my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East to catch your eye, Mr Rosindell.
In essence, the cuts to funding will affect the quality of education and opportunity for pupils from an early age. The reduction in funding is likely to spark a downward spiral for education in the area that I represent, raising the risk of a recruitment crisis in the teaching profession and leading to the closure of schools due to the financial implications of the funding formula—something the Government would certainly not want. On average, £5,000 per pupil is needed to run a secondary school and £4,000 per pupil is needed for a primary school. Where I was brought up, in the east end of London, we did not spend those huge amounts of money on education. We had 56 pupils in a class, and we all managed to spell, write, read and all of that, but times have changed. I accept that all schools now think that the money that they are given is crucial to the quality of their education provision, not only across the country but in Southend in particular.
The NFF’s implementation in Southend will mean that seven secondary schools and 19 primary schools will no longer be financially viable and will ultimately have to close. Southend High School for Boys, Belfairs Academy, Westcliff High School for Boys and Westcliff High School for Girls, which are all academically wonderful schools, will all be needlessly mutilated by the funding formula. The Westborough School, which is a wonderful school in the area I represent under the marvellous leadership of Jenny Davies—it is a tragedy that she will retire later this year—is in a ward with a literacy rating of 2, which classifies it as being in the top 20% for educational need in the country. If the NFF is put in place in its current form, it is likely that that need will substantially increase. Some 23% of the population are 16-plus and have no qualifications in the area that I represent, which also has a total literacy index score of 103, which is above the rate in England and indicates literacy vulnerability.
In many ways, the NFF’s effect on schools in Southend has the potential to raise unemployment, poverty and deprivation in the longer term—especially when the population is projected to increase to approximately 200,000 by 2027. Distortions in the NFF’s calculations for Southend have been highlighted by headteachers in my constituency. Dr Paul Hayman, the wonderful headteacher of Westcliff High School for Girls, has highlighted the NFF’s lack of transparency in not showing the values for area cost adjustment ratios. He cites the fact that the current basic funding unit for a pupil in years 7 to 11 at Westcliff High School for Girls is £4,225, which will reduce to £3,984. Many inner-London schools are still set to be allocated £7,000 per pupil in London, which is a difference of £2,298 per pupil and opens up the question of how that can be justified. I say, as a Londoner myself, that that is just not fair.
Of course, one may claim that school budgets in Southend have been protected in recent years, and that the NFF will redress that balance. However, schools in the area that I represent have tightened their belts over the past seven years by increasing class sizes, reducing administration costs, reducing spending on books, computers and resources and limiting the number of courses offered to GCSE and A-level students. Why should there be more financial affliction for schools in the area that I represent due to this rigid proposed formula?
I end with some thoughts and a solution for my right hon. Friend the Minister. With the consultation closing, as I understand it, on 22 March, I urge the Government to increase basic per-pupil funding. Grammar schools are currently campaigning for basic per-pupil funding of £4,800, and many headteachers in the area that I represent support that. Furthermore, it would be wise if the Government presented an area cost adjustment that was—to use that awful expression—fit for purpose and represented the demographic needs of Southend. Most importantly, however, the Government should introduce a national minimum level of funding per pupil without enlarging the overall schools budget. We do not need hordes of civil servants to advise the Government on that matter; the hon. Member for Southend West is advising the Government to do that.
Although the Government have emphasised the 3% floor in funding drops, along with transitional arrangements in the interim before the hard formula is introduced in 2019, national minimum funding per pupil would guarantee certainty in safeguarding the financial provision of funding per pupil for all schools in Southend, and it would not harm or lead to the closure of schools that have an excellent academic record. I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will not only have listened politely to what I have said but will actually take notice of the representations that I have made and that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East is about to make.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) on his contribution and on initiating the debate. I particularly welcome the Minister, who is a beacon of stability in a Department in which Secretaries of State can come and go. I was an Education Whip during the Minister’s first incarnation as an Education Minister, and it is good to see him back in his proper place as a beacon of stability within that Department.
I welcome the consultation, but for us, NFF stands more for national funding failure than national funding formula. I gently say to the Minister that, if the consultation does not result in changes, it will not pass through the House. My hon. Friend has said that he will not support it; I—as somebody who loyally supports the Government—will not support it if the funding formula does not change, both in relation to Southend and more generally. I agree with the principle of a national funding formula. I understand that an eighth of Government spending is on education so it cannot be an area that we do not look at and review, but it cannot be right that Southend is, as my hon. Friend said, one of four areas in which every school loses out—the only area to do so outside London. That seems wholly unacceptable.
The budget pressures are great. Some 80% to 90% of budgets go on staffing, while pensions and national insurance contributions are rising faster than the rate of inflation, whether measured by the retail prices index or otherwise. These are very difficult times. Schools do more now than they did in the past; year after year, schools are expected to do more with less. It is not just about cutting the obvious things. The excellent headteacher of Hamstel Infant and Nursery School, Mrs Clark, wrote to me to demonstrate that there would be a massive impact on that school’s ability to do what it was already trying to do, and that it was being asked to do more under the funding formula. That is typical of all the other primary schools. Other schools have already reduced the number of older staff, who are more expensive, and have replaced them as they retire early or at the right time with cheaper, younger employees.
If the NFF goes ahead, it will lead to redundancies. Learning support assistants will be made redundant and non-core subject teachers will be made redundant in virtually every school, including Southend High School for Girls, Cecil Jones Academy, Shoeburyness High School, St Bernard’s High School and Futures Community College, in addition to all the primary infants schools. I know that the funding formula does not apply to special needs schools, but there are parallel issues there as well. In addition, we have grammar schools that are underfunded and would benefit from a higher level of basic funding. At the moment, the position is untenable.
I welcome the capital expenditure that the Government are facilitating. I also welcome the work on opening out grammar schools. Roughly 100 grammar school pupils come from the Thurrock unitary area, which is represented ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who cannot speak for herself in the Chamber given that she is a Government Whip. Putting more grammar schools in Thurrock would help Southend, in that more local people—people in not only the Southend postcode but Great Wakering and the broader Essex and Thurrock area—would come in.
The Government must do something. They could do something on the area cost adjustment and on the London allowance. Lots of people will not come into Southend from an area in the outskirts of London where they could be paid more. The Government could do more on funding grammar schools, on transitional arrangements and on arrangements for bulge groups going through, which they are in secondary schools. Without doing that work and without Members of Parliament being on board, the proposals simply will not and should not get through the House of Commons.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) on securing this important debate. I am grateful for this timely opportunity to discuss the details of the proposals for introducing a new national funding formula. I have known my hon. Friend for as many years as he has known me, and I assure him that I do not intend to palm him off with fluffy platitudes.
We are now more than halfway through the consultation process on these proposals, and we have heard views from across the school sector and from all parts of the country. Throughout the consultation period, we are considering all representations from local authorities, teachers, governors, parents and hon. Members in this House. We are listening carefully so that we can ensure that the final national funding formula is the right one.
Many Governments have avoided introducing a national funding formula. We have grasped the nettle. It could be argued that in a time of fiscal restraint, we should have avoided introducing a national funding formula, but we think it is right to introduce such a formula and are proceeding with the consultation with the intention of introducing that formula. It is an open and transparent consultation, which is why it includes illustrative allocations for every school and local authority in England, calculated on the basis of figures for 2016-17, to help schools and others to understand the impact of the proposals. Those allocations are only illustrative.
The new formula will apply, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West said, in 2018-19 on the basis of a soft formula, which means that the local school forum can alter the allocations within the funding envelope for Southend. We have already announced that for 2017-18, no local authority will see any fall in its funding levels.
We believe that what we are proposing achieves the best balance between the different elements of the formula—between the core funding for every pupil and the extra funding for those with additional needs, and between the funding that relates to pupils’ characteristics and the funding that supports schools to meet their fixed costs. Those are complex trade-offs, which is why we are consulting for a full three months on the proposals.
The single biggest element of the national funding formula will be a basic amount that every pupil attracts to the school. That will account for around three quarters of the total schools block—about £23 billion of the total £40 billion. We are clear that significant funding should be directed through the formula to children from disadvantaged backgrounds who face entrenched barriers to their education. Schools that are educating those children should receive extra resources, so that they can support those children to do as well as their peers. We propose to spend more through the formula than is currently spent on pupils who start school with low prior attainment compared to their peers, so that they can get the extra support they need to catch up.
Overall, we want to maximise the amount of funding spent on factors that relate directly to pupils’ so-called characteristics. Our proposed lump sum of £110,000 per school, regardless of its size, is just below the current national average if we aggregate the 150 local formulae in the country. It is significantly below the sum that Southend uses locally, but we still believe that the lump sum is an important element of the formula. Our proposals recognise that all schools need a fixed element of funding that does not vary with pupil numbers and characteristics, to provide a level of certainty. One reason—it is not the only one—why Southend schools face these percentage reductions is the difference in the lump sum figure.
The decisions we have made in balancing the formula will certainly have different effects across the country, depending on how they differ from decisions that local authorities have taken on their local formula. The anomaly is in the local formulae, rather than in what we are proposing in the national formula. In the case of Southend, the current local formula uses a higher basic per-pupil amount than the figure we propose in the national funding formula. Southend also concentrates funding for deprivation more narrowly. In the national funding formula, we want to spread deprivation funding more broadly and further up the income spectrum, so that we can target additional funding to pupils who are not necessarily eligible for free school meals but whose background may still create a barrier to their education.
We know that some areas and schools will disagree with the balance we have struck in the proposals. That will be the case particularly in areas where the proposed national funding formula will mean a lower level of funding than the current baseline for 2016-17, such as in Southend. We are keen to hear views on whether we have got that balance right and welcome any additional evidence through the consultation. We will look to change our proposals where the evidence shows clearly that the balance needs to shift.
I took on board the advice from my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, which will trump any advice we receive from experts across the country. He argued for a de minimis funding level of £4,800 per secondary school pupil, and his advice will be considered as part of the consultation process.
While there will be different views about the precise balance of the factors, there is certainly a consensus, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) confirmed, that we need a national funding formula and a fair funding system that gets resources to where they are needed most. No matter where children live and whatever their background, prior attainment or ability, they should have access to an excellent education. We want all children to be able to reach their full potential and to succeed in adult life. That ambition can be achieved only if we have a fair approach to funding, whereby funding relates directly to children’s needs and the schools they attend.
Under our proposals, the funding system will be clear, simple and transparent for the first time. Similar schools will be treated in the same way right across the country. We will no longer see the wide range in funding levels that we see now, and it will no longer be the case that the amount a child attracts to their school depends on where they live or their school’s location. Our proposals will end the postcode lottery in school funding and extend opportunity across the country.
I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West a minute to conclude at the end if he wishes; if not, I will plough on. I am hugely grateful to have had this opportunity to look closely at how we can ensure fairer funding for our schools. It has been very useful to hear from my hon. Friends for Southend West and for Rochford and Southend East and to take time to consider the important issues that they both raised.
Sir David Amess
The thing that slightly disturbs me in what my hon. Friend the Minister slipped in is that it seems as if he is blaming the local authority for the disparity in the figures.
Mr Gibb
I am making the point that we are aggregating 150 separate local formulae into one national funding formula, which will inevitably mean there will be changes. That is particularly inevitable, mathematically, if we then illustrate the new formula on the basis of existing figures. However, I understand my hon. Friend’s points. As I said, these are illustrative figures and will have no impact on 2017-18. The overall level of school funding, at £40 billion, is the maximum amount we have ever spent on schools. It will rise in the years ahead. Schools will receive more money if their pupil numbers go up and if their pupil characteristics change. We expect school funding to be at about £42 billion by 2019-20. That does not mean to say that the formula will not have the impact we are illustrating; they are illustrative figures only.
Question put and agreed to.
Superfast Broadband: Rural Communities
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Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the rollout of superfast broadband to rural communities.
It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. Anyone wondering why broadband should be of concern to me and my constituents could do no better than to look at the briefing paper prepared by the House of Commons Library for today’s debate. If anyone is looking for Orkney and Shetland in just about any of the various league tables in that paper, do not bother looking for us at the top of most of them, because we are generally at or around the bottom. We are the sixth lowest UK constituency for superfast broadband availability, and in the table for average speeds, the situation is even worse—we are fourth lowest. The only table where we feature near the top—fourth from the top—is unfortunately the one showing the percentage of households in constituencies that are unable to get connection speeds of 10 megabits per second or more.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. When we look at the maps, it is quite obvious who is in or near the relegation zone, and his constituency is indeed there or thereabouts, but does he agree that, within the confines of those maps and that assessment, there are smaller areas within larger constituencies that are also very badly affected in terms of not having superfast broadband access?
Mr Carmichael
Indeed. Breaking the picture down to ward level gives a much better idea of what is happening on the ground, but even when one looks at the statistics that are provided, one does not have the full story. I know from engaging regularly with BT in my constituency that it will say that x number of people within an area now have broadband access—it is doing that within postcode areas, essentially—but one will find that, even within the specified area, the people who can actually get superfast broadband will not be the same as those included in the headline figure.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Only last week I received a response from BT in relation to the superfast extension programme. It informs me that
“even when improvement work is complete, there is no guarantee that everyone will access faster broadband”
speeds in rural areas. Has the right hon. Gentleman any comment to make about that?
Mr Carmichael
I could make many comments about that sort of thing, but I fear that you would rule me out of order, Mr Brady. It does, however, illustrate the frustration that many people in rural communities feel, and it is becoming more acute. The evidence is growing that the disparity between the densely populated urban areas and rural areas is becoming ever wider.
Mr Carmichael
If I can just make a second or two of progress, I will take as many interventions as I can later.
The problem is acute for people in rural areas and it is particularly serious for people in island areas—it strikes at the heart of everything that we seek to do in maintaining island populations. A critical mass of population is essential to maintaining the economy and the social viability of any island community. In a rural area that is close to an urban area, if someone loses their job or their business goes into administration or receivership, they can move or they can drive for another half-hour or hour to get another job. However, if someone in an island community loses their job and another one is not available locally, they leave the island, which means that another salary is taken out of the local economy, another school has a smaller roll and fewer people are using the local post offices—the list goes on. That is why connectivity is essential for us.
Mr Carmichael
I suspect that I am going to get willing agreement first from the hon. Gentleman and then the hon. Lady.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman is correct—it is willing agreement—but it does not have to be like this. To his west and my north-west, everyone in the Faroe Islands is connected with at least 2 megabits. In fact, that was the situation three or four years ago and speeds are probably faster now. Everyone has 4G phone and there are undersea tunnels with a 4G signal. We cannot go between Gatwick airport and London and get a phone signal going through the tunnels. His point about population is absolutely right. The Faroese population will hit 50,000 for the first time in history this month or next.
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman and I both know the Faroe Islands quite well and we both know that they have been able to achieve the things that our island communities have struggled to achieve because they start from the presumption of a service that is provided for the people on the islands first. It is not something that is driven from, as it is for his community and mine, people in Edinburgh or even Inverness, which is frankly not an awful lot better. It is community and island-centric provision. That is what matters.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem exists not just at the end of the country where his constituency is, but in Cornwall? I cannot attribute this to my right hon. Friend the Minister. Superfast Cornwall, which is a partnership between the EU, the Liberal Democrat-led Cornwall Council and BT, is failing to roll out broadband in a satisfactory way for a lot of my constituents. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a problem there as well?
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Lady has the advantage of me. I was mildly and pleasantly surprised to hear that we still have a controlling interest in Cornwall. I am sure that my colleagues there are doing their best in very difficult circumstances. I am sure equally, from the tone of her intervention, that the hon. Lady will be doing everything she can, in a non-partisan way, to work with them.
Let me make progress for a minute or two. Ofcom’s “Connected Nations” report in December 2016 gave us a good snapshot of the overall picture. Average download speeds across the UK as a whole are now running at 37 megabits per second. However, 5% of premises, which is about 1.4 million, are unable to receive speeds faster than 10 megabits per second. Superfast broadband—that means speeds greater than 30 megabits per second—is now available in 89% of premises, which is more than 25 million, across the whole of the United Kingdom. However, those high-level, headline statistics actually illustrate the acuteness of the divide—the growing divide—between urban and rural communities. In Scotland, 43.9% of people living in large urban areas, as opposed to 7.9% in remote urban areas, are able to receive speeds classed as superfast. Those unable to reach the 10-megabits-per-second threshold constitute 1.6% in large urban areas, as opposed to 54.3% in very rural areas. That is a good illustration of the gap between the digital haves and have-nots—the rural and the urban.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
First, I must make it clear that I fully support the roll-out of rural broadband. It is crucial for the highlands, the islands and, indeed, the borders of Scotland—if I did not say that, my mother-in-law in the highlands would kill me. The right hon. Gentleman might not be aware that many households and businesses in urban areas, and particularly in areas of commercial deployment, are also being missed and left with very slow speeds.
Mr Carmichael
The position will never be uniform across any community but—I think that this distinction is material—there is a range of opportunities available in urban areas that are simply not available to those of us in more rural areas. It is invidious to play one side off against the other—in making the comparison between urban and rural, I am merely highlighting the difference and not trying to set one community against another.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my view that it must be just a coincidence that, in many of the areas selected for commercial roll-out, which the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) talks about, BT seems not to have connected with fibre some of the small business parks and light industrial estates? I am sure he will agree that there is no way that that can be because BT is trying to make some money out of leased fibre lines to those premises.
Mr Carmichael
I do not want to turn this into a whinge-fest about British Telecom, because that is just too easy. Our role in this debate is to look at a more strategic picture. The fact is that where there is provision, business and economic development follow. That is why it needs strategic, political and regulatory intervention. It is in all our interests that we maintain the widest possible spread of economic development. If the political will and regulatory effort is put into getting the roll-out, we will find that the economic opportunities follow.
The final illustration I have on the difference between rural and urban broadband is that I asked my staff to run broadband speed tests on their own machines. I asked my caseworker in Shetland to run the broadband speed checker first of all. On broadband.co.uk, she recorded a 0.3 megabits download speed. My researcher based in the House of Commons, who has an address in Surrey, did the same test and came up with 184.12 megabits per second. If that is not a digital divide, I really do not know what is.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Is it not right to note—as the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) did—that there can be premises in an urban area sitting cheek by jowl with others where there are enormous disparities? Does the right hon. Gentleman also recognise, and share my intense frustration, that millions of pounds of public money is sitting in bank accounts ready to hook up homes and premises, but all too often excessive caution, or the terror of being found in breach of state aid rules, prevents that money from being spent?
Mr Carmichael
I confess that of the many difficulties I have encountered in the years I have been dealing with this issue as a Member of Parliament, that is one I have not come across. However, what the hon. Gentleman describes would frustrate us all. The difficulty is that this problem is now beginning to undermine Government policy across the board. The Government as a whole have an interest in the Minister’s Department taking a lead in driving it out.
We are forever encouraging our farmers to diversify, saying that they should be setting up holiday accommodation and finding different ways to bring people into the countryside and add value to their product. Bluntly, however, that requires good connectivity—without that it will not happen.
I recently had contact with a postmistress in Shetland who tells me that her business as a postmistress is now being adversely affected by the intermittent service and extremely slow broadband speeds that she has to deal with. She says customers at the post office are being seriously affected by long waits because of the internet cutting out. As well as the difficulties that slow broadband speed causes her personally, it is considerably affecting her ability to provide a reliable post office service to that community in Shetland. There is a broad measure of political consensus in the House on the provision of post office services, but again, in the areas where it is most challenging it is being undermined by poor connectivity.
I will offer another couple of examples of how this problem affects my constituents. I recently had contact with one constituent in North Roe, right at the north of Shetland, who told me that in one week he had missed out on approximately £800 of potential grant funding for marine equipment as he was unable to open emails and download attachments. He says that he cannot submit fisheries or crofting forms online and that after 5.30 pm he need not even bother trying the internet, such is the quality of service he gets. The best example I got was also from a resident of North Roe, who told me that he tried to load the BT speed tester on his machine but did not have sufficient connectivity to load the page for the test.
The most interesting example came just this week in a piece of correspondence from a constituent in Westray. For the benefit of younger or newer Members in the House, that was a letter, which is what we used to get from constituents. He tells me:
“Access to broadband is not a luxury these days. We do banking and shopping and book flights to the Scottish mainland on the internet, and we communicate by email. Information that used to be on paper is on webpages now. I wrote to Ofcom about BT’s service and their reply referred me to web pages where I could learn about how to escalate my complaint and seek compensation”.
To load those pages, however, he would be required to go to the library in Kirkwall, which is a nine-hour round trip from his home in Pierowall in Westray.
The difficulty is that broadband roll-out, whether south of the border in England and Wales, or in Scotland through the Scottish Government—in partnership with Highlands and Islands Enterprise and BT in my area—is driven by targets. Indeed, the targets themselves may often be misleading. The next generation of roll-out, however, is not just going to be confined to broadband. For us the opportunities come from the availability of 4G and 5G—whenever that becomes a feature of our daily lives.
The Minister should perhaps be talking to his colleagues in the Home Office about the roll-out of the emergency services network. The contract has been given to EE, and that is going to give it an obvious advantage in having control of infrastructure across the whole country. The opportunity is there for much improved 4G coverage through EE. I give EE credit for the way in which it has engaged with communities, certainly in my constituency, but I hear increasing complaint about its willingness to engage with other mobile companies. It tells me that it does not know what features are going to be found in the design of this roll-out, and that it does not know what the mast heights and positions are going to be. This generational opportunity to improve the service is an opportunity for Government Departments to work together instead of in their own individual silos, to ensure that when that provision is ultimately rolled out it brings the maximum benefit to communities across the whole of the United Kingdom and companies across the whole of industry.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is making a constructive point about the roll-out of mobile telecommunications. Are not the industrial strategy and the Digital Economy Bill an opportunity for the Government to look at this 5% of areas, which will predominantly be rural, that are not included in the target of 95% by 2017? A pilot scheme in the Shetland and Orkney Islands and Ynys Môn would be a great example for that going forward.
Mr Carmichael
Indeed; I can think of few areas that would be more suitable. I say that not entirely with my tongue in my cheek, because I suspect that anything that can be made to work in the constituencies and communities that the hon. Gentleman and I represent could be made to work anywhere else.
The understanding I want the Minister to take from today’s debate is that the days of centrally driven, top-down roll-outs are over. They have achieved a significant amount in getting targets met and getting out to the low-hanging fruit, as it were. However, for that remaining 5% of areas there will have to be a different approach altogether.
James Heappey
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again—he is being very generous with his time. I absolutely agree with him on that point. Devon and Somerset are the last areas to get their phase 2 contract awarded, but once that phase 2 contract is awarded and the premises within the 91st to 95th percentiles are known, why would we wait to deliver the universal service obligation sequentially? If we know what the final 5% is, let us get on with delivering the USO concurrently and employing whatever technology suits rather than a central solution from above.
Mr Carmichael
I think that will be the answer to filling the last 5%, but there will not be a single solution. I am frustrated by the way in which the fibre roll-out is now holding some things up. We know that the last 5%—or whatever it will be—in Scotland will be delivered by Community Broadband Scotland, which can only come in when we know what is left. However, those responsible for the fibre roll-out wanting to sweat the asset, effectively, is leaving communities waiting at the end of the queue.
Mr MacNeil
Does the right hon. Gentleman find the ad hoc nature of much of this strange? I happened to come across some people from EE once who said, “If only we could get the Northern Lighthouse Board sites, that would help,” so I wrote to the Northern Lighthouse Board, which said, “Yes, no problem at all.” However, nobody is co-ordinating things centrally. It is similar with Vodafone and EE at the moment—opportunities are constantly being missed. Sometimes a bit of central thinking is needed, and I do not think that has been happening at all; it is far too ad hoc.
Mr Carmichael
That is a good illustration, though I will not, on the one hand, make a plea for decentralised thinking and then on the other berate Ministers for not taking control of everything. There is a strategic role for Ministers at the centre, but those who are charged with broadband delivery in the hon. Gentleman’s area and mine—Highlands and Islands Enterprise, for example—need to be much more focused on community engagement and taking communities along with them than they have been hitherto. That will be absolutely essential when it comes to finishing the last 5%, or whatever the margin will be.
For some years now I have organised a series of digital forums in Shetland and Orkney. The last one we took out to Skeld in west Shetland—one of the most poorly served mainland Shetland communities for broadband coverage and mobile phone connectivity. During the forum I got an explanation of the inadequacies of the roll-out that, frankly, I do not ever expect to be able to improve on. A constituent who had worked for 30 years in the NHS said she suspected that if the NHS had left all the difficult cases till last in those 30 years, most of the difficult cases would have died. Right hon. and hon. Members can probably join the dots on the analogy being drawn. It is one that the Minister would do well to listen to.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)
Order. Seven Members have risen to speak and we have less than 40 minutes before the wind-ups are due to begin, so I propose a time limit of six minutes on contributions.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, Mr Brady. As a former parliamentary private secretary to the Minister’s predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), I have an active interest in this issue, both from a policy and constituency perspective. Active, fast, reliable, affordable broadband is vital for families, communities, businesses and public services across my rural constituency. In South East Cornwall and across the UK, superfast broadband is now as essential a utility as water and energy. Indeed, I consider it to be the fourth utility.
Our economy, whether urban or rural, is now increasingly dependent on high-quality broadband. I welcome the Government’s commitment to introducing a broadband universal service and the good progress that has been made locally under the superfast project, but it is not good enough. We must strive for 100% connectivity, particularly in isolated rural areas where good internet access is the lifeblood of successful local economies and thriving communities.
I, like many other hon. Members, continue to receive numerous complaints from constituents about poor broadband availability. Unfortunately, many of my constituents do not understand that Superfast Cornwall and, as I alluded to earlier, a partnership between the Lib Dem-led Cornwall Council, the EU and BT are responsible for delivering broadband in my constituency. I will highlight several cases in South East Cornwall that demonstrate the urgent need to provide universal access to superfast broadband.
Albert Owen
On a point of clarification, what is the EU’s role? When it works with the Welsh Government all it does is provide funds.
Mrs Murray
There was a partnership between the European Union, Cornwall Council and BT. Cornwall was one of the first areas in the country to roll out broadband before the Government undertook their programme, and it was leading on this at one time. Unfortunately, however, the service now being provided to little villages is absolutely dire; they cannot even get a broadband speed of 2 megabits per second.
Cornwall and tourism go together like jam, scones and clotted cream. However, superfast broadband and good internet access is a vital ingredient for running a successful holiday business and retaining and attracting clients. I know at least one small holiday letting business that cannot secure bookings or market effectively due to poor connectivity. That is unacceptable.
Another example of the negative impact of failing communications infrastructure was highlighted to me last week by a local business that is based in Liskeard, although the owners live near the village of Duloe. They are in a notorious broadband notspot and their company operates 24/7 using robotic technology. If the owners had a decent broadband connection, they would be able to look remotely to make sure that the machines are running. Instead, they have to undertake a round trip of an hour and a half to check the machines over the weekend, which is a waste of money and time. The impact on productivity and on the company’s balance sheet should not be underestimated.
Finally, the affordability of high-quality broadband must be addressed. Although I acknowledge that the UK has one of the most competitive communications markets in the world, the cost of business broadband remains too high. An established scrap metal business in my constituency suffers from poor connectivity, meaning that the legally required reporting of vehicles to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency online is virtually impossible. The firm was offered an expensive corporate ethernet solution by BT and Superfast Cornwall. Surely more affordable consumer-style alternatives should be available for small businesses, which work on very tight financial margins. I ask the Minister to consider that carefully and please, please look at how we can ensure that Superfast Cornwall is improving the situation in South East Cornwall and addressing the real notspots.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, and to follow the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on how he set out the concerns that many rural communities have across the United Kingdom. There are notspots in urban areas but, as somebody who lives in an urban area during my working week but who goes home to a periphery area, I notice the difference. I can use 4G very comfortably in my London flat but it is difficult to get it in rural areas.
Alex Chalk
It comes down to where people are. If they are in a bad area, whether in an urban or rural part of the country, the fact is that they do not have broadband. That is really what matters, not whether they are in a rural or an urban area. It affects people just the same.
Albert Owen
I am grateful for that intervention, but I was on the hon. Gentleman’s side when I said that there are notspots in urban areas. However, people there have alternatives. In rural and periphery areas, people rely totally on the roll-out scheme, which has reached 75% in my area. Like the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, I hold regular broadband hubs with communities across my island constituency. We are looking for solutions. We know the problems and issues. On the last occasion, I got the CEO of BT Openreach there to come with his team. He went with the engineers to check the difficult terrains and gave a commitment that there would be 95% coverage by the end of the year.
I have asked the Minister these questions a number of times. Given the Digital Economy Bill and the talk of a universal service obligation by 2020, who will deliver that extra 5%? We in the House of Commons need to join to work together for the 5% club—those not covered by the 95% roll-out, whether in Scotland, Cornwall and other parts of England, Northern Ireland or Wales.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
The hon. Gentleman might like to know that the roll-out in my constituency is just over 80% at the moment.
Albert Owen
The hon. Lady is contradicting herself. She was saying how poor it was earlier. She is almost leading the way with the Liberal council and the European Union. The Welsh Government work in partnership with the European Union, which specifies certain criteria, including the number of households, which work against some rural communities. However, the Welsh Government have their own policies for those rural communities.
My point is that we need to work together and take a strategic approach. I support the Digital Economy Bill, and I believe that this is a golden opportunity for the Government to work towards helping the last 5% to get broadband at a decent level that can then be improved in future.
James Heappey
The point that the hon. Gentleman is making is exactly right. We are talking about the roll-out of superfast broadband, but before the Government race off and start delivering ultrafast, let us make it a priority to ensure that a minimum service of at least 10 megabits per second is available everywhere. We can start doing that now, rather than waiting until the end of the second phase of the Broadband Delivery UK roll-out.
Albert Owen
That is absolutely right. The hon. Gentleman has now reinforced that point, and I agree totally. This is the second debate on the trot in which we have agreed. I want the Minister to know that there is no partisanship. I give the Welsh Government the same concerns that I give the UK Government, because we need to work together. I am not knocking BT Openreach either, because I have been out with their staff and seen some of the engineering difficulties they have to deal with.
The people suffering in the 5% are often not on the gas mains and pay more for their fuel. They pay exactly the same price for their broadband and mobile communications as people in inner cities, and they deserve Governments’—plural—time and effort on their behalf. That is the plea I make to the Minister, who is checking my constituency ratings as we speak. If they are high, I will take credit; if they are low, I will blame others. The 5% need to be considered as a priority. The Government and the Prime Minister have talked about an industrial strategy. Broadband should be part of it. We should be talking about giving businesses across the United Kingdom 21st-century communications to allow them to compete on a level playing field with those in other parts of the country.
I did not intend to speak because I thought that this debate would be over-subscribed. I have pushed my luck in coming here and speaking, but I speak for different parts of the United Kingdom, which are coming together to join me in the 5% club so that we can deliver 100% broadband coverage and better mobile telecommunications across the United Kingdom.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing the debate.
The Minister will well know the problems in my constituency. He will know that if he drives across my constituency, he will struggle to get a 3G signal, let alone 4G. Most of my constituency is covered by 2G signal, despite the fact that its inhabitants are relatively affluent and that many run their own small businesses. We are, or would be, a thriving rural community, but sadly we are poorly served by our broadband connection. In Eddisbury, not 5% but a far greater percentage are missing out. I will highlight an example. One of my constituents is trying to set up a new business in a rural area: a pub, which will also be an invaluable community hub. I have a lot of thriving public houses in my area. I will not list them, but I encourage hon. Members to come visit.
My constituent wants to encourage and support other small businesses nearby, but he has no sufficient broadband connection. He is considering getting an uncontended leased line to guarantee that he can reach speeds of at least 20 megabits per second. He has been quoted £9,120 per annum for the line and an initial £13,000 in start-up costs. That is not untypical in my constituency. It highlights the problems that rural businesses face.
Another business has a multimillion turnover, but it had to move out of its small business park—my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) mentioned the small rural business parks not connected by BT—and over the border into Wales to the Wrexham industrial estate in order to access the broadband speeds that it needs. That is not acceptable for the rural communities in my area, which struggle to grow their businesses. It is perhaps typical of what is happening in Eddisbury.
The map helpfully provided by the House of Commons Library indicates that vast tracts of my constituency receive less than 28 megabits per second. Although the Minister’s figures indicate that superfast roll-out is at 78%, I argue that, in reality, signal is simply not being delivered to people at the end of a copper line 2.5 miles from the exchange. That is the problem. BT says to those people, “You can have a community fibre partnership and link up your home.” That is fine for those who have a spare thousand pounds or two to top up, but sometimes it costs £5,000 or more to connect a single premises.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
My hon. Friend has hit on an important point that affects many of my constituents. Although we are getting fibre to the cabinet, there are lots of areas, especially in rural communities, that are well over 2 km from the cabinet on copper, which means that they lose the superfast broadband speed. Although they are technically connected to a cabinet with fibre, they are not getting superfast broadband.
Antoinette Sandbach
That is certainly the experience of my constituents. They find it deeply frustrating and are at a loss for what they can do. It is important that those communities and premises are addressed before we start megafast roll-out elsewhere in the country.
I welcome the fact that there will be a universal service obligation of 10 megabits per second. I ask the Minister not to let the telecoms companies wriggle out of that obligation. Often, in order to deliver that speed in rural communities, they may well need to lay more fibre. The universal service obligation seems absolutely critical to the last 5% or, in the case of my constituency, to the last 22% or more.
I urge the Minister to look at how he can strengthen and support the universal service obligation, and I encourage constituents to download the Actual Experience software, which sends data about the appalling connections directly to Ofcom. The more information we get in real time, the more the lack of service delivered from the roll-out will be clear to the Minister. I therefore encourage him to take action to strengthen the USO and to put what pressure he can on connecting Cheshire and rolling out to the remaining premises in Eddisbury.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I am delighted to speak in this important debate and I extend my thanks to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing it. This issue causes me and too many of my constituents too much frustration. Whole swathes of my constituency are excluded from the so-called digital revolution. Superfast broadband remains a pipedream. It is something we hear about and may even dream of, but we have yet to partake of its delights.
The situation has been improving across Scotland, not least due to the concerted and determined efforts of the Scottish Government. Statistics that say that 83%—modest as that is—of Scotland has superfast broadband mean nothing to those who do not have that luxury. It is certainly viewed as a luxury by those living in more remote areas. Indeed, if someone lives in a remote area, such statistics make their own lack of access to superfast broadband all the worse, as though they and their community’s challenges are being mocked by the progress elsewhere.
It is true that 83% of Scotland does now have access to superfast broadband, but Scotland is being left behind, as the figure for the UK is 89%. This gap is narrowing, but make no mistake: there is an unmistakable and identifiable gap. In my own constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran, the Scottish Government’s commitment to 100% superfast broadband coverage by 2021 is welcomed, and rural Scotland is impatient for it.
There was a great missed opportunity when the UK Government rejected Scottish National party amendments to the Digital Economy Bill that would have required the Secretary of State to introduce a broadband voucher scheme to allow an end user to access broadband, other than that supplied by the provider of the universal service order under part 2 of the Communications Act 2003. A consultation by the UK Government has been announced, which I welcome wholeheartedly, but our proposals would provide a replacement for the previous UK Government broadband connection voucher scheme, which ran from 2013 to 2015 and encouraged small and medium-sized businesses to take up superfast broadband, helping more than 40,000 such enterprises.
Our businesses in rural areas rely on good, reliable broadband connections, and there is still much to be done. We have made progress, but, as many of my constituents would testify, we are not there yet. Digital connectivity is an integral part of economic development. For a modern, thriving, successful economic future, we need first-class digital infrastructure. Superfast broadband is about growing our economy and economic opportunities. It is about connecting people, about social inclusion, about empowering our young people and the next generation. First-class digital infrastructure is required to keep all parts of our economy competitive and thriving in a global market. That must include our rural areas.
I am tempted at this juncture to speak about mobile signals, but time forbids me. Suffice it to say that on the island of Arran there are huge notspots, which is simply not good enough.
I want to turn for a moment to what I believe is the UK Government’s lack of foresight in this matter. Rural mobile connectivity is suffering and struggling because successive UK Westminster Governments have seen the licensing of mobile spectrum as a cash cow rather than as critical infrastructure and something that is absolutely essential for our communities and our whole country. It seems that the only criteria that were considered when the 3G and 4G spectrum was auctioned were raising large sums of money.
Patricia Gibson
I will finish my point and then take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
It seems that little consideration was given to how great the coverage could and should be. How is it that the German Government required 98% coverage, but the UK settled for 95%? Greater funds were traded for lesser coverage, and that has had the effect that whole swathes of the country and my constituency are missing out. It is simply not good enough.
Patricia Gibson
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain, if he gets an opportunity to speak later, why the German Government succeeded, whereas the UK Government appeared to fail.
Scots have access to a 4G signal only 50.4% of the time, suffering some of the lowest access to mobile data in general, and as of December 2015 nearly half of Scotland’s land mass had no data coverage whatever, compared with only 13% of the UK as a whole. That is simply not on, and I am keen to hear what the Minister thinks of those statistics. I want to hear what reassurances the Minister can give to my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran, who are so poorly served in this so-called digital revolution. What reassurances can he give to all the people across Scotland who are so poorly served that it affects their ability to connect with people, their ability to study and their ability to run their businesses as effectively and completely as they would like?
Scotland lives and competes in a global environment, and all parts of Scotland need to be part of the digital revolution to compete properly. I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say today to my constituents to show that he understands that.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Brady. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for setting the scene so well. I have a great deal of interest in this issue. As the figures and the stats will show, in my constituency of Strangford we lag behind on accessibility. To someone of my generation, a megabyte would have meant a really large bite of some kind of food. That was certainly the perception. I never dreamed of the day when it would be a part of everyday speech. More than that, I never dreamed that it could play a real part in the ability of a business to compete and thrive. This is the case, however. We live in an age when online provision is almost considered a human right and our businesses do not have a chance without it. For that reason, in December last year I tabled a written question:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the level of investment required to bring broadband access in rural communities in (a) the UK and (b) Northern Ireland up to the average level in all communities.”
The answer was simple and also stark:
“95% of UK premises are expected to be covered by superfast broadband by December 2017. The 95% figure is a UK average and individual areas, including rural parts of Northern Ireland and other areas of the UK, will have different coverage levels.”
We are one of those.
“All premises which do not have a speed of at least 10Mbps will be able to request an upgrade to at least this speed under the Universal Service Obligation.”
The Minister told us that.
“Furthermore providers and local bodies will also be able to access funding for full fibre connectivity as announced at the Autumn Statement 2016, once those proposals have been finalised in early 2017.”
That gave me lots of information, but unfortunately it did not give me the information that I needed. That is what has been done to provide support to rural communities. What co-operation is taking place with the devolved Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly to see better connection for all of Northern Ireland, but most especially the rural communities?
Ms Ritchie
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford, my constituency neighbour, for his contribution and for giving way. Does he agree that the previous voucher scheme brought much benefit to our constituents, particularly those who live in higher altitudes, and particularly businesses? Does he think that the reintroduction of a voucher scheme would provide a necessary financial incentive to people who try to conduct business in rural communities?
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I agree with her point, which she made very well. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that in a positive fashion. I am going to ask for such things as well.
For us in Northern Ireland the issue is clear. I understand that the Northern Ireland project has been allocated more than £11.5 million of Government funding for phases 1 and 2 of the superfast broadband programme.
Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)
Just before the hon. Gentleman gets on to the Northern Ireland context, I want to nail the issue of notspots in urban areas. He mentioned the figure of 95% for overall superfast coverage by the end of 2017. Superfast coverage for rural areas is 59%, which shows the difference between urban and rural.
Jim Shannon
The Minister clearly said 95%, and the hon. Gentleman has pointed out that that falls to 59% in rural areas. In my area, the figure would be similar to that.
To relate things to my constituency, the BDUK scheme has made superfast broadband available to 1,871 more premises than previously, which must be good news. I welcome the progress. The average take-up of superfast broadband under the BDUK Northern Ireland project area is 27.3% and, more broadly, the total Government and commercially-funded superfast coverage in Strangford is 79.1%. I know that the Minister probably has all the figures written down; statistics are no doubt regularly handed to him. These points are all great soundbites, but the difficulty, for me, lies in the fact that the estimate from the available supplier data is that coverage will be around 84.5% by the end of December 2017. That is a massive distance away from the 95% expectation that the Minister has indicated. It translates to a 10% disparity in my rural community. Therefore, I again ask the Minister what can be done, and indeed what will be done to bridge the gap between target and reality in my constituency.
A member of my local council is not able to get broadband in his home. His neighbour three doors along can get it, but anyone living in the other direction is stuck in the dark ages. There is something wrong if that happens. Businesses in rural areas struggle to keep up with competition that can sell online, which is the rage these days. I received a standardised email from my constituents—I call it a round-robin; it is the sort of thing MPs get regularly—containing an interesting request that we will all have heard, to end the franchise of Openreach. That is one opinion that has been put forward, and perhaps consideration will be given to how best to go about it. I am sure the Minister will respond.
I do not know whether that is the answer. Perhaps the competition would be an encouragement to stretch further for customers. However, I do know that it is grossly unfair that my constituents are unable to gain the coverage that they deserve. Today I want simply and firmly to put the question back with the Minister—to bat the ball right to his feet: what is to be done for the rural communities of Strangford? What is being done to help schoolchildren access homework resources, and to enable businesses to stretch further and achieve more and parents to multi-task and shop online? All those things are part of day-to-day life—but not for too many of my constituents. That is why I ask for more to be done. When will that happen for Strangford, and the rest of Northern Ireland?
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing today’s debate. Although the content of my email inbox varies, the issue of broadband always remains one of the most important issues affecting my constituency. I am pleased to see that my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) is here today. Our constituencies share a border and sometimes I feel that, as we are on the fringe of what is known as the central belt, people believe that the benefits of the big cities fall to us too; I assure the House that they do not. Like other Members, I am regularly contacted by constituents who are frustrated by slow internet speeds and the way in which broadband infrastructure is being implemented in their area.
As has been discussed in previous debates, constituents are frustrated because they do not consider broadband to be a luxury. It is seen as the fourth utility, essential for business, entertainment and education. If we accept that view, we must give constituents the same right to it as they have to gas, electricity and water. We would never consider telling our constituents, “We know that your water only comes on during certain parts of the day, but we hope to have full water supply rolled out to all properties by 2020.” Constituents would not find that acceptable. Equally, we cannot expect them quietly to tolerate an inadequate fourth utility. I understand that there is no technological magic wand that we can wave over areas with poor connectivity. However, we need to ensure that all tiers of government, including local authorities, are provided with the necessary funding for roll-out to be undertaken as quickly as possible.
In some instances, companies have indicated that it is not commercially viable for them to build the infrastructure that would deliver superfast broadband to certain areas. In my own constituency, Wemyss Bay, Inverkip and Kilmacolm have been particularly affected by that commercial gap. By the way, Kilmacolm got piped clean water only in 1878. Some may be surprised to know that Inverclyde, just 40 minutes from Glasgow, is relevant to a debate on rural broadband. My constituency is, in fact, Scotland in microcosm. Most of the population lives on a relatively thin strip of land, where we have densely populated towns with large housing estates. That area is hemmed in by the coast and undeveloped hills. Surrounding the most populated areas we have farmland, which includes sheep and llama farms. We have sustainable forestry providing fuel for biomass heating, and rural villages, along with smallholdings and isolated farm houses. The sort of obstacles that inhibit full roll-out of superfast broadband all exist in Inverclyde, and include the river, hills, flooding and sparsely populated areas. However, Inverclyde’s diverse geography, along with its limited size, actually makes it an ideal location for pilot schemes or for testing more effective ways in which to roll out superfast broadband; so I urge broadband providers to come to Inverclyde and prove how good they are. Ultimately, if we cannot meet the challenges of getting superfast broadband to Kilmacolm or Inverkip, those of providing an equivalent service in Argyll or Sutherland will be insurmountable.
What other potential solutions are there, and, more importantly, are they economically viable? Virgin Media’s Project Lightning includes the village of Kilmacolm, and I am looking forward to seeing how well that progresses. Recently Vodafone, in conjunction with Telefonica UK Limited, announced that a new base station is planned in the Wemyss Bay area. I am hoping that that is a step towards providing 21st century coverage to the surrounding area. Satellite solutions undoubtedly have their place, and I have recently brought the National Farmers Union of Scotland together with satellite solution providers.
Inverclyde is much like many other constituencies. We have many suppliers, not necessarily working together, fighting for the most profitable section of the market, while the more rural areas are neglected. When the day comes that Inverclyde has 99.9% coverage, I shall be knocking at the Minister’s door and speaking up for the 0.1%: no household left behind. We have a fragmented approach when we need a joined-up solution. MPs are grappling with the technology and trying to find bespoke solutions for their constituency, when the UK Government, instead of abdicating responsibility, should be overseeing the roll-out, defining best practice and funding the less commercial areas.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on obtaining the debate. The constituency he represents and the Outer Hebrides are partner islands, so to speak. It is time that the UK upped its game because island groups are showing the way. Unfortunately, it is not the Hebrides, nor is it Orkney and Shetland, unfortunately for him; it is the Faroe Islands. During the debate, I could confidently text the Faroe Islands and get a response. Regardless of what someone is doing there—fishing, looking after sheep or, more likely, working in the office on a high-tech job—they will be able to respond.
I heard with wonder the remarks about urban notspots from the hon. Members for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and for Wells (James Heappey). The idea seems to be unknown in the Faroe Islands. All of Tórshavn gets 100 megabits broadband. That is equivalent to Lerwick, Kirkwall or Stornoway getting 100 megabits—smaller towns are also getting that. In the Faroe Islands, 20 megabits is normal and 5 megabits is a minimum. A few minutes ago, I asked two diplomats in the Faroes whether any houses there are without broadband. Apparently 100% of houses have it. That is all the more remarkable given the islands’ size and topography. I asked them whether they ever auction spectrum. They never do. They decided to spend that money on investment in the ground.
Jan Ziskasen, the head of Føroya Tele, came to London with me to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and basically offered 4G coverage for the two island groups. He is ready to do it with the flick of a pen—he has already scoped it—but it has still not happened. The Faroese are ready to come in and do what the UK has been unable to do for island groups. Interestingly, when he left the Faroe Islands, he noticed that his 4G speed was 210 megabits, but on the steps of the DCMS in Whitehall he was getting only 20 megabits. Once again, a small island group is shaming the UK. He also tells me that his undersea tunnels have strong 4G coverage. Perhaps he might even throw in connectivity on the Gatwick tunnels for the Londoners while he is fixing the problems that so clearly need to be fixed on the islands.
The island group has seen an improvement of 310% connectivity in the last year or so. On the face of it, that is tremendous, but we still find ourselves bottom of the league at 36% connectivity. When we start at such a low base, percentage increases seem impressive. As I said to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, we need centralised and strategic thinking, and not just ad hoc stuff, such as MPs who happen to be proactive writing to the Northern Lighthouse Board or making Vodafone and EE talk to each other. There is a huge role for the Government, but there is also a role further down. In the village of Ardmhòr, at the north end of Barra, one house that has a cabinet quite near was getting 50 megabits. Closer houses were told by BT that they would not get any connectivity at all. Luckily, the local engineer, Donald Campbell, came in and knew what to do to fix the problem, and it was fixed.
I wonder whether the leased fibre lines are part of the money-making scheme described by the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey). In Ardveenish—the peninsula next to Ardmhòr and the industrial zone of Barra, my native island—there is no broadband at all. Barratlantic told me last week that BT has offered to provide it with broadband at the cost of £26,000 for a line. I hope BT will prove me and the hon. Gentleman wrong, and that that this is not a cynical scheme.
We have to realise that these are not technical problems. As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) pointed out, Kilmacolm had water connectivity in the 1880s. If the Faroese have broadband and mobile phone connectivity, it could happen now for us if the will were there. The Faroese are certainly willing to come into the most difficult areas in the UK—our island groups—and do it. They are talking about speeds of 20 megabits. In this Chamber at the moment there is only 15.5 megabits. The UK should be ashamed of what is happening. The 4G speed down here is 27 megabits.
A lot can be done, but where is the will and where is the way? Politicians surely have to take the lead. The strategic thinking that should have happened needs to happen at a Government level. We also need to start thinking about who knows best on the ground. Hopefully, by the end of this, if we listen to the Faroe Islands and follow what they are doing, I will be able to Skype the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). We could have scones. By the end of the afternoon we could be getting on very well without having to spend the cost in carbon of meeting each other in London on a weekly basis.
I did not mean to go on for so long. I might have to leave before the end of the debate, because I have a constituent who wants to talk about broadband this afternoon and I am half an hour late for my meeting.
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
I am not sure whether these broadband debates are cathartic. There is certainly an unleashing of frustration from every MP, but for a number of reasons I am always more frustrated by the end than I was at the start.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. Such debates are challenging to sit through because we do not focus enough on the reality of the problem and the challenges of fixing it, but every time we discuss it is beneficial. It is undoubtedly one of the biggest issues for our constituencies.
We should level-set where we are at. Our frustration about lack of coverage stems from the understandable pragmatism behind the Broadband Delivery UK contracts, which stretched the money as far as possible, and from the target to reach 95% of premises, which leaves people behind. We should have foreseen that earlier and made attempts to fill the gap. We all get frustrated with BT, but a lot of the time unjustifiably so, because it will deliver on its overarching contracts.
I should like to focus on some of the specifics of what the Government are doing and the questions that remain outstanding. We know the strategy is the BDUK scheme and then the universal service obligation. I will address the USO and fibre investment and quickly touch on rates and vouchers.
The USO is meant to be the catch-all to fill the gap for the 5%, but one thing that has not been discussed today is the fact that Ofcom’s last report in December put forward three scenarios to the Government, to which, to my knowledge, we have yet to hear an official response—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. Scenario one said that the USO would be 10 megabits simple downloads; scenario two was for 10 megabits, but with more latency specifications and an upload speed of 1 megabit; and scenario three was a 30 megabits download speed. The regulator is at pains to point out that a decision rests with the Government. There are political decisions to be made about the infrastructure that we want.
Mr MacNeil
Does my hon. Friend share my frustration about not knowing who to blame? Just when we think we have got our finger on it, and we go to the Government, they blame Ofcom. When we run to Ofcom, it blames the Government or the companies. There is a Bermuda triangle of blame and we just cannot get all three corners together.
Calum Kerr
In a future debate, we should address the fact that there is too much outsourcing of policy decisions to Ofcom. A lot of these decisions are political. I sometimes joke with my hon. Friend that he is the MP for the Faroe Islands, but the reality is that the Faroe Islands have that coverage because they took a political decision. They wanted that level of coverage and they took the policy decisions to deliver it. We could do the same, but we do not. We tend to pragmatism and say, “It’s going to cost a lot of money. How important is it? We’ll ask Ofcom and then shape the answer. Ofcom suggested this and recommended that.”
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman makes 10 megabits sound like a dream that we aspire to, but given the rapid change in usage, will we be back here in five years having an argument about it? The Government will have fulfilled their obligations and ticked the box but will not actually have cured any of the problems we face.
Calum Kerr
That is an excellent point.
Let me explain why 10 megabits would be the wrong decision. Ofcom states:
“In designing any intervention, Government may want to consider the extent it should be designed to take into account further future growth in broadband usage. Doing so could help to ensure that consumers and business that rely on the USO are not left behind…Such an approach could support both better value for money by intervening once, and ensure that there is not a continual state of review, advice and reinvestment as requirements grow over time.”
If we go for 10 megabits now, we will be storing up more trouble for ourselves down the line. Let me jump ahead to a point that backs that up. There has been a lot of discussion about who will deliver the USO and about the high probability that it will be given lock, stock and barrel to BT—I think we need to be careful about that. BT’s response said:
“Existing technologies such as Fibre to the Cabinet and new technologies like long reach VDSL can offer cost-effective solutions for a 10M service but would require further investment if the requirement increased significantly, e.g. to 30M.”
That is a big “but”. If we specify a USO at 10 megabits, but what happens when we want to change it to 30 megabits? A USO does not entitle a user to free broadband. A telephony USO means that if someone does not have a telephony service, BT will provide it up to a cost of £3,400. We should imagine that in the broadband world. I do not have time to go into it today, but the detail of the Ofcom paper spells out different thresholds. Some hon. Members may think that the USO will fix everything for our constituents. It might mean that they are entitled to claim it, but it may give them a bill for thousands of pounds. What if it gives them a 10 megabits service? If they want 30 megabits in the future, they might have to pay for it again. We have to be so careful in how we implement this.
I am not going to address how much bandwidth we should use, but I will say that we need to raise our ambition. The Government need to put money into this, instead of trying to do it on the cheap. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland should rest assured that the Scottish Government are committed, with R100, to 100% superfast, meaning 30 megabits. The Minister has great ambition around fibre, and the UK Government should step up and show the same ambition.
I am not sure how much time I have left, Mr Brady—
Calum Kerr
It is always a pleasure when the former Minister is here.
Let me make one final point, if I may. As we consider fibre deployment and the idea of vouchers, I will say that I am fully behind vouchers, but it is important that they do not lead to a trap whereby rural schemes such as Broadband 4 the Rural North, or B4RN, or the scheme on North Skye and in the Borders, are opened, so that any network can go on top, because it kills their business model. That must not happen. I know that is a big point of contention at the moment, so can we have vouchers and can we have them open? Let us ensure that the digital divide is closed and not cemented through bad policy.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing the debate and allowing us all to get these frustrations off our chest.
This debate is welcome, because the last time the House discussed broadband was prior to the publication of Ofcom’s “Connected Nations” report, which has been referred to today and which offered a progress report on the Government’s delayed roll-out of broadband. The debate has clearly indicated the continued frustration of hon. Members throughout the House, and I feel their frustration. The Ofcom report showed that Sheffield is the major city with the lowest superfast broadband coverage in the country. That is a useful reminder of a point that has been played out today—that although this problem predominantly affects rural areas and particularly island communities, as has been so passionately expressed, it is also a truly national issue, encompassing all nations, regions, cities, towns and villages of the UK, and so requires a national strategy.
The “Connected Nations” report found that although Scotland performed worst in the UK and England best, the headline data masked internal variations that cut across the traditional boundaries of rural versus urban. Indeed, of the 3.5 million homes that cannot receive superfast speeds, 1.7 million of them are in urban areas. In total, 36% of rural Scotland is in the slowest of slow lanes, and 25% of rural England, while 400,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in town and country do not have access to superfast broadband, with 200,000 being unable to access even the basic speed of 10 megabits per second. Almost a quarter of a million UK premises cannot get even the pitiful download speed of 2 megabits per second, and more than 600,000 premises cannot get 5 megabits per second.
There is little secret that we are facing a slow-moving productivity crisis, and little wonder when 75% of our small businesses report that broadband is critical to their needs and yet nearly half of small businesses have complaints about internet service as it currently stands. Some 33% of the business parks that were designed to be a test bed for innovation productivity are still unable to access superfast broadband, as the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) set out. She also highlighted the important distinction between technical access and availability, and the take-up of broadband speeds in our communities. It is not yet clear to me that Broadband Delivery UK, whatever its future iteration with relation to the universal service obligation, will take those issues into account and properly measure them.
We are failing our businesses and, even more importantly, our potential businesses if we do not keep pace with them and provide the digital infrastructure that they require. Businesses rely increasingly on substantial download and upload speeds—although the USO does not take upload speeds into consideration—in order to store information on cloud systems and conduct multi-user calls while transferring and processing data, with multiple employees online all the time.
The sheer scale of data transferred over fixed-line broadband is detailed in “Connected Nations”, and it has grown as broadband speed has increased. The average monthly data consumed per household jumped by 36% over the past year to 132 gigabytes, and the total volume of data transferred was a staggering 2,750 petabytes. That all clearly adds up to a need that will become more and more stark by the end of the decade. With the need so obvious, it is surprising that Ministers continue to pursue the pitiful designation of 10 megabits per second by 2020.
I perfectly understand the frustration of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that 37% of his constituents still cannot access the bare minimum speed that Ofcom defines as being necessary for participation in a digital society. Moreover, the Government are offering his constituents that bare minimum only by 2020. Half the properties in Orkney and Shetland do not have access to superfast broadband, so as it stands it will be the same old story, repeated again and again: rural communities are an afterthought, and those with poor coverage are always playing catch-up, as technological advances require a faster and faster internet service.
As the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr), the Scottish National party Front-Bench spokesman, said, Ofcom agrees with that. In its technical response to the USO, it said that
“government may want to consider the extent it”—
Government intervention—
“should be designed to take into account further future growth”.
Ofcom made it clear that the Government would get better value for money by intervening once and ensuring that there is not a continual state of review, advice and reinvestment as requirements grow over time.
Louise Haigh
I can inform the right hon. Gentleman that Labour’s policy did indeed change last year, and for the past seven years Labour has not been in power; that might have escaped his notice. The Government have had plenty of time to address this issue. It is quite clear that their current “wait and see” strategy is exactly the wrong choice to provide value for money and other benefits for our consumers. Broadband and data usage is only going one way.
When we last debated this issue in the House, the Minister argued that the relevant legislation provides for the USO to be revised upwards. However, following a series of parliamentary questions, it would appear that the entire basis for the claim that 10 megabits per second is sufficient to participate in a digital society is drawn from research conducted by Ofcom in 2013. In 2012, 31% of UK premises had no take-up of fixed broadband services at all and 10% of all UK premises had take-up of speeds of less than 2 megabits per second. In that context, 10 megabits per second would represent a quantum leap, but not any more.
We should also look at how quickly the designated minimum speed has changed in previous years. From 2010 to 2013, it jumped from 2 megabits per second to 10 megabits per second, as Ofcom and the Government recognised the expanding demand and need. It is therefore very likely that the Minister intends to introduce secondary legislation that is already outdated.
To truly future-proof the legislation on the USO and properly serve communities that have been stuck in the slow lane since the advent of the technological age, Ministers will have to be much more ambitious. If the roll-out began at the end of 2017, that would benefit 1.9 million residents and businesses. It would benefit residents in Lewisham, who still cannot access superfast broadband, and those in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which has the lowest superfast take-up in the country.
Ofcom itself has referred in its technical report to the “clear benefits” of a more highly specified USO of 30 megabits per second and a 10 megabits per second upload speed. It is time that the Government’s ambitions matched those of millions of consumers and small businesses. The UK simply cannot afford to stay at the back of the queue.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)
I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing the debate and for allowing time both for many Members to set out their frustrations and for me to provide an update on progress. The roll-out that we have achieved so far, which is on track to reach 95% superfast coverage of UK premises by the end of this year, is in part a testament to the coalition Government of which he was such a critically important member.
Let me re-emphasise the Government’s commitment to addressing the digital needs of all parts of the UK. That is clearly a very important goal, and a lot has been achieved. I do not think that anyone here today, even if they have expressed the frustrations of those who have poor broadband, would deny that we have come a long way. In fact, that was demonstrated in the contribution by the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who tied herself in knots while arguing that much has been done but much is left to do.
First, let me set out some of the figures. As I said, we are on track to reach 95% of the UK as a whole. Of course that figure is lower in rural areas, because of the nature of things. However, on the point about whether there is a distinction between rural and urban areas, let me say that as a matter of law there is such a distinction, because EU rules do not allow a subsidised broadband programme in urban areas. As a matter of fact, although there are still some patches of poor connectivity in urban areas, the picture is much better than in rural areas. It is understandable, therefore, that the mix of hon. Members here today is more rural than urban. Indeed, in Altrincham, 98.4% of people have access to superfast broadband, so you are probably the best off of the lot of us, Mr Brady—perhaps that is why you have said so little.
In Scotland, phase 1 of the Government’s superfast broadband programme, including reinvestment of clawback funding and project savings, is worth more than £11 million, and more than 60% of homes and businesses in Orkney and Shetland now have superfast broadband available to them. The highlands and islands project as a whole will have reached a total of 130,000 premises by spring 2018, none of which will be covered by commercial roll-out. So it is thanks only to UK Government action that there has been any connectivity at all in Orkney and Shetland.
I understand the frustration of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that things have not gone more quickly in Scotland. It has been entertaining to hear some Scottish National party Members say that things should have gone more quickly and that some of the delivery has been fragmented, because delivery in Scotland is by the Scottish Government. It is a pity and a regret, and something we have been working hard to push on, that the Scottish Government have been behind the rest of the UK in their procurement. I hope that some of the frustration that has been vented by hon. Members representing Scottish seats is directed at those who are delivering the Scottish Government contract.
Perhaps the question to ask the Scottish Government is why they have not yet managed to procure phase 2 when most of England has, and when some parts of England and Wales are moving on to phase 3. That is not a partisan point, because I will come on to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). The Labour Government in Wales have delivered effectively and, in fact, in Ynys Môn, where there is no commercial coverage at all, overall coverage is 80%. The Welsh Government have been much more on the front foot than the Scottish Government have in delivering for rural communities right across Wales.
Calum Kerr
It is amazing how the Minister can try to make a partisan point and claim it is non-partisan, but there we go. The Scottish Government scheme runs until the end of 2017. The Scottish Government have shown leadership with the R100 project, which is a commitment to give superfast to everyone—exactly what everyone here is asking for. Will the Minister commit to matching that ambition?
Matt Hancock
I do not want to point this out, but I have just commended the Labour Government in Wales for being further forward. I will come on to the universal service obligation, because more heat than light was produced by the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. We went through this at length during the Digital Economy Bill’s passage through the House, and in the end there was cross-party agreement regarding the universal service obligation, which will bring in 100% coverage by 2020—ahead, in fact, of the Scottish Government’s proposed date of 2021.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
The Minister will be aware of some of the challenges we face in Suffolk in delivering high-speed broadband. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House can welcome the universal service obligation but, once it is in force, it must allow those who are not provided with access to broadband at the set minimum speed a simple means of seeking redress. I know that the Minister has spoken about this before, but might he make that point clear? I am sure that would help others here in their understanding of the USO.
Matt Hancock
Yes. Thanks to the support of my hon. Friend and near neighbour on the Digital Economy Bill, we are now bringing in automatic redress as part of that legislation. Perhaps more important than redress is the need to get the universal service obligation through and into force within the timeframe we have set out.
Albert Owen
I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging the roll-out in Wales and other areas, but does he agree—this not a partisan point either—that take-up is low in much of the United Kingdom? What is he doing with the regulator to ensure greater take-up?
Matt Hancock
That is a really important point, especially in relation to Broadband Delivery UK areas that are supported by broadband subsidised by the UK Government and delivered through either a devolved Administration or a council. The higher the take-up, the more money comes back into the contract, and that money can go towards helping more people get superfast broadband. We all have a role to play in driving take-up and ensuring awareness. That is not unreasonable, now that the availability figures are getting higher, and work is going on inside Government on how we can drive take-up higher.
There have been calls for public money to be spent. Some £1.7 billion of public money has been invested in the BDUK programme, and £440 million of funding will be returned for reinvestment, either thanks to programmes being delivered at better value and lower cost than expected—that is sometimes seen as rare in public expenditure, but it has been effective in these contracts—or because the take-up means that money is flowing back into the contracts. That will help to provide coverage for up to 600,000 additional premises, and I expect that further reinvestment funding will also come forward. That has been achieved through excellent contract management, especially with local authorities, as well as strong take-up in many areas. Crucially, that has been above expectations. For instance, in Scotland nearly £38 million has been returned to date as a result of the UK Government contracts for reinvestment, and people who have really low speeds—less than 2 megabits per second—can take advantage of the Better Broadband scheme.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland set out the case of his caseworker in Shetland who has a speed of 0.3 megabits per second, in contrast with the much higher speed of his London staff. The Better Broadband scheme is a voucher-based system that allows anyone with a speed of less than 2 megabits per second to access funding for a basic broadband contract and connectivity, for instance through satellite, and I recommend that the right hon. Gentleman’s caseworker not only take that up but then email people in his constituency to let them know that the scheme is available. The grant is technology-neutral and can be spent on satellite, wireless or community fibre projects.
I fully understand the frustration of those who do not yet have a good connection. We have talked about some of the figures. Some 81% of South East Cornwall is covered by commercial contracts, but only 83% has access to superfast broadband, meaning that provision through Superfast Cornwall covers only 2% of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). There is clearly much more to do in Cornwall.
In Eddisbury, 82% of premises have access to superfast broadband, but that means that 805 premises have less than 10 megabits per second, including that of my parents—I hear about it all the time. Thankfully, though, a new procurement is in the pipeline in Cheshire, which I hope will cover crucial parts of the county—with no special pleading.
In the constituency of the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), 87% of premises currently have superfast access, according to an independent study by thinkbroadband.com, and that will rise to 93% by the end of the year. Thanks to the support of the UK Government, 14,000 premises there have already been covered, with several thousand more to come.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the business voucher scheme. We have consulted, following the autumn statement, on a further full fibre business voucher scheme and will respond to that consultation at around the time of the Budget. I understand the success of the business voucher scheme of the past couple of years. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that he had coverage of 79.1%. I would like to put on the record that, according to my figures, it is 79.4%.
Matt Hancock
One hopes. Clearly the engineers have been busy.
I met the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) along with a Faroe Islands Minister. It was a very interesting meeting. The Faroe Islands are of course much smaller and have a monopoly provision, but there are lessons to learn.
Community Alarm Services: Social Housing
(8 years ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered social housing community alarm services.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased to have secured a debate on this important issue. I sincerely hope, despite the extremely difficult and tragic circumstances that I will outline, that we will be able to reach a positive outcome and improve the safety of the many people across the country who rely on community alarm services.
At 18.35 on 5 November 2015, Ronald Volante, father of my constituent Rita Cuthell, triggered the community alarm service in his property. It was operated by the social housing provider, Magenta Living. He was in a considerable amount of distress and could only manage to cry out the word “help” to the individual receiving the call. Two hours later, an ambulance finally arrived at Mr Volante’s house and the paramedics who attended found that he had sadly died. He was found next to a note addressed to his daughters, which said, “I love you.” It is difficult to appreciate fully the suffering that Mr Volante experienced during those hours, or the pain and anguish that those closest to him have suffered since as the full extent of the circumstances of his death have become known.
What has become clear is that a number of opportunities that could have saved Mr Volante’s life were missed. Nothing that we can say in this debate today can change that fact. What we can do is seek assurances that nobody else will have to go through such an appalling experience ever again. Mr Volante was a resident at the Maritime Park social housing complex, which is owned by the Regenda Group housing association. During daytime hours, a warden was present at the facility. Out of hours, residents relied solely on a community alarm service provided by the Magenta Living housing association. Mr Volante was 74 years old and suffered from coronary artery disease and thrombosis. He had previously suffered a myocardial infarction that required heart surgery.
After Mr Volante triggered the alarm, his call was answered by an operator within six seconds. The operator’s notes state that they could not ascertain what Mr Volante was requesting, other than help. After attempting without success to call both of Mr Volante’s daughters, the operator called for an ambulance at 18.38. I have seen a transcript of the conversation with the North West Ambulance Service, which lasted for just over six minutes. During the call, the operator speculated as to whether Mr Volante might be having some kind of speech problem, as all they could hear was the call for help. The operator was unable to provide a great deal of detail about Mr Volante’s condition, as they were communicating with him remotely from a call centre and had no visual contact. At no point during the conversation did the operator inform the North West Ambulance Service of Mr Volante’s heart condition, despite that information being available. Although the ambulance service knew that the caller was not actually with Mr Volante and was calling from a lifeline service, it made no further enquiries about his medical history.
Following the call to the emergency services, the operator confirmed to Mr Volante that they had called an ambulance. At that stage, they received no response from Mr Volante. Despite that, they closed down the community alarm service at that time, 18.46. The call to Mr Volante lasted a total of 10 minutes and 41 seconds. No further efforts were made to contact Mr Volante’s family at that stage.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, which affects his constituent, and my constituent, who unfortunately died in this incident. Is one of the many lessons that we might draw from this that the service works all right if a person is not in the process of dying? However, once someone is in the process of dying, there seem to be some real faults. One is about how an operator follows up when they do not hear any more from someone after they call for help. That is one area that should be attended to.
Justin Madders
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to the issue he raises later in my contribution.
Almost an hour and a half later, at 20.07, the North West Ambulance Service, having still not arrived, contacted the community alarm service to advise that it had been receiving a large number of emergency calls—it was bonfire night—and asked whether the ambulance for Mr Volante was still required. The operator advised that they were not sure, as they had had no further contact with Mr Volante. Ambulance control advised that it would attend as soon as it could and asked the operator to provide an update to Mr Volante. A second operator made a call to update Mr Volante at 20.11, but no response was received. At this stage, a second operator telephoned Mr Volante’s daughter, Mrs Cuthell. She expressed concern that nobody had attended the flat in an hour and a half. At 20.30, just under two hours after the initial call to the alarm service by Mr Volante, an ambulance finally arrived at his address. At 20.37, the alarm service received a call from the ambulance service, which confirmed that Mr Volante had sadly been found deceased.
As I said when I began my remarks, a number of opportunities were missed throughout the two hours—opportunities that could have led to Mr Volante’s life being saved. The inquest was opened on 28 January 2016. The coroner, Mr Rebello, determined that Mr Volante died of natural causes, because there was no certainty that an earlier intervention would have saved his life. However, Mr Rebello also issued a report under regulation 28—also known as a report to prevent future deaths—because he believes, as do I, that action should be taken to prevent future deaths in similar circumstances.
I am therefore now requesting the assistance of the Minister and his colleagues to ensure that action is taken, not only by Magenta Living but by every provider of community alarm services. I also believe there are messages for ambulance service providers across the country, and I hope that the Minister will be able to take them on board. The first serious issue was the fact that a 999 call on behalf of a 74-year-old gentleman with a serious heart condition was categorised as a green 2 call. While there is a national standard that an ambulance will be provided in response to the most urgent telephone calls—also known as red 1 and red 2 calls—within eight minutes, there are no national standards for a response to a less urgent green 2 call. In those cases, the North West Ambulance Service sends an ambulance as soon as is practical, which sadly on a busy night like 5 November can be hours rather than minutes.
In her evidence to the coroner, Irene Weldon, the acting manager for the emergency operations centre covering Cheshire and Merseyside, confirmed that it was very likely that the call would have been treated with a higher level of priority—red 1 or red 2—if the call handler had been made aware of Mr Volante’s history of heart disease and thrombosis. When I put that to Magenta Living and asked why Mr Volante’s medical conditions were not disclosed to the ambulance service during the call, I was provided with the following response:
“Proactively providing medical history to the ambulance service at the point of contact by call handlers does not form part of the procedure accredited by the TSA.”
TSA is the Telecare Services Association. It is the industry body for community alarm services. It sets national standards for providers to adhere to and provides a framework that sets out how its members should respond to calls. Clearly it is not acceptable that the framework does not require vital medical information to be provided to ambulance services when a 999 call is made by an alarm service operator. The coroner called for action to be taken in that respect in his report to prevent future deaths, and I echo that call for action.
The second issue is that while Mr Volante was able to vocalise his request for help when he contacted the community alarm service, by the time the operator made contact to confirm that an ambulance had been called just a few minutes later, he was no longer responsive. That important change in circumstances was not reported to the ambulance service. Again, that could have led to the call being given higher priority. When I asked Magenta Living about that, it said:
“Historically, a change of circumstances would not result in a call handler updating the emergency services. This practice was adopted due to the fact that keeping the line open could potentially impact upon the monitoring of the centre’s ability to respond to further activations from residents at the same scheme.”
It is completely unacceptable that community alarm providers do not routinely inform the emergency services of a deterioration in the condition of a caller. If the ambulance service had been informed of the possibility that Mr Volante was no longer breathing, it is very likely that the priority of the call would have been upgraded. That was another concern raised by the coroner.
As I said previously, we cannot possibly say with certainty whether earlier intervention in this case would have saved Mr Volante’s life, but we know that in all urgent cases of this nature, every minute matters, so I can say with absolute certainty that if the medical condition of callers, or any deterioration in their circumstances, is not being reported to ambulance services as a matter of course, the lives of the 1.7 million people who use community alarm services are being put at risk. When he sums up, will the Minister indicate whether he agrees with me that the national framework set out by the TSA should be urgently updated to ensure that those issues are addressed? I also ask him to join with me in asking all social housing community alarm service providers to ensure that their local processes reflect the recommendations set out by the coroner in Mr Volante’s case.
Since her father’s death, Mrs Cuthell has been tireless in pursuing those issues, so that she can feel that justice has been done for her father. I know that her biggest wish is that nobody will ever have to go through such a terrible experience again. It is to her absolute credit that throughout the trauma of her father’s death and the incredibly difficult experience of the inquest she has maintained a great focus on making sure that lessons are learned and improvements are made. She has shown calm dignity and incredible determination to bring about change, and I am pleased to say that that is beginning to bear fruit. We have held numerous meetings with the TSA and the North West Ambulance Service. There has been progress, albeit at a much slower pace than we would have liked.
The TSA has arranged meetings with the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives and is working with it and its members to develop protocols for its quality standards framework, which it hopes will be fully implemented by June. That will mean that when a call of this nature is made in future to the service providers, the call handler will provide reassurance to the caller until the responder is actually present. It also plans to have clear procedures in place to communicate with the responders and, crucially, plans to escalate the matter where it becomes clear that a responder is not available. A national emergency algorithm is also being developed that will enable all necessary information to be passed to the ambulance services when a call is made, to enable the ambulance service to prioritise such calls more accurately.
The right approach is being taken by the TSA to ensure that the tragic situation is not repeated, but the TSA does not represent every provider in the sector. Membership of that organisation is voluntary, and that is where we need assistance from the Minister. We would like to see all telecare services adopting the same approach and adhering to the same standards that the TSA is developing. Is the Minister prepared to look at making that a requirement across the board?
I want to touch on some concerns about ambulance services. I understand that the primary issue in this case was the fact that the call had been awarded a lower priority because important facts were not reported to the ambulance service. It is nevertheless unacceptable that it took almost two hours for that service to respond.
Although much of the recent media focus has been on when people get to hospital, ambulance services have suffered the most worrying deterioration in recent years. There is a national standard that says that red 1 and red 2 calls should be attended within eight minutes; the reality is that that target is not met in about a third of cases, and has not been met for some time. The most recent figures show that just 68.5% of red 1 cases—where a patient has suffered a cardiac arrest or stopped breathing—are responded to in eight minutes. In other life-threatening emergencies in the red 2 category, just 62% of calls received a response within eight minutes. Lives are being lost and patients are being put at risk because funding to the NHS has not kept up with demand. I know that the Minister cannot tell us what the Chancellor has planned for his Budget next month, but I call on the Government to deliver the rescue package that our NHS so desperately needs.
Whatever happens with funding, the other steps I have outlined today do not come with a price tag and can be implemented across the board. We know that will not bring back Mr Volante, but it would allow us to look his family in the eye and say that lessons have been learned and the mistakes that led to his death will not happen again.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Hollobone. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) on leading the charge on this debate, which raises a number of serious issues. I thank him for the work he has done so far with the family and the progress that has been made as a consequence of that work. I will come on to talk more about that in the next few minutes.
This short debate raises a number of important questions. It is clear that we need to learn lessons. In preparing for the debate, it struck me that this industry is a growth area in our country. More and more people are in sheltered accommodation for longer and are reliant on call handling services provided by a variety of contractors. More and more people are therefore susceptible to this sort of tragedy, which is probably a consequence of a mixture of individual error and the procedures and processes not being in place to pick that up.
Before I respond in more detail, I add my condolences to the two daughters and the family of Mr Volante for what happened on 5 November 2015. I reiterate that the Government are as keen as they are that we get the lessons learned from this situation right.
I will briefly set out the issues as I see them on what happened that evening. The company Magenta was operating an outsourced service called Support Link to the sheltered housing association. It received a call from Mr Volante. All that was heard in that call was the word “help”. As per the procedure, the company tried to reach Mr Volante’s daughters, who were the next contact in the process it had. It was unable to do that, and then called an ambulance.
As the hon. Gentleman has said, although it was known to the call operators that Mr Volante had a heart condition, at that time it was not made clear to the ambulance service. As a consequence, although not necessarily entirely as a consequence of that—we will come back to that; the hon. Gentleman made some comments about how the ambulance service reacted—the call was given a lower priority than it otherwise would have been. The consequence of that was that the standard for the call was 30 minutes, and as we have heard, it took nearly two hours on 5 November, the reason given being that it was Guy Fawkes’ night.
When Magenta was informed that the ambulance was going to take longer than expected, it called back and was unable to get a reply from Mr Volante. It did not take any further action at that time, such as asking the ambulance service to expedite or convert the call to a higher priority. When the ambulance finally arrived, as we have heard, Mr Volante was found to be deceased. The coroner accepted that had procedures been carried out effectively and properly the outcome may well have been the same, but we do not know that. He made a number of recommendations at the inquest, including a regulation 28 report, which is what we are here to discuss, and made other, wider points.
The coroner made a number of observations specific to this case and a number of wider observations, and we have heard about the work that has been done on some of those points. His specific observations on the case included the point that Magenta had access to the medical records, and the ambulance service should have been made aware that Mr Volante had heart disease. The ambulance service has said that had it known that, it would have been likely to have given the call a higher priority and got an ambulance there much more quickly.
Secondly, and equally importantly, when Magenta called Mr Volante back and there was no response, which implied some kind of deterioration in his condition, it did not take any action. It did not inform the ambulance service that the call should potentially be upgraded. In two further dialogues with the ambulance service, it did not do anything proactive to expedite the situation.
Finally, the coroner suggested that Magenta’s procedures be updated and that training and supervision be updated to reflect that. My understanding is that Magenta has put the required changes in place quickly and effectively, which I believe has been accepted by everyone involved—but of course that is not the whole issue.
There are four wider issues. First, Magenta is accredited by an organisation called the TSA. It is clearly important that the measures that Magenta has implemented are implemented equally by all other members of the TSA. Organisations that declare themselves to be accredited, which brings some status in terms of procurement and all that goes with it, must put in place exactly the same procedural changes as Magenta. I will come on to talk about that.
The second issue is that that applies only to organisations that are accredited or are part of the TSA, but a number of call handling organisations are not in that category. We think, although we do not know for certain, that about 10% of call handling organisations are not accredited, which clearly leads to a loophole in making this process work.
The third issue—the hon. Gentleman talked about this—is whether the ambulance service could have done more. It is not absolutely obvious to me why the initial call was given a green coding. I accept Magenta’s story that had it been informed of the heart condition the call would not have been given that code. I have not seen the conversation, but it still does not seem right that a call for help should have resulted in a low-priority ambulance being called. Another issue is that, after the call was given a lower priority, the ambulance took nearly two hours, against a standard of 30 minutes. I will come back to what the lessons learned are.
The fourth issue to learn lessons on is the overall regulatory environment. GPs, hospitals, care homes and domiciliary care providers are regulated by the Care Quality Commission. That regulatory system is, on the whole, effective. It is not 100% effective, but it is certainly better than nothing. The interesting point, which the hon. Gentleman did not raise explicitly but is part of the learning, is that sheltered accommodation is not regulated in the same way. The reason is that, under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, which set up the system of regulation, sheltered accommodation is not considered to provide personal care and is therefore outside the regulatory environment.
That also applies to call handling organisations. We have noted that they are not regulated. I had a discussion this morning with the CQC, which is aware that they are outside the regulatory system, and we are going to monitor the issue and think about taking it forward. I do not want to be more explicit than that, and the hon. Gentleman did not raise the issue explicitly. I learned that the status of a call handling organisation is similar to that of a friend phoning 999 when an issue has arisen. There are issues there that we can learn from and think about. The very least that needs to be understood is that, when something is not regulated, people need to be clear about what that means, and we should not act under the perception that regulation exists.
We heard from the hon. Gentleman about the work that he and Mrs Cuthell have done with the Telecare Services Association. Broadly speaking, the TSA operates a framework of best practice for such conversations. The framework is audited, and I believe that the TSA has teeth in its accreditation process. Through the work of the hon. Gentleman and Mrs Cuthell, it has been made clear that the framework will be updated. The next version is to be released in the summer—in June or July—and it will be audited. I can say no more about it than that, other than that I agree with the hon. Gentleman that progress has been slow. After this debate, we will write to the chief executive of the TSA to say that the Government also regard it as very important that the framework is updated, and that we expect that to happen. The hon. Gentleman and I should perhaps meet at the back end of the summer to ensure that everybody is happy that action has taken place appropriately and that every other supplier has put in place the same level of protection as Magenta.
On the issue of non-TSA suppliers, which is a loophole, I have explained the regulatory environment. The commitment I make about that 10% or 20% of the market—the fact that we know so little about it is significant—is that we will find out which the major organisations in that category are and write to them to put to them the lessons that Magenta has learned from this case. We will say that we expect them to understand the lessons and take similar action. There is a point to be made about how such services are procured by clinical commissioning groups and local authorities. Those organisations need to understand—I think this is the case at the moment—that when someone procures call handling services of this type, there are benefits to ensuring that the organisations they buy from are accredited by the TSA. That has some value, and commissioners should be on guard in that respect.
The hon. Gentleman’s final point was about the performance of the ambulance service on that evening. I agree that the time taken for the ambulance to get there was completely unacceptable—I think the ambulance service agrees with that, albeit that it is mitigated by the fact that it was 5 November. The hon. Gentleman made a number of wider points about funding, which he cannot expect me to answer in this debate. We will write to the chief executive of the North West Ambulance Service to make the point that this incident was unsatisfactory and ask him to be absolutely certain that the initial classification as low-priority was correct following the dialogue between his call handler and the Magenta call handler. It is not absolutely clear to me, given the facts as I understand them and as the hon. Gentleman set them out today, that that was the case. I make that commitment.
At the start of the debate, the hon. Gentleman said that Mrs Cuthell’s major motivation is to ensure that what happened to her family never happens again. I cannot make a commitment that it will never happen again, but I can say that the story we have heard is completely unsatisfactory. The Government understand the failures that occurred and will put in place what is needed to try to ensure that it does not happen again. The hon. Gentleman made the point that 1.7 million people are covered by such call handling systems. That number will only increase as our population ages and as a higher proportion of people are in sheltered accommodation or are covered by call handling organisations while living at home.
I reiterate my commitment to meet the hon. Gentleman at the back end of the summer to ensure that these various things have been taken on board, that these actions, many of which he has led, have taken place, and that we are happy that what can be done has been done.
Question put and agreed to.
London Stock Exchange
(8 years ago)
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Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the London Stock Exchange.
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Hollobone. I have brought this matter for debate because the proposed merger between Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange raises issues of national interest and, in my opinion, it is a slam dunk that the merger is not in the national interest.
The London Stock Exchange Group owns several key market components in the United Kingdom, including the London Stock Exchange itself, a recognised investment exchange regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the London Clearing House, which is supervised by the Bank of England. A number of subsidiaries of the group are also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The proposed merger requires regulatory approval by the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority. The most significant approvals are those required, first, from the Bank of England in connection with the London Clearing House, which I understand to be 57% owned by the London Stock Exchange, and which conducts euro clearing, and, secondly, from the Financial Conduct Authority with respect to the London Stock Exchange, which is fundamental to the City of London’s capital markets.
The London Clearing House is one of the two main clearing houses in the UK and clears all major currencies, including the euro. As I understand it, both the German and French Governments have indicated a wish to strip euro clearing out of the City. All of that has significant political involvement because it would facilitate in due course a substantial movement of UK market infrastructure to the continent and would permit Germany and France, in the context of Brexit negotiations, to achieve German and French objectives that will undermine the UK’s political leverage during those negotiations.
Her Majesty’s Treasury has certain powers to direct or make recommendations to the Bank of England or the Financial Conduct Authority to take action or not. The Prime Minister is First Lord of the Treasury, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of course has fundamental responsibilities. The Treasury has powers of direction over the Bank of England under section 4 of the Bank of England Act 1946. It may give directions to the Bank following consultation with the Governor
“as…they think necessary in the public interest.”
The Treasury may direct the Bank to exercise its powers not to approve the acquisition of what is described as a “qualifying holding” in the London Clearing House.
It is not known whether the Bank of England has already given its approval, although the Treasury could direct such a decision to be reversed on the grounds of public interest. The powers include determining that the proposed deal is not a normal commercial deal in the light of the Brexit negotiations and to take account of the involvement of the state of Hesse, which has shown a desire to boost Frankfurt as a hub at the expense of London, which is indicated in the report of Professor Dirk Schiereck, commissioned by Deutsche Börse in January 2017. In the past few days a Minister in Hesse indicated that the headquarters of the merged group should be in Germany:
“The reasons for the headquarters being in Frankfurt are crystal clear.”
The objective could not be clearer. It is inconceivable, in the UK national interest, that the London Stock Exchange should be regulated in and operated out of Germany as we leave, and having left, the European Union. There are also questions, as yet unresolved, surrounding the new chief executive officer, who is under investigation for potential insider dealing in connection with the London Stock Exchange deal, and the regulatory relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU which forms part of the Brexit negotiations. It would not be in the public interest for the combination of the two groups to be achieved immediately in advance of those negotiations, since that would give commercial parties operating at the behest of German political masters the ability to remove the rug from underneath the UK’s feet without regard to the negotiated outcome, or to threaten to do so during the negotiations unless the UK made certain concessions.
If the deal goes through, the combined group will be able to bulk up euro clearing and exchange and business clearing generally in Frankfurt at the expense of London. Given the declared political objective to promote Frankfurt, Paris and the eurozone, that is not an outcome in the UK’s national interest.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, making a logical and compelling case, but is he suggesting to the House that the owners and management of the London Stock Exchange are willingly entering into a merger that will lead to the transfer of all of their business to another country?
Sir William Cash
There is severe detriment to our national interest in allowing a merger of that kind when the London Stock Exchange and its group are the jewel in the crown of the City of London. Any merger raises matters of national interest such as, first, financial stability and UK taxpayer liability. The merger would create a new financial market infrastructure group controlling, inter alia, about 90% of European-listed and over-the-counter derivatives transactions, but operated for the benefit of shareholders, not users, with an unprecedented complexity of risk profile and significant uncertainty as to whether the UK taxpayer would pick up the bill were part of the combined infrastructure to fail. The uncertainty created by the lack right now of a clear Brexit deal adds considerably to the stability and taxpayer risks.
Secondly, there is loss of control of a key UK asset post-Brexit. The London Stock Exchange is a major centre of global financial markets: more than 500 foreign companies are listed in London, which is 20% of global foreign listings; and it has the highest equity market capitalisation, 170%, in relation to the GDP of all the largest economies. Majority control of that vital business will pass to Deutsche Börse shareholders, who will own 54% of the new group post-merger. Passing control of the London Stock Exchange to Deutsche Börse in the context of Brexit is not in the national interest and might undermine our negotiations with the 27 member states as we leave the EU.
The issue is not where the headquarters of the new company is located technically. I am told that formally moving the HQ to Germany, as the state of Hesse has insisted, is not likely given the need for a significant shareholder vote, but that is beside the point. The real issue is who calls the shots and in whose interests critical decisions are made. It is no answer to say that the HQ will remain in the UK if the reality is that the people really in charge are flying in for the day from Germany. Decisions must be taken in the UK and in the interests of the UK.
My third point is about competition concerns. The only substantial remedy offered by the parties to the EU Commission to allay concerns about significantly impeding effective competition is the sale of the central counterparty, Clearnet SA, based in Paris, and part of the LSEG. No disposals have been offered by Deutsche Börse, which owns trading platforms, central counterparties and settlement systems that have been integrated into a single vertical silo in Frankfurt. That is not sufficient, and I am concerned that the outcome of the European Commission’s review of the proposed merger will be determined by the EU’s political priority to ensure that Germany has control over London’s capital market infrastructure, instead of by genuine market concentration and anti-trust concerns.
Fourthly, there has been a lack of public scrutiny and industry comment; there has been little proactive support for, or indeed criticism of, the merger from the main UK financial institutions. That is not surprising, since the parties have given 12 major investment banks a role in the deal and they are destined to share about £353 million in fees if the deal succeeds. There has also been little comment by the UK Government so far on a deal concerning a major UK asset, although they still have a public interest role to play under the Enterprise Act 2002. We need to know why it was, and who decided not to refer the merger when it first came before the Secretary of State. Vast profits and sums of money are involved, and some stand to gain financially on a grand scale. All of that can be ascertained, but the national interest must prevail.
Precious little has been put into the public domain to suggest that the deal is remotely in the public interest. On what possible basis can it be argued, in particular post-23 June and the passage through the House of Commons of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, that the merger is in the national interest? Furthermore, under section 1JA of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, the Treasury
“may at any time by notice in writing to the FCA make recommendations to the FCA about aspects of the economic policy of…Government”,
including how to ensure compatibility with the FCA’s “strategic objective”, to ensure that the London Stock Exchange functions well, and how to advance the FCA’s objective to ensure the soundness, stability and resilience of the UK’s financial system, which is defined as including the London Stock Exchange and the London Clearing House.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend thought about what would happen, were the merger to go ahead, if the eurozone collapsed, given some of its fundamental difficulties? Having extricated ourselves from involvement in the euro and, on Brexit, from the European Union, would the merger not lock in some of the potential downsides to the UK equity and capital markets without gaining us any of the upsides?
Sir William Cash
As I have said, the withdrawal Bill is quite clear. We will leave. That means that we will be insulated from the catastrophe that could occur if the eurozone collapsed. I could enlarge that point, but I will not for the time being.
There is another statutory requirement to ensure the principle of the desirability of sustainable growth in the UK’s economy in the medium or long term. Those are all statutory functions, and I strongly suggest that Her Majesty’s Treasury should decide—in fact, I urge it to—that it is not in the UK’s interests to allow a deal where there is a clear intention to take action that would cause systemic risks in the UK and be detrimental to UK tax revenues.
I move to the powers of the Bank of England, which is under a judicially reviewable statutory duty in respect of the test of approval for any acquisition of the London Clearing House. Under the European market infrastructure regulation, the test for approval in general terms for the purpose of ensuring the sound and prudent management of the London Clearing House raises questions of the suitability of the proposed acquirer and the soundness of the proposed acquisition, including the person who will direct the business of the London Clearing House. It also includes questions relating to whether the Bank of England would be able effectively to supervise, and several other factors. All those are in question in this instance.
I turn to the powers of the Financial Conduct Authority, which is required to approve the acquisition of the London Stock Exchange because it involves the acquisition of the “control” over the LSE by the new holding company. In those circumstances, the FCA has to consider the suitability of the new group holding company and the financial soundness of the acquisition to ensure sound and prudent management, and have regard to the key influence that the new group holding company will have on the London Stock Exchange. There are grave concerns about all those matters that pose a threat to the sound and prudent management of the London Stock Exchange, including questions relating to moving euro clearing out of London. The removal of euro clearing to Germany would undermine UK economic growth, because it may lead to the movement of other currency clearing out of the UK and undermine the City’s success. Moving the new holding company to Frankfurt would also be against the UK national interest.
George Kerevan
I grant that there is an issue about the removal of all or a substantial amount of euro clearing to the European Union jurisdiction, but that may come anyway as a result of Brexit; it is not dependent on whether this merger takes place. Indeed, one could argue that the merger might act as a barrier to such a move.
Sir William Cash
I was against the merger before Brexit, and I have become even more so since. I emphatically repeat my view that it is against the national interest, and I will not in any way resile from that point.
This deal would operate against the UK’s national interest in several ways. For example, the driver behind the merger is to consolidate as much market activity across the whole value chain into as few liquidity pools as possible. The reason given for that is to allow customers—primarily the world’s largest banks—to manage their capital and collateralisation requirements as efficiently as possible, particularly in the illiquid and untransparent world of OTC interest rate swaps. The most efficient way of achieving that is to have one dominant silo. This merger would bring together the two pre-eminent trading and post-trade silos in Europe, the London Stock Exchange and Clearing House and Eurex, which is owned by Deutsche Börse. One of those silos would inevitably prosper disproportionately, at the strategic and economic expense of the other. Given that a German chief executive officer would immediately be in place—whether that is the presently proposed CEO or not—and more than 54% of the shares would be owned by Deutsche Börse shareholders, and given the strength of Eurex’s existing listed derivatives clearing house, there is a very meaningful risk that the London Stock Exchange and the London Clearing House, and therefore the City as a whole, would be at the thin end of the wedge.
In the real world of markets, this works as follows. There will be no big announcements, no formal closures and no notice of intention to leave. Rather, liquidity will be shifted from one place to another through the creation of incentives and tipping points. Mirror contracts will be created that mimic what is on offer in London. Special arrangements for collateral and cross-margining in the favoured venue will be put in place. Without anyone particularly noticing, liquidity will shift away from London to the continent. Once that siphoning of liquidity begins, it will be unstoppable, and without liquidity there is no market.
Prior to Brexit, when this deal was first negotiated, that was a very attractive outcome for the LSE’s German partner. Post Brexit, control of the combined group and the shift of London’s business to Europe is an absolute necessity for Deutsche Börse and its national stakeholders. The importance of that is shown by the ever louder calls from German politicians and regulators for the combined group to be headquartered in Frankfurt. Controlling the LSE’s direction is key to Frankfurt successfully becoming the new financial centre of Europe—clearly at London’s expense. Even if the headquarters are maintained in the UK, there will be a German CEO, a majority of shares will be held by Deutsche Börse shareholders and there will be a massive political push from Frankfurt, which will lead to decisions being taken behind closed doors, against the UK’s interests.
The exchanges themselves have suggested that that loss of liquidity from London will not happen, and the solution is a so-called liquidity bridge. No market participant—apparently even the companies themselves—seems to understand what is meant by that or how it would be delivered. No reliance should be placed on it.
Finally, the acquisition of LCH.Clearnet SA by Euronext, which is largely French and Dutch-controlled and headquartered in Paris, is another political wildcard. That would enable France to exert much greater political force behind its push for euro clearing to relocate to Paris, again potentially creating systemic risk and dangerous uncertainty in the UK’s markets.
This transaction has the clear potential to strip a key activity out of the City of London. It should certainly not be nodded through in the midst of Brexit negotiations. Why weaken the City before we have even started the process of exiting the EU? I have mentioned the Enterprise Act 2002, which I understand can still be used in the public interest, including by reference to the criterion of UK financial stability.
In an important article published in the Financial Times on 13 February, Jonathan Ford makes it clear that the €29 billion merger was, as we know, conceived before the Brexit vote. The deal was supposed to take advantage of a converging EU rule book in the single market by drawing together Europe’s two most vibrant securities markets and their clearing activities, which are the financial plumbing of the system. The aim was to create
“a single…‘pool of liquidity’”
that captured scale economies, in competition with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Jonathan Ford argues that to make their own common pool a reality, Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange would have to be very ambitious. He doubts whether that is feasible. He indicates that there is a serious problem, namely, that
“clearing operations have a wider impact on the functioning of capital markets; not just the management of systemic risk but on the very competitiveness of financial centres.”
He states:
“Given the importance of finance to the post-Brexit economy,”
the United Kingdom has a “strong interest” in ensuring that the deal is not damaging to London as a financial centre. He argues that the Bank of England and the FCA still have vetoes, and the Government can
“determine the outcome in the wider public interest.”
He suggests that the Government would be wise to intervene to prevent the loss of future business, and indicates that it would be better to take account of the Brexit negotiations as they proceed.
The UK has long been in favour of foreign direct investment, which increases productive capacity through capital investment, transfers of technology, skills and better management. Deutsche Börse’s acquisition of LSE is not FDI. It is not cross-border investment in the UK by residents and businesses from another country with the aim of establishing a lasting investment in the UK. FDI does not cover the asset stripping and systemic risks associated with the proposed merger. Foreign investment in UK infrastructure, including in the LSE, is welcome—the LSE of course already has many foreign shareholders—but this merger must not be allowed to clamp down on competition, gut the UK’s financial infrastructure and cause significant and lasting damage to the UK. It is understood that the European Commission has already commenced proceedings and the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse have received a limited statement of objections to the proposed deal.
In conclusion, I urge the Government, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority, and other regulatory authorities, including those in Germany and Brussels, to recognise that whatever the reasons may have been for the merger before 23 June 2016, the reasons since then for determining and resisting it are extremely strong and should be employed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. The debate is due to finish at 5.30 pm. I need to call the Front-Bench Members no later than 5.07 pm. The recommended time limits for the Front-Bench speakers are: five minutes for the SNP; five minutes for Her Majesty’s official Opposition; and 10 minutes for the Minister. That allows two or three minutes for Sir William Cash to sum up at the end. Five Members wish to speak, so I am afraid there will have to be a three-minute limit. If there are too many interventions, somebody will not be able to speak.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for bringing this debate before us. However, the context and tone in which it has been undertaken is a bit unfortunate. To me, it seems that this is not a political issue, but it is being made to feel like one.
To give some context, there have increasingly been mergers in stock exchanges. There were 18 stock exchanges internationally in 1999, but that had decreased to five by 2012—those numbers were given in a Library briefing paper.
James Duddridge
There are more stock exchanges than that in Africa, so that is wrong.
Kirsty Blackman
Those are the numbers that were given in a Library briefing paper, so I assumed they were correct.
There has been a move towards stock exchange mergers in recent years. Therefore, the merger is in the context of the London Stock Exchange Group looking to compete with bigger stock exchanges and needing to be a bigger stock exchange in order to do that.
I want to make it clear that the merger is not an anti-Britain move. As has been said, it was conceived a long time before the Brexit vote happened. It is not about trying to write Britain out, and the deal was not set up to try to move things to Frankfurt. In fact, as the hon. Member for Stone stated, the headquarters of the new organisation will be in London and—I do not think he mentioned this—the board will be 50:50 from the LSE and Deutsche Börse. There is therefore a lot of protection built in.
The London Stock Exchange Group has a good story to tell, and I want to talk about that briefly and about protections. The group has done a huge amount to support high-growth small and medium-sized enterprises through its ELITE and AIM programmes, both of which have been immensely successful. In fact, the group will come to Aberdeen next month to speak to companies about accessing finance.
I have asked the UK Government on a number of occasions for assistance for oil and gas companies in accessing finance and have felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall and not getting much of a response. However, the LSE Group has offered to come and talk to companies about ways in which they can access finance, which is hugely important. Those companies are not big enough to be involved in the stock exchange but the group is looking to grow them. It has also been successful in the horizontal model it uses for clearing. Again, protections are written in that will ensure that such things continue.
I have talked about the 50:50 board and the HQ in the UK. No one seriously thinks that Frankfurt will become the centre for European banking. That is just not the case. Anyone who has heard about the situation on the ground in Frankfurt knows that it does not have the infrastructure to support that. It is not going to happen. Companies will not move wholescale to Frankfurt. If I was a Frankfurt politician, I would want people to come and I would be making positive statements about that happening, but it is not going to happen. London will continue to be a big financial centre, and the link between the London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Börse will serve to bolster that rather than to weaken it.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) put it incredibly well, so I will not trouble the House with the detail he put on paper so articulately. As he rightly said, the merger was conceived before the Brexit vote and circumstances have fundamentally changed. Our Prime Minister has said that we will be leaving the single market, and I suspect that we will leave the customs union. That very much puts into question whether in any event the deal remains commercially viable for the many of the reasons he identified. The pooling looks dubious to me, and the cost savings are certainly dubious. The biggest concern is that, post-Brexit, this is on the political agenda as opposed to the commercial agenda, which worries me.
I hear what the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said about not being concerned about change of control. I do not agree with her sense of security. If the control of shareholders is with Deutsche Börse, they can change anything that is written into the agreement. I believe the chairman is to be a German, and he will have the casting vote.
The consequences are that we are putting at risk one of our most valuable assets. The headquarters of this wonderful institution could move to Frankfurt. The regulatory environment in which the stock exchange works could change. The eurozone could take on euro clearing. I do not agree with the hon. Lady that that is inevitable—it is still up for negotiation and I would like to clear euros here. Do we really want to take that risk where politics trumps economics, as in the EU project?
Whatever we think of the merger, this is not the right time. We will cause instability in the market if we carry on with it. My plea to the Minister, and indeed to the Prime Minister, to whom I have written, is that the decision should be delayed until 2019. We have the power to do that. As my hon. Friend indicated, the Bank of England can do it, the Chancellor of the Exchequer can do it, the FCA can do it and the Competition and Markets Authority can do it. The risks are huge. The competition authority in Europe has yet again moved the date for its decision, to 3 April. If it makes the decision, there will be unstoppable momentum behind the merger and we risk all the events that my hon. Friend identified becoming a reality. It will then be very difficult to stop.
I agree with my hon. Friend that FDI is a good thing, but this is not FDI. Why would we threaten our national economy? Why would we threaten our national security? The stock exchange, just like the NHS and BT, is one of our crown jewels. When we look at these commercial transactions, we must ensure that we make exceptions for things that are important to national wealth, national health and national infrastructure. The City supports that. I have now spoken to more than 50 individuals, and they will be named shortly.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am glad: your stricture will cut down my 20 minutes of waffle to three minutes of pithiness. The London Stock Exchange is one of the world’s largest diversified international market infrastructure and capital markets businesses. However—my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) made this key point—it is no longer a social institution. It is a public company like any other. Its existence and ability to trade depends on its range and quality of products. It is not a members’ club or a public body.
Since its inception as a public company, it has changed dramatically, not only in the last 12 years but in the 40 years since we joined the European Union. As we leave the European Union, we need to recognise how much it has changed. It has sought opportunities to expand, and it has brought great success to the City of London, extending the range of products and activities. One therefore needs to see the merger with Deutsche Börse as the latest in a long list of opportunities and expansions that the London Stock Exchange has taken part in.
I do not have time to rehearse or go through my hon. Friend’s concerns. He was right to make a number of them—there clearly are some concerns—but he failed to talk about any of the significant advantages. First, the merger would create a European market infrastructure company to challenge other comparable companies in the world. It is simply not right to say that the efficiency savings or cost savings would be minimal. There would be considerable efficiency savings that would reduce the trading costs for market participants and, inevitably, for end users—the pension funds we are all in—and it would reduce the costs for capital raising.
One of the great advantages of this potential merger is that the UK’s high-growth businesses—they are the backbone of this country and, as we are now all Brexiteers, they want to go out into the world and compete—need to be able to get the capital that is so critical for growth and job creation in the United Kingdom. Highly innovative, high-growth companies in the UK need that access to non-bank finance and, in particular, equity. They also need the ability to access debt and debt instruments, which is one of the major opportunities that the merger will provide to both UK-based regional powerhouses and internationally-competing UK companies. We should not underestimate that benefit.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for bringing the debate, which is very timely. As has been pointed out, the merger has been on the horizon for some time, but Brexit has suddenly crept over the horizon and, I am sure, will fundamentally impact on the decision-making process.
Half of St Albans’s economically active population work in London, with many working in financial services. I believe Brexit presents the opportunity to recalibrate our financial services, but the merger has the potential to take away from our negotiating strategy. It is in the best interests of the EU to give London a good deal in the Brexit negotiations, but not if the stock exchange is relocated to Frankfurt, which could happen as a result of the merger. To not look at this in detail would be foolish.
As has been pointed out, 17 of the largest currencies in the world are cleared in London, including the euro. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan have hailed the City as
“one of the most attractive places in the world to do business”,
citing its “stable legal systems” and
“deep, liquid capital markets unmatched anywhere else in Europe”.
Doing anything that somehow puts a drag anchor on that liquidity is going to be a problem for the future. The merger should not proceed in such a febrile and shifting period as a result of our Brexit negotiations.
Does the Minister agree that it is in the best interests of the European Union’s internal market to maximise its access to City financial services? I believe it is totemic that the stock exchange that is at the heart of those financial services actually stays in London. I do not agree with the Scottish National party Member, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), that stock exchanges emerge hither and thither and it does not really matter where, and that a headquarters in one place is enough. I actually think it is of concern. If any other major business was potentially being taken out of this country, such as a car manufacturing business or any other manufacturing business, there would be significant concern. The fact that this is to do with financial services and the stock exchange does not make it any less of a concern.
We should put a stay on the merger, which could be perverse and jeopardise the positive situation in the City of London. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said, decisions must be taken in the UK, by the UK. Taking back control was fundamental to the drive for Brexit; ceding control at this particular stage, if that is at all possible, would be at odds with the drive in this country to keep control within the United Kingdom.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to one of my constituents for drawing my attention to this issue. I want to hear what the Minister has to say because, if we look at all of the recent mergers and acquisitions activity, whether between ARM Holdings and SoftBank, PSA and Vauxhall, Unilever and Kraft, or even Liberty House and Tata Steel, the Government are saying something. The Government have a view, so I think, as many hon. Members have said, it is appropriate to hear the Government’s updated view.
It is clear from other aspects of Government policy that there was no planning for post-Brexit circumstances for our country, so it is appropriate that they should have a new and fresh look at this. We need to know if our rules and regulations for competitive markets and a national interest test are suitable and up to what is needed in this new period of uncertainty in our economy. We have inherited those rules from the past, but should we rely on them as if we were part of the European Union and say they are fine and fit for purpose now, or is it appropriate for us to look at them anew?
It is also important to hear from the Government, because their crucial role at this time is to reduce uncertainty in our economy, so that people, companies and banks start investing in our country. It is fair to say that there is not a conspiracy—I do not think there is a conspiracy in the City—but when there are mergers and acquisitions involving a vast number of advisers, their interest will be focused on the deal and not necessarily on the impartiality of their advice to the Government. Without a clear review from the Government, there is a risk that the City will just let the merger through on the nod because so many people have vested interests.
Echoing my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, I would like to know the Government’s role in reducing uncertainty on three specific issues. First, he mentioned a significantly increased systemic risk for the Bank of England from linking the two clearing houses, therefore exposing the UK to systematic breakdown of the euro. What assessment have the Government made of the extent of that? Secondly, as has been mentioned, on exposing the stock exchange to political risk from political groups outside the UK, what is the Government’s policy for managing that increased political risk if the merger goes through?
Thirdly, the harmonisation of business models has been mentioned by both sides during the debate. That is a way forward, but it is not the only way forward. Do the Government view the City of London harmonising with the EU as a priority, or should it better be looking to independently frame arrangements with the world?
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The five-minute guideline limit for speeches will be displayed on the clocks to help the opposition spokesmen to keep the debate on time.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. This is an important debate, and we have discovered that an hour is not enough. I hope we can take it into the main Chamber at some point because a lot of issues need to be cleared up.
The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) is correct: this is a national issue and we have to take the national interest into consideration. The track record of takeovers and mergers in recent years has actually proven that, more often than not, the national interest has not been well served. There are a number of instances, particularly in financial services at this crucial moment in time, where dangers have to be brought into the light. The takeover by MasterCard of VocaLink, our main payments system in the UK, is systemically dangerous. It is also a technology raid, because we have the best payments technology in the world—that is another issue.
We have to judge mergers on a case-by-case basis. I say with due respect to everyone—I am not trying to make a silly debating point—that, if there has been a move to politicise this particular merger, I am afraid it has come from those who supported Brexit. They are in danger of finding problems where there are none to be found. Why would the owners of the London Stock Exchange Group walk into a merger like this if it was so disastrous for their business, and if it was so patently obvious that they were going to be out-regulated and that their business will be shifted away to another part of the world? If we look at it from that perspective, it ensures a bit of common sense in the debate.
George Kerevan
I would dearly love to give way, but given the little amount of time I have, I will not. As things move on, I hope we will have the chance for further discussion.
Hon. Members might be interested to know who actually owns the two parties in the proposed merger. In fact, the bulk of the London Stock Exchange Group’s ownership is not British. It is the Qatar Investment Authority, it is BlackRock, which is a major American private equity group, and it is Invesco, which is headquartered in Bermuda—we can all ask why that is. It is not actually the jewel in the crown of the UK, as was mentioned. It is already an internationalised organisation.
If we were to ask who owns Deutsche Börse, the answer is that the majority is owned by City of London institutions. That underlines the fact that, while there are hundreds of small exchanges all over the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, the big exchanges are owned by global institutions, and they are about mobilising global amounts of capital. In particular, they are no longer simply about narrow trading in equity. They are fundamentally about finding the capital for exchanges in derivatives and interest rate swaps, which makes the whole global capital market work. For that, the capital needs to be pooled. That is why for the past 15 to 20 years, right across the globe, there has been a constant move to merge and in some way consolidate the large exchanges. As we know, it has not been easy for political and national interest reasons, but that is the way the market is going. I put it to Members that it is either this merger or another merger—a stand-alone London Stock Exchange Group is no longer tenable.
That brings me to the final point worth making. Aspects of the structure of the merger have to be discussed, particularly post-Brexit. For instance, it seems strange that it is 54% to Deutsche Börse and 46% to the London Stock Exchange, rather than 50:50. That should be discussed, but in the end, this or some other merger will go ahead. Let us look at the specific technical issues, but let us not politicise this issue, because it is the nature of the way these global markets are working.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on securing this extremely important debate at a critical time for the London Stock Exchange and for the many financial services companies in Europe and beyond that depend on its continued successful functioning. The hon. Gentleman could reasonably be regarded as the Archbishop of Brexit, so when he says that something might not be in the national interest as a result of the Brexit process, I for one certainly take heed of that.
The London Stock Exchange is a great British institution, with a history dating back to 1698. In the intervening centuries, the LSE has evolved far beyond a simple trading platform. Its services are now exported around the world and a variety of markets benefit from those services, which include clearing, indexing and technology. As policy makers, it must be our priority to provide an environment in which that can continue. However, the LSE sits at the convergence of a number of challenges as the UK seeks its departure from the European Union. We need to pay careful attention to how those challenges can be managed, not only for the future success of the LSE but to ensure that potential damage to the rest of the financial services sector is mitigated.
The first and most sensitive of those challenges is undoubtedly the proposed merger of the LSE and Deutsche Börse. Given the standing of the LSE, it is unsurprising that it has been courted by numerous merger partners over the years. Mergers were under discussion between these two particular organisations as long ago as 2000. The LSE last rejected an offer from Deutsche Börse in 2005. Today’s proposed merger has shareholder approval from both sides. The only barriers that remain are regulatory approval and the go-ahead from the relevant European and UK competition authorities.
There are good reasons why this deal could be in the best interests of industry more widely and the consumer, notwithstanding the outcome of in-depth scrutiny by anti-trust authorities. In the years following the 2008 financial crisis, regulators have made significant progress towards tackling a fragmented post-trade environment and mitigating systemic risk. It is arguable that the economies of scale provided by this merger may help those efforts, while creating a significant global player, as the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) outlined.
Consolidation has been a notable trend in recent years among trading venues, driven by a number of factors, but ultimately larger single entities have the potential to reduce costs for their stakeholders. This particular merger could also improve capital flows across the European Union, in the intended spirit of the capital markets union. I worry a little bit, listening to Conservative Members, about the degree of protectionism that seems to be slipping into centre-right parties around the world at the moment. Those advantages are perhaps being underestimated.
It is undeniable that the UK’s decision to leave the European Union has significantly altered the terms of reference for the deal. In my view, it will be extremely challenging for the relevant regulatory and anti-trust bodies to deliver a final verdict on the proposals while the detail around the conditions of our exit from the European Union remain so vague. Notably, there seems to be some debate over whether the headquarters of the new entity would be in London, which was treated as a given prior to the vote on 23 June, or in Frankfurt, which has now entered the discussion given the UK’s signalled departure from the single market. Clearly there are strong arguments for both sides, but the conversation must take place in the context of ensuring a future for clearing activities in the City of London.
London is one of the world’s leading centres for clearing, providing essential market infrastructure to global financial services. The revenue and jobs that the industry supports must be recognised in the Brexit negotiations. LSE’s subsidiary, LCH.Clearnet, which is 57% owned by the LSE, cleared over 90% of the world’s over-the-counter derivatives last year, amounting to a figure in excess of $655 trillion. That is especially pertinent given the ongoing efforts by certain parties to relocate euro-denominated clearing to the continent. In 2015, LCH cleared €327 trillion across different euro-denominated products, according to evidence submitted to the Treasury Committee by the LSE earlier this year. The scale of that activity is so significant that it could support up to 232,000 jobs throughout the UK, which would be lost if euro-denominated clearing went as part of the Brexit process.
Although efforts have so far failed on the continent, given some strong practical arguments against re-domiciling those transactions, the relevant authorities must give careful consideration to potentially creating a bridge between Frankfurt and London that includes LCH.Clearnet, to mitigate the risk of that gaining traction.
The LSE is one of the vital cogs that has helped to build the UK’s successful financial services sector. It is critical that we ensure it can continue to function effectively post-Brexit. A full and in-depth assessment of the proposed merger must take place in that context.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
If the Minister would be kind enough to conclude his remarks no later than 5.27 pm, he would allow Sir William to sum up the debate.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Simon Kirby)
Thank you, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on securing this important and topical debate. He has made many thoughtful and detailed points, and I will do my very best to answer them in the brief time I have. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) also raised some interesting points, which I will attempt to answer as I work my way through my speech; he should bear with me.
What is clear today is that we share the same interest: the continued success of an important, and some would say iconic, British company. The London Stock Exchange Group has a proud history that goes back more than 200 years. While the group is most famous today for its equities exchange, it is in fact a much wider business that includes, notably, one of the world’s major clearing houses.
I well recognise that the proposed merger with Deutsche Börse is a significant development. Let me start by recalling some of its key terms. The merged company will be controlled by a newly created parent company, headquartered here in London. At the outset, it will be owned 54.4% by shareholders of Deutsche Börse and 45.6% by LSE Group shareholders. The board of directors of the merged group—
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but a Division has been called in the House. If there is just one Division, we will return in 15 minutes. If there are two Divisions, we will resume in 25 minutes.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
We have 12 minutes left, of which the Minister can take up to nine.
Simon Kirby
It is a pleasure to be back under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I was talking about the shareholding of the company. The board of directors of the merged group will be drawn from both sides of the group and chaired by the current LSE chair, Donald Brydon. The deal on the terms has now been approved by both sets of shareholders, but official scrutiny of the merger remains outstanding. Let me address that point in response to questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone asked about the roles of the FCA and the Bank of England.
The deal must be cleared by numerous regulators worldwide, including in Germany and the UK. In the UK, the Bank of England and the FCA have a statutory role in assessing and approving changes in the control of central counterparties and stock exchanges respectively. On CCPs, the Bank must be satisfied of the reputation and financial soundness of the acquirer, the reputation and experience of any person who will direct the CCP following acquisition, the CCP’s ongoing capacity to continue to comply with relevant regulations, and any money laundering or terrorist financing concerns. On exchanges, the FCA is empowered to intervene if it considers that the change of control would pose a threat to the sound and prudent management of the regulated market. Those assessments remain outstanding and the regulators are in ongoing discussions with the companies.
Of course, the merger is of such a size that it must face rigorous scrutiny from the European Commission on competition grounds. Its investigation is also ongoing and includes the engagement of the UK Competition and Markets Authority in a consultative capacity. It is due to reach its conclusion in early April. That is a complex and sensitive inquiry, which I will not attempt to prejudge.
My hon. Friend asked about the Government’s position. The Government do not have a formal role in scrutinising the merger, and it would not be appropriate for us to take a position either way on the deal, but we are following it closely and are in touch with the regulators.
Another area of concern that was raised pertains to the migration of businesses to Frankfurt if the merger goes ahead—particularly clearing businesses. The merger is subject to ongoing regulatory assessments. These are commercial matters, but for hon. Members’ benefit, let me read out what the LSE Group said on 16 January in relation to speculation about the merger. It stated that
“such action is not contemplated and any statements suggesting otherwise are inaccurate and misguided…LSEG and Deutsche Börse are committed to maintaining the strengths and capabilities of their respective operations in London and Frankfurt. Further, the existing regulatory framework of all regulated entities will remain unchanged and, in particular, there is no intention to move the locations of Eurex or Clearstream from Frankfurt, LCH from London and the US, Monte Titoli from Milan or CC&G from Rome following completion.”
That is what the company said, but let me emphasise that we are not complacent about the position of UK financial services companies, and we will continue to ensure that we support and enable their ongoing success.
On the implications of Brexit, we are in regular contact with not just the LSE but many financial services firms to understand the implications of Brexit for their varied areas of business and their priorities for the new trading relationship as we negotiate with the EU. Our aim is clear: to ensure the continued success of British financial services and the millions of jobs that they bring to people across the UK.
Moving on to specific points raised during the debate, I welcome the thoughtful contributions made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and the hon. Members for East Lothian (George Kerevan) and for Stalybridge and Hyde. I want particularly to answer my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who asked whether the deal could be postponed. In the long term, this business, like so many others, will need to meet the challenges and opportunities of Brexit. I assure Members that the Government take our role seriously. We will continue to engage with the LSE and other firms across the financial services sector to ensure that we understand their plans and what they consider they need from the arrangements that we are negotiating with the EU.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) asked what was to stop TopCo moving to Germany. The deal has been voted on by shareholders in its current terms with the London headquarters. It is clearly part of a balanced structure designed to secure the approval of both sets of shareholders. Ultimately, the long-term location of the headquarters is a matter for the board and shareholders, in common with other companies, but importantly, it is worth noting that in this case, the articles of association of the combined company will contain a safeguard that the location of the company cannot change without the approval of 75% of the directors. Also, of course, under the Companies Act 2006, the removal of that safeguard from the articles of association could take place only with the agreement of 75% of the combined group’s shareholders. That is a significant point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) asked whether the companies would merge their central counterparties and whether that would create a systemic risk. The European market infrastructure regulation establishes a strict supervisory framework for CCPs, and in the UK they are regulated by the Bank of England. He was also keen to know more about the Government’s view on takeovers. I have said and will repeat that there is a formal and regular scrutiny system for takeovers of exchanges and CCPs, operated by the Bank and the Financial Conduct Authority. There is also a competition scrutiny process.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone asked about TopCo moving to Germany. I reiterate my previous comments: the deal has been voted on by shareholders in its current terms with the London headquarters. There will be 50% of directors from each side, and the shareholders’ agreement provides additional and clear reassurance. He asked about the Treasury’s power to direct the Bank of England. It is true that the Bank of England Act 1946 includes that power, but the factors that the Bank can take into account are set at European level in EMIR, and the Bank would still be subject to those constraints in a scenario where the Treasury sought to exercise its power of direction. We can direct it only if we act lawfully, and we cannot direct it to act beyond the scope of its regulatory powers as set out in EMIR.
The Government take a close interest in the developments on the proposed merger and the assessments of the various regulatory bodies involved. Financial services represent an immensely important industry for the UK, and we have been clear that we will pursue a bold and ambitious free trade agreement involving the freest possible trade in goods and services, including in that sector. That is in not only our interests but those of member states across the EU. I thank hon. Members from throughout the House for being here today and sharing the commitment that we all have to the future success of the London Stock Exchange and the sector more broadly.
Sir William Cash
I am glad that the Government will consider the matter carefully, and that it is clear from this debate that everyone accepts the need to examine the issue rigorously, as so many have urged on me since I introduced the proposals. We look forward to that further examination, which may well be on the Floor of the House.
I do not have time to go into all the details of the essential questions now; I set them out in my speech. On the question of who calls the shots and the location of the headquarters, as I said, formally moving the headquarters to Germany would not be likely given the need for a significant shareholder vote, but that is beside the point. The real issue is who calls the shots and in whose interests critical decisions are made. It is no answer to say that the HQ will remain in the UK if the people who are really in charge just fly in from Germany for the day. Decisions must be taken in the UK, in the interests of the UK. I hope that the Government will take a proactive position on all of this.
I do not agree with the Minister’s assessment of the impact of the articles of association. I have been a lawyer for a long time, and I know that such things have an extraordinary capacity to disappear into the wind. I am not impressed by the 75% argument, whether it involves directors or the combined group. The key question is who calls the shots. The idea of 50% of the directors coming from each side is interesting, but basically it all comes down to the national interest.
With regard to the powers of the Treasury under section 4 of the 1946 Act, the European market infrastructure regulation is a European regulation. I inform the Minister, just in case he had not noticed, that we are leaving the European Union, which means that the European Court of Justice will no longer have a role in relation to the regulation. I do not say this cynically, but I strongly suggest that he goes back to his lawyers and assesses that point. The European Court of Justice will not have any jurisdiction over EMIR once the matter has been dealt with by our exiting the European Union, the repeal Bill and other measures. I thank you, Mr Hollobone, for your chairmanship of this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the future of the London Stock Exchange.
ECOFIN
(8 years ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
A meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) will be held in Brussels on 21 February 2017. EU Finance Ministers are due to discuss the following items:
Early morning session
Ministers will be briefed on the outcomes of the 20 February meeting of the Eurogroup, and the European Commission will present an update on the current economic situation following the publication of the Commission’s winter forecasts on 13 February. Ministers are also expected to discuss points of clarification in relation to the intergovernmental agreement on the single resolution fund.
Anti-tax avoidance directive
Ministers will be invited to reach a general approach to the second anti-tax avoidance directive (ATAD2).
Current financial services legislative proposals
The Council presidency will provide an update on current legislative proposals in the field of financial services.
Criteria and process leading to the establishment of the EU list of non-co-operative jurisdictions for tax purposes
Council will take stock of further work that has taken place following the Council conclusions agreed at ECOFIN on 8 November 2016.
Preparation of the G20 meeting of Finance Ministers and central bank governors on 17 and 18 March 2017 in Baden-Baden
Ministers will be asked to mandate the Economic and Finance Committee (EFC) to finalise the EU terms of reference for the next G20 meeting of Finance Ministers and central bank governors.
Discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for 2015
On the basis of a report from the European Court of Auditors, Ministers will be asked to approve a recommendation—to be forwarded to the European Parliament.
Budget guidelines for 2018
Ministers will be asked to adopt Council conclusions on the guidelines for the 2018 budget, which will serve as a point of reference in the forthcoming budgetary cycle.
European defence fund
The Commission will provide information on its European defence action plan, focusing in particular on the proposed launch of a European defence fund.
[HCWS484]
Agriculture and Fisheries Council
(8 years ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I represented the United Kingdom at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 23 January in Brussels.
Council opened with a presentation by the Maltese presidency on its work programme for the next six months.
This was followed by an update from Commissioner Hogan on the progress of EU trade talks, including a discussion of the findings of the Commission’s report on the cumulative economic impact of future trade agreements on EU agriculture. The UK intervened to point out the benefits of an ambitious approach to future EU free trade agreements.
The Council then discussed the dairy market situation and the recent report on the EU milk package, along with ongoing outbreaks of avian influenza. Member states including the UK welcomed the fragile recovery of the dairy market. Commissioner Hogan stressed that the release of supplies of skimmed milk powder held in public intervention would be handled carefully to avoid any negative impact on the market. On avian influenza, the UK joined with several other member states to raise concerns about the impact of necessary disease control measures on free-range egg producers. Commissioner Hogan agreed that the Commission would examine policy options and report back quickly.
A number of other items were discussed under “any other business”:
The Slovakian delegation provided information on the conclusions of the 40th conference of directors of paying agencies;
The Commission responded to a request for information regarding the scope of the Commission’s powers to adopt delegated acts for exceptions from the rules on protected designations of origin for wines.
Until exit negotiations are concluded, the UK remains a full member of the European Union and all the rights and obligations of EU membership remain in force. The outcome of these negotiations will determine what arrangements apply in relation to EU legislation in future once the UK has left the EU.
[HCWS483]
Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Permission in Principle etc) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) Regulations 2017
(8 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That the Grand Committee do consider the Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Permission in Principle etc) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) Regulations 2017.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations are necessary to ensure the effective operation of permission in principle when it is introduced later this year. Permission in principle is a new route to planning permission that will give developers up-front certainty that sites are suitable for housing-led development in principle, before they need to work up detailed and costly development proposals.
Permission in principle will make the planning process less risky and more efficient and, in doing so, will help tackle the undersupply of housing by increasing the amount of land, particularly brownfield land, with permission to build. We secured the primary powers through the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to bring permission in principle into effect. We consulted on the detailed operation of the policy and, taking account of the responses received, are now developing secondary legislation that we intend to lay shortly before this House. These regulations make a small number of minor consequential and miscellaneous amendments to primary legislation.
Regulation 2 amends paragraph 9 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, which prevents local planning authorities excluding information at a planning committee about an application for planning permission in relation to development on its own land. This amendment will require the local planning authority to comply with this requirement where an application for permission in principle is made in relation to local authority land, thereby ensuring an equal level of transparency.
Regulation 3 amends the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Section 69 of that Act deals with entries on planning registers, which are public records of planning applications and permissions in the local area. Regulation 3 will ensure that records of permission in principle applications and consents are made publicly available on local planning registers, too. Section 75 of the 1990 Act ensures that a grant of planning permission enures for the benefit of the land. In other words, a grant of planning permission runs with the land and is not personal to the applicant. Regulation 3 applies this long-standing principle to grants of permission in principle, so that they also run with the land and not with the applicant.
Section 96A of the 1990 Act enables a non-material change, for example a correction to a spelling mistake, to be made to a grant of planning permission. This amendment will enable the applicant to follow an expedited process to make a non-material change to a grant of permission in principle. Without this amendment, the applicant would have to reapply for permission in principle to make such a change. The final change we propose to make through Regulation 3 is to amend Section 100 of the 1990 Act, which deals with revocation powers. This amendment will ensure that local planning authorities can revoke or modify a grant of permission in principle in the exceptional circumstances where such a course of action is necessary. This is consistent with the current arrangements for grants of full or outline planning permission.
Regulation 4 amends the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 to ensure that in dealing with an application for hazardous substances consent, the hazardous substances authority shall have regard to any permission in principle that has been granted in relation to land in the vicinity. This change will ensure consistency with the arrangements for having due regard to grants of planning permission in relation to hazardous substances consent.
Finally, Regulation 5 will amend the Commons Act 2006 to ensure that when a local planning authority publicises its intention to grant permission in principle to a suitable site on a brownfield register, the right to apply to register that site as a town and village green is switched off. The right to apply is reinstated when a period of 10 weeks passes from when the local planning authority publicises its intention to grant permission in principle without the land being granted such permission. The right to apply is also reinstated when the grant of permission in principle expires. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I have two brief questions for the Minister. The first relates to the definition of housing-led development that the Government are currently using. We debated this during the passing of the Bill and, as I understand it, permission in principle can be obtained only in relation to housing-led development. However, questions were posed at the time regarding what happens when the housing element of a development is much smaller than the development as a whole, which may have commercial development at its heart and the housing element is consequential. In other words, can permission in principle be granted for housing on a site where less than half of the total development planned is for housing? A clear definition would be helpful.
The second matter is not so much a question as a request for the Minister to consider producing for the general public a plain-English guide to planning law. There are complexities around the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which goes to Report on Thursday, and the changes it makes to the Housing and Planning Act, under which these regulations are being made. If one looks at, for example, permitted development regulations, permission in principle regulations and, probably in future, pre-commencement conditions, the question arises of whether there are any plans to consolidate all of them. Perhaps more importantly, it should be made easy for the general public, particularly those who are producing neighbourhood plans, to understand the statutory position of many of these policies in relation to themselves. In other words, it should be written in language that people can understand.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful, clear and brief exposition. I note that he is a compatriot with a truly Welsh title. I have a brief question on Regulation 4—“Consequential amendment to the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990”—in the knowledge that successive Governments have been encouraging the use of brownfield sites. There must be a relevance to that aspect of policy and this item. What is the consequence of this regulation for builders, local authority housing committees and housing associations? How have the Government reached conclusions affecting the use of brownfield sites? I note the helpful reference to Regulation 4 in the Explanatory Note and the mention of a “hazardous substances authority”. Can the Minister—during the debate, by letter or with help from officials—say what this authority is, who is chairing it and what sort of people sit on it? It is relevant in terms of a genuine debate.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I start my remarks with my usual declarations and refer Members to my entry in the register of interests. I should specifically mention that I am a local councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Government are slowly—actually, very slowly—bringing forward regulations under the Housing and Planning Act. We are now coming up to the first anniversary of Royal Assent, and I recall all the fuss, hoo-hah and pressure we had to get the Bill on to the statute book. When Members argued that we should spend a bit more time getting the regulations sorted out, we were told, “No, no, we have to get this on the statute book now. It must happen”. Here we are, nearly a year later, and one or two regulations are coming forward. That is no way to legislate. It has caused worry and confusion and is not the way to do things. Having said that, I am very pleased that the Government have dropped some parts of the Act. That is good, and long may it continue—there are one or two things we want to see the end of fairly shortly and all power to the noble Lord’s elbow on that—but it is not a great way to make legislation.
The SI deals with permission in principle. It is designed to separate planning decision-making on “in principle” issues—for example, locations—from the more technical detail, to give up-front certainty to developers before they get into the more technical and, some might say, costly matters. Equally, one could suggest that residents are concerned that this is just a way to bypass local people in the planning process so they have less influence. Of course, that is not very localist.
Turning to the specifics of the statutory instrument, I have one or two questions for the Minister, but I shall not be detaining the Grand Committee for very long. Regulation 2 provides that a local authority application for permission in principle should not be exempt information. Perhaps the Minister can say a little more about that, and whether the Government have any plans to increase transparency there. That would be useful. Regulation 3 concerns non-material amendments; perhaps he can say a little more about that. Regulation 4, to which my noble friend Lord Jones referred, talks about hazardous substances with regard to any permission in principle granted to land in the vicinity. Can we have more information about what that means in practice? How will the Government decide what is in the vicinity? What does that mean? It is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string. What sort of testing regime will there be of harmful impacts of hazardous substances on land, water supply or animal life? We need to know a bit more about what will be carried out.
Finally, Regulation 5 is about triggering and terminating events of an application for registration of a village green. As the Minister will know, Section 87 of the Localism Act 2011 is still a very new piece of legislation which was put on the statute book by the coalition Government and deals with assets of community value. It allows village greens to be designated and therefore prevents them being sold off for development. Effectively, the regulation could put a stop to all that. What is the point of putting something on the statute book in 2011 to give communities this right and then, six years later, creating a mechanism whereby that right can be lost? That does not seem very localist either. I should like to hear more from the Minister about that. What was the point of putting it on the statute book in the first place if we are now to take that right away with no warning to local people?
Those are my questions. I have no further points to make on the effect of the regulations. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I want to make just one point raised by my honourable friend Roberta Blackman-Woods when the matter was discussed in the Delegated Legislation Committee yesterday. She referred to the remark of the Minister in the Commons that the statutory instrument would amend primary legislation. As she pointed out, during the Bill’s passage there was a promise that a lot more detail on how the procedure would operate in practice would be brought forward in secondary legislation. This is not, by any means, the most substantive set of provisions in relation to what the 2016 Act brought into being—or, at least, forecast would be brought into being. Yesterday she asked whether and when the Minister would expect more information on how permission in principle will operate in practice.
We now have a housing White Paper. Does that mean that the secondary legislation under the previous Act will be held up until there is legislation following the housing White Paper? Are these two things connected, or will the Government proceed with the regulations implementing the provisions in last year’s Act? It all seems somewhat confused. This is a result of the very laborious process that many across the House warned last year was unsatisfactory: that we were being asked to pass legislation without seeing or being consulted on any draft regulations. I hope, therefore, that the Minister can indicate whether this specific issue—how permission in practice is going to work—will be the subject of regulations under the existing legislation, and when we might expect to see them.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on these regulations and I will try to address the points they made in the order in which they were raised.
First, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the definition of “housing-led development” is that the main purpose of the development is housing: that is central. I have much sympathy with the second issue raised by the noble Lord. As officials in my department know, I fight against acronyms and abbreviations every day, because they confuse me—and, I suspect, a lot of other people—so I will go away to reflect on that and look at our website to see how we make this more accessible for people than it is now or is generally the case. I have some sympathy with that point.
Turning to the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Jones, I thank him, as always, for his courtesy. His point, I think, related to Regulation 5 and the hazardous substances authority. What we are doing here is tightening the restrictions. I know from how this operates in Wales, which I think is essentially the same as in England, that currently if planning permission is granted for a site, the hazardous substances authority, in designating how it can be used—for the storage of oil or whatever—has to consider whether there is planning permission in the vicinity. I am not sure of the precise definition of “in the vicinity”, but I will write to the noble Lord about that, as I suspect that there is a statutory definition of it. The authority has to take account of that and that restricts it, for very understandable reasons. This regulation extends that to permission in principle, in addition to the existing planning permission.
I therefore thank the noble Lord for his considerate and, if I may say so, balanced response—which brings me to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who I thank for his qualified welcome and excellent impression of Eeyore during the first couple of minutes of his introduction. I know the noble Lord, and suspect that some of that was tongue in cheek. I will, however, address some of the points he raised about the regulations, starting with Regulation 2. This regulation is rooted in the community; a local decision is being made. This does not in any way run counter to the localism agenda. The choice about where to grant permission in principle is a local one. The local planning authority would make the decision in accordance with its own local plan and in line with the National Planning Policy Framework. That is a rigorous process, and I do not see anything unlocal, as it were, that runs against localism in that.
The noble Lord asked about Regulation 3, which amends the 1990 Act, and what it ensures. It ensures that in addition to current planning applications permissions, which are put on the register, permission in principle is put on the register as well. This extends transparency. Without this, it would not go on the register. I am sure the noble Lord welcomes that provision, possibly in a rather muted way.
Regulation 4 amends the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act. I think it was the noble Lord who asked about “vicinity”, and I will ensure that that is covered in a letter to noble Lords who have participated in the debate, as I am not quite sure of the definition. I think there is a fairly tight statutory definition.
The noble Lord then raised an interesting point on Regulation 5, which amends the Commons Act 2006. This is not a new procedure. There are trigger events at the moment—I think they operated under the last Labour Government as well—that, for understandable reasons which I would certainly support, put a halt to registering something as a commons when planning permission has been given for it. I do not think that that is unreasonable, as you have given planning permission. If the planning permission lapses or is withdrawn, the land is available once again for commons registration. That seems to me to be entirely sensible. It is a pause, and the same applies here. This extends the process to permission in principle—dare I say, mutatis mutandis? That operates on both sides, that one. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised points on this issue and I will have to write to him on those. As he said, the issue was raised in the Commons, and he makes a very fair point about making clear what we are going to do in this area. I will write to him on that issue and copy noble Lords in. I thank noble Lords who have in general given a welcome to these regulations.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the Minister for his welcome of the points I made. We are clearly going to have a number of these regulations over the next few weeks and months, and that is fine. We will debate them. However, we will come back to this point, and I make no apology for raising it. If you want to look at how to put legislation through Parliament, the Housing and Planning Act—I know the Minister was not in the department at the time and had no input whatever—was not a good example. It was rushed through, and here we are, a year later. It was not a good way of doing things. I make no apology for raising that. I am sure there are many examples of where the Labour Government did something similar. I am not suggesting it is only one party, but we need to look at how we make legislation. This Act was not a good experience for Parliament or for the department.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank the noble Lord for the constructive way he is offering to share the blame on legislation that fails to meet the objectives of being open, transparent and non-rushed. I hope that the process will be followed. I thank the noble Lord and the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Shipley, and other noble Lords for the way we have engaged on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. It is a model for others to follow. These regulations are wholly sensible, as I think the noble Lord accepts, and are consequent on measures that we know make sense in ensuring that we build more houses in our country.
Motion agreed.
Bereavement Support Payment Regulations 2017
(8 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Henley
That the Grand Committee do consider the Bereavement Support Payment Regulations 2017.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, the regulations were laid before the House on 12 January. They provide the details of a new benefit, bereavement support payment, which was first introduced as part of the Pensions Act 2014. Bereavement support payment will replace bereavement allowance, widowed parent’s allowance and the bereavement payment for those who lose a spouse or civil partner on or after 6 April 2017. These regulations set out the amounts to be paid, the duration of payments, payments for those who are prisoners, and the territories in which a person must reside in order to receive the new benefit. I am satisfied that this instrument is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Losing a spouse or civil partner is a tragic occurrence, and bereavement benefits provide vital financial support during this deeply distressing time in a person’s life. Previous reforms have tended to be limited and in response to specific pressures. No one had really considered how this support fits in with wider changes to the benefit system and, indeed, to the social landscape as a whole. Consequently, the current benefits are out of date, difficult to administer and hard to understand. Reform is essential to simplify and modernise the current system. The history of bereavement benefits is rooted in the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act 1925, at a time when most women were wholly dependent on their husband’s income. If a woman was widowed, her sole source of income would disappear completely, so it was considered necessary at that time to provide a replacement for that income in order for her to survive. Thankfully, that situation is no longer the case, women as well as men are active participants in today’s workforce, and many households are now made up of, and benefit from, dual careers and dual incomes. For those where the loss of a spouse equates to the loss of the sole breadwinner, income-related benefits are available to make sure that nobody is left without sufficient money to live on.
Compared to the current bereavement benefits, bereavement support payment is designed to be significantly simpler with a uniform payment structure and a single contribution condition. The aim is to provide targeted financial support at the time when it is needed most without affecting access to additional forms of support available through other parts of the welfare system. The reform of bereavement benefits has been welcomed by both the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Work and Pensions Select Committee, the latter of which heralded many of the changes as long overdue. In addition to scrutiny by those two bodies, bereavement support payment was also the subject of a public consultation exercise launched in 2011. Responses to this consultation played a major part in the design of bereavement support payment, including the decision to structure the payments as a series of instalments as opposed to a single lump sum and also the decision that bereavement support payment will not be subject to income tax.
The evidence from our public consultation exercise found that the financial impact of spousal bereavement is particularly acute in the early months. Bereavement support payment will therefore provide a significant cash boost for people at this time where they need it the most, with a lump sum followed by 18 monthly instalments. In recognition that those with children may need a greater level of support, a higher rate will be paid to those who are pregnant or who have dependent children at the time they are bereaved. The duration of payments is not intended to equate to the period of an individual’s grief, nor is it intended to provide ongoing income replacement; rather, the fundamental design principle of the new benefit is that, as a short-term payment, it is designed to address the additional costs of bereavement rather than contribute towards everyday living costs. Because they are clearly distinct from income replacement benefits, we will disregard payments of bereavement support payment from universal credit and legacy benefits, as well as discounting them from the calculations which count towards the benefit cap. This will clearly benefit the least well-off as they will, for the first time, be able to receive payments of bereavement benefit in full, alongside any other entitlements. For example, an unemployed widow with one child who is entitled to bereavement support payment could receive £7,350 in the first year. In addition, they could receive the standard allowance and the child element of universal credit, which is more than £7,130 a year. On top of this, they may also be able to access other support such as help with childcare and housing costs.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I thank the Minister for his succinct and helpful introduction. I realise that we have already had extensive debates during the passage of the pensions Bill and I do not wish to impede the progress that we are making with these regulations. Therefore I hope the Minister will not mind if I briefly raise a number of concerns, which I know are shared by my colleagues on the Bench of Bishops, in the hope that Her Majesty’s Government might keep these under review.
I have three concerns. The first is around the length of time for which bereavement support payments will be made, particularly to widowed parents with dependent children. At Second Reading of the pensions Bill, my right reverend friend the Bishop of Derby suggested that three years of additional financial support should be a minimum standard when helping bereaved families to adjust to life without a father or a mother, and I endorse his comments. If the Government are serious about this payment being about bereavement support, they must recognise that the effects of bereavement go way beyond 18 months. I realise that it is difficult to decide on what is the right length of time but I want to push the issue a little. Universal credit, with its system of conditionality, is unlikely to be appropriate for a young family still coming to terms with its grief.
My second concern is about the Government’s refusal to uprate basic support payments in line with inflation, which will see the value of the payments eroded after time, particularly given the likely rises in inflation over the coming years. Benefit support payments must be added to the list of benefits subject to annual review and be uprated in line with inflation. I hope that the Minister will encourage Her Majesty’s Government to commit to that in the forthcoming Budget.
Thirdly and finally, I have a concern about the failure to extend eligibility for bereavement support payments to cohabiting couples, particularly those with children. One might be surprised that I am making this point. As a Bishop, I of course support marriage and want to encourage everyone to consider it good for society and individuals. One would know the line that I would come out with. However, a situation that leaves one in five parents ineligible for bereavement support if their partner dies is inadequate. I recognise that determining a qualifying partnership outside marriage or civil partnership is complex but these challenges are not insurmountable, particularly when one thinks about the welfare of children, who are almost always those who take the hit and suffer most.
Benefit systems already accommodate the claims of cohabiting couples, and the Armed Forces Pension Scheme successfully uses a definition of “eligible partner” to determine who can receive a pension. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will give serious thought to this situation and see what can be done to extend support, at least to cohabiting partners with dependent children. That is my key point. Failure to do so could leave an estimated 2,000 families a year facing the future, having lost a parent, without the financial assistance of bereavement support.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I am glad to follow the right reverend Prelate’s caring remarks, and my intervention will be brief. I thank the Minister for his thoughtful outline of the impact of these complicated regulations about serious matters. I note that Article 19 of the order to follow—the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017—refers to bereavement benefits. Can the Minister give us an estimate of the numbers of those claiming such payments in the past year? On the basis of that insight, can he estimate the number of future claimants under the new regulations?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of these draft regulations and all noble Lords who have spoken today.
As we have heard, these regulations enact the provisions of the Pensions Act 2014—which, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, we debated at some length. They introduce a new single payment to replace bereavement payment, bereavement allowance and widowed parent’s allowance for those whose spouse or civil partner dies on or after 6 April 2017. The Government’s case is that this will modernise the current provision and increase simplicity for those who are bereaved and seeking support. I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the Government’s main aim is not to save money. However, I am pleased to reassure him that they are, accidentally, about to save quite a bit of it. I confess that my antennae always start twitching whenever I hear Ministers promise that a social security reform is mainly just about making things simpler. The first question is always to look at who stands to gain as a result of the new simplicity—the claimant or the Treasury. On this occasion, after two years of an introductory period the answer is, I am sorry to say, the Treasury. The Explanatory Memorandum tells us that after two years of reform, steady-state savings are expected to be about £100 million a year. In other words, these reforms take £100 million a year from bereaved families and give it to the Exchequer.
The Explanatory Memorandum offers two other objectives for the reforms: for the system to be fair and to promote self-dependency. I suspect that if the Government had tested public opinion on the matter of fairness, being kind to widows might come high up the list. Has the Minister reflected again on the issue of promoting self-dependency? People who get married or civilly partnered and have children were not intending to be self-dependent. They formed a family which had been ruptured, presumably by the death of their spouse or partner. That was precisely the sort of situation for which the welfare state was designed to step in. We on these Benches registered our concerns about the impact of these reforms during the passage of the Bill. Indeed, concern was expressed across the House. I still remember the powerful speech given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby when we discussed these matters; his interventions were very much taken to heart by many in the House. We sought to amend the Bill to mitigate some of the effects but, sadly, we were unsuccessful —so here we are.
On matters of detail, concern was expressed by the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Work and Pensions Select Committee about a number of areas, and I am pleased to see that the Government have responded to one criticism raised by both committees by extending the period that the bereavement support payment can be accessed from 12 to 19 months. Unfortunately, that is less generous than it sounds because the Government have simply redistributed the amount of money that they originally proposed over a longer period, so people get the same amount but for a longer time.
There are notional gainers, such as younger widows, although figures in the original impact assessment seemed to me to suggest that, perhaps unsurprisingly, and fortunately, there are very few of those, with the vast bulk of the current caseload in the over-55 bracket. Despite the time extension, the Childhood Bereavement Network, which I thank for the very comprehensive briefing that it sent to all interested noble Lords, suggests that 91% of parents will still be supported for a shorter time than under the current system and that the DWP’s own figures admit that 75% of claimants with children will get less money. Can the Minister confirm that those figures are correct and, if not, give the Committee the department’s own estimates instead?
Those with young children will be disproportionately affected, as the parents can currently claim for longer. The current widowed parent’s allowance is paid until the youngest child leaves full-time education. As the briefing from the Childhood Bereavement Network briefing pointed out, a six year-old child losing her father in 2016 would be supported until she leaves school. A six year-old losing her father in 2018 will be supported for just a year and a half. I suspect that her mother might be willing to deal with a bit of complexity for the sake of another decade of additional support to feed and clothe her daughter. The Childhood Bereavement Network says that those with younger children could be up to £31,000 worse off in total than they would have been without these reforms. Can the Minister confirm that this is correct?
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans raised the question of cohabiting couples, and I am sure that the House was glad to hear concern for those cohabiting couples and their children, notwithstanding his support for the institution of marriage. In their consultation response, the Government said:
“The Government position on this issue is unchanged: there are still no plans to extend eligibility for bereavement benefits to those who are not married or in a civil partnership”.
No reason was offered as to why the Government had rejected this proposal. Given that the right reverend Prelate had given his blessing and feels that the institution of marriage will be safe should the Government venture into this territory, can the Minister take the opportunity to tell the Committee why the Government chose not to extend provision in this way?
Lastly, I would like to ask a couple of questions about universal credit—first, on the interaction of universal credit with bereavement support. I think that I heard the Minister say—and I apologise as I did not quite follow the argument, which is entirely my fault—that BSP will be disregarded in full when calculating entitlement to universal credit. Can he confirm that in his reply? I apologise for making him revisit the matter.
Secondly, paragraph 7.13 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:
“Payments will be subject to a disregard within the calculation of income-based benefits; Payments will also not be counted as benefit income when calculating the maximum amount of other benefits a person can be paid”.
I think that that means that BSP will not count towards the benefit cap, but could he just confirm that? I apologise if he did so and I missed it.
There is then the question raised by the right reverend Prelate about those who need to claim universal credit as well as BSP and will be subject to conditionality. I understand that those conditionality requirements, as the Minister said, will be suspended for six months following the death of a partner or child, but during the passage of the Bill we had a lot of discussion about this point—the position of parents with children who are dealing with the consequences, not just for themselves but for their children, of losing a partner or parent. The consequences were emotional for the children and for the parent having to deal with their own and the child’s emotions, but also practical in a range of ways. During the passage of the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, agreed to conduct a review of the position of parents whose children had suffered distress in bereavement, in response to points made in the Chamber by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Parents whose children’s distress and bereavement disrupts their normal childcare responsibilities are, I understand, able to request a one-month suspension of work-related requirements. If I have read this correctly, you can request another one month every six months for up two years. So that would be potentially four one-month periods but only one every six months. I believe from my reading of the regulations that that was enacted in Regulation 8 of the Universal Credit and Miscellaneous Amendments (No. 2) Regulations 2014. Can the Minister confirm that that is the only specific provision available for parents in this circumstance? If it is, can he tell the Committee—or agree to write if not—how many claimants have used, or are expected to use, this facility?
On backdating, paragraph 7.17 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:
“Given the vulnerability of this claimant group there will be a period from the date of death in which the claimant can make a claim without losing any money. If a claim is received more than 3 months after the date of death payments can be backdated for three months before the date of claim. This time limit is extended to 12 months for the initial higher payment to help ensure that people do not miss out on this payment”.
I am glad that the Government are acknowledging that people are vulnerable after a death and that they may not always quickly manage to turn their attention to making a claim for bereavement support payment. However, given that the Government have accepted that, what is the rationale for limiting that flexibility only to the lump sum? Why not allow people the same flexibility in relation to the monthly payments?
I endorse the point made by the right reverend Prelate about whether or not it is the Government’s intention to update the value of this payment in line with other benefits. It would seem that it is not. I hope that we have misread that and that the Government can tell us now whether it is their intention or that we can expect a change of policy on that matter very soon.
I thank my noble friend and the right reverend Prelate for their contributions and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, the noble Lord, Lord Jones, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for their contributions. I hope to deal with their concerns in the course of my speech.
On the first point raised by the right reverend Prelate about the length of time—this was also alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock—as noble Lords will remember, the original idea was that it should be for 12 months. This was extended as a result of the consultation, the comments from SSAC and the Select Committee to 18 months. One of the reasons for this is that it was considered that 12 months was not the optimum period, particularly in the light of its ending more or less on the anniversary of the death. Eighteen months fits in slightly better with that. The same could be said about three years because it also would fall on an anniversary. However, I do not use that to argue against a period that might be longer or shorter. We came to the view that 18 months rather than three years was about right and that thereafter, if necessary, income-related benefits would be more appropriate. The idea is to provide support at the time of bereavement and in the months afterwards, but there has to be a cut off at some point.
The noble Baroness accused us of bad faith when we extended the period from 12 to 18 months and said that the global amount would be a slightly smaller figure. If we extended to three years the same would apply—it would be a smaller figure—and it is better to get it in 18 monthly instalments than over a period of three years. Others may disagree, but judgments have to be made on this issue and we feel that 18 months is about right.
The right reverend Prelate also objected to the fact that there was no automatic top-up in line with inflation. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, also wished to address the point. She will know that bereavement benefits of all sorts have been uprated in the annual Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017, which we will get to later on. She will also know that the basic component of bereavement allowance and widowed parent’s allowance have to be uprated annually, at least in line with price inflation. There has been no requirement to uprate the bereavement payment, which has been frozen since 2001.
Bereavement support payment is a grant paid in instalments, rather than as an income replacement benefit, so it is treated in a similar way to the current bereavement payment. That is what is behind our views on that matter. It will be reviewed annually on a discretionary basis but without expectation that the payment should automatically be increased annually. Again, I imagine that we will want to come on to that later on, when we debate the general uprating order.
The third point touched on by both the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness was about extending the payment to cohabitees, as opposed to just those who are married and in civil partnerships. I do not actually know the result of the civil partnerships case that was in the Court of Appeal today.
Lord Henley
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for saying that it has been rejected. By that, I take him to mean that it is still not possible for those of the opposite sex to have a civil partnership. Civil partnerships will therefore apply to those of the same sex, and marriages to those of the same sex and those of the opposite sex. We took the view that it was better and simpler to confine it to those groups, rather than to extend it to cohabitees. Cohabitees, as we have always known, have the ability to take steps to rectify their position and become married or, in certain cases, to become civil partners. To add the complexities, which I accept already face cohabitees regarding, for example, income-related benefits, such as UC, to a payment of this sort would not be appropriate. It can be dealt with by people themselves if they wish to regularise their position, which is always important to know.
I can remember some of the debates on various Private Members’ Bills, particularly one which I think was promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. He said that there was gross ignorance about this matter and that people thought being a common-law wife or husband gave them the same rights. I think that by now, most people should know that it does not give them the same rights; their rights are distinctly different if they are cohabitees. As I said, it would add excessive complications to a benefit of this sort, and I do not see the reason for extending it.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about the numbers of those who are likely to be affected. In the past, it has been something of the order of 40,000 a year and we have no reason to believe that it will be any different. I can add to that one other figure, which will be of interest to him and the Committee: of those 40,000, some 8,000 also have dependent children. That figure might or might not surprise the noble Lord. I was slightly surprised, since we are talking about claimants of working age, that it should be as low as that. But that is the figure, and I have no reason to believe that it will change.
Finally, I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that bereavement support payment will be disregarded for universal credit and for income-related benefits. I think I made that clear in my speech. If even Homer nods, perhaps even the noble Baroness occasionally nods.
Lord Henley
She was nodding in a different way but anyway, I can confirm that it will be disregarded, as it will be for the benefit cap.
Finally, the noble Baroness talked about the time for claiming the benefit and the fact that the monthly payments must be claimed within three months but that in terms of the basic amount, they had a full year. The simple answer is that for monthly payments it is appropriate to have a cut off that is shorter than for the lump sum. I do not believe—this is the important thing—that there is much ignorance, once people are bereaved, about benefits of this sort. Certainly the evidence we have and the evidence we have had in the past, which implies a very high take up of this benefit, seems to suggest that most people get to know about it very quickly. It is one of those things that, for example, I am sure undertakers know about and will advise on, as will others.
I hope that, with the assurance that I may find that there are one or two points I have not answered, the Committee will accept the regulations.
Motion agreed.
Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017
(8 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Henley
That the Grand Committee do consider the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)
I beg to move that the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017. In my view, the provisions in this order are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Today we are debating the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2017. This statutory instrument reflects the Government’s continuing commitment to: increase the basic and new state pension with the triple lock at 2.5%; increase the pension credit standard minimum guarantee in line with earnings at 2.4%; and increase benefits to meet additional disability needs and carer benefits in line with prices at 1%.
The Chancellor reaffirmed this Government’s commitment to the triple lock for the length of this Parliament in his Autumn Statement on 23 November 2016. This ensures that the basic state pension will continue to be uprated by the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5%. This year, the increase in average earnings and the increase in prices were less than the baseline of 2.5%. As such, the basic state pension will increase by 2.5%. This means that from April 2017 the rate of the basic state pension for a single person will increase by £3.00 to £122.30 a week. As a result, from April 2017 the basic state pension will be more than £1,200 a year higher compared to April 2010. We estimate that the basic state pension will be around 18.5% of average earnings, one of its highest levels relative to earnings for more than two decades.
Last year, the Government introduced the new state pension for people reaching their state pension age from 6 April 2016 onwards. This made the system clearer, providing a sustainable foundation for private saving. The Government have previously announced that the triple lock will apply to the full rate of the new state pension for the length of this Parliament. This is the first year that the new state pension will be uprated. As such, this year the full rate of the new state pension will increase by 2.5%. This means that from April 2017 the full rate of the new state pension will increase by £3.90 to £159.55 a week. This will be around 24.2% of average earnings.
We are continuing to take steps to protect the poorest pensioners. This includes through the pension credit standard minimum guarantee, the means-tested threshold below which pensioner income need not fall. The pension credit standard minimum guarantee will rise in line with average earnings at 2.4%. This means that from April 2017 the single person threshold for safety-net benefit will rise by £3.75 to £159.35. Pensioner poverty continues to stand at one of the lowest rates since comparable records began.
I turn to the additional state pension. This year state earnings-related pension—SERPS—and the other state second pensions, together with protected payments in the new state pension, will rise, in line with prices, by 1%. On disability benefits, this year the Government will continue to ensure that carers and people who face additional costs because of their disability will see their benefits uprated in the usual way. Disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carer’s allowance, incapacity benefit and personal independence payment will all rise in line with prices—by 1%—from April 2017. In addition, disability-related and carer premiums paid with pension credit, and working-age benefits, will increase by 1%, as will the employment and support allowance support group component, and the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit.
The Government will be spending an extra £2.5 billion per year in 2017-18 on uprating benefit and pension rates. In this order we continue to maintain our commitment to the triple lock for both the basic and the new state pension for the length of this Parliament. We also commit to increase the pension credit standard minimum guarantee by earnings and to increase benefits that reflect the additional costs that disabled people face as a result of their disability, and carer benefits, in line with prices. This includes increases to the disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carer’s allowance, incapacity benefit, personal independence payment, and disability and carer premiums.
On that basis, I beg to move.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that helpful opening statement. I will make one or two comments on what he has said.
However, I will also spend a moment—if I do not impose too much on the Committee—talking about the process available to us as parliamentarians more generally to observe, be confident of, and have assurances about, how the annual social security spend is surviving some of the impositions arising from the Government’s more general fiscal rule—to save £12 billion during this Parliament. That is a significant sum. I absolutely acknowledge—and the Minister was right to explain this, under the terms of the order—that sensible provision has been made for our retired population. The pension rates, the triple lock—everything that he has explained—make perfect sense and sit well with the requirements of that part of our population that is past retirement age.
However, we must have some concerns whether proper provision that, arguably, is being made for those over retirement age, is also being made for those of working age. I want to focus on paragraph 4.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum. In the final sentence—this will come as no surprise to any of us—it is accepted that the main rates of benefit are frozen at their 2015-16 rates, under the 2016 Act. They were not part of the Secretary of State’s review. My opening question derives from the fact that I have been doing uprating statements for as long as anybody—since I first entered Parliament in 1983. They used to be very big occasions, because they were responsible for disbursing huge amounts of public money, and that is still the case. We are, however, getting to the position where I am no longer confident that the protection provided by Section 150 of the Social Security Administration Act is the assurance that it used to be.
As a policymaker, legislator and parliamentarian, I always had confidence that Secretaries of State for Social Security or Work and Pensions sat down once a year and thought carefully, on advice from the detailed research that Secretaries of State have available to them, about whether what was being proposed to Parliament was adequate for the purpose. I do not think we can say that any more, and if that is even halfway true, we as policymakers and the Opposition need to be looking at other ways, if we cannot get assurance from Section 150 of the 1992 Act, to discover what the Government are doing in the department and in their discussions with the Treasury to make proper provision for the rest of this Parliament. This is the only occasion that I can think of when we can do that, although I understand that under the strict terms of the order, I might be on the cusp of what is technically in order.
The plea I make to the Minister—he may not have an answer for this more general question—is that in his new role and as part of a new and very capable ministerial team within what is effectively a new Government taking a fresh look at responsibilities for social protection, he should reflect carefully on how he and his colleagues will be able for the rest of this Parliament to give me the assurance that is absent now that we have restricted consideration for annual review.
My second question relates to the change that we made some years ago, moving to the CPI from the RPI measure. It is significant, historical and very easy to miss. I notice that in its April 2015 data review, the Office for Budget Responsibility calculated that as a result of that single change there was reduction in spend of £5.2 billion a year by 2019-20. I do not expect the Minister to have this figure at his fingertips, but it is very important that for the rest of this Parliament we track the estimates made by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Department for Work and Pensions of the cumulative results of that single change, which is so significant for all benefits. Monitoring that is part of the work we should be doing.
In the uprating statements for the rest of this Parliament, will the Minister be good enough to monitor exactly how the £12,000 million social security spending reduction is being effected in practice? Where is that money being saved? I know that it is an estimate. That has been made clear by the OBR, the IFS and others. We need to know the relative savings achieved from the freeze, the new two-child limit, the cuts to universal credit, the cuts to ESA and the reduced household benefit cap. If we do not have that information in debates of this kind for the rest of this Parliament, we will be at a significant disadvantage in trying to work out what lower-income households are facing.
I have one further point before I finish, but I shall be brief because I think I am pushing my luck slightly. The order does not contain any reference to working-age benefits. There is a real risk in using cash limits to set benefit upratings in future, but we are getting into a habit of doing that. We froze benefits on a cash basis in 2013-14, and we are doing so now. Two things happen with that. First, the Government are transferring the risk of inflation to benefit recipients, and I do not think that is fair because no one can truly judge what is going to happen to inflation. Colleagues may have more to say about that. Secondly, there is no way of knowing exactly where the saving will be if you rely on inflation. The Government are in a much safer position if they take decisions that can lead to calculations and assessments of what is expected in future.
I am no economist, but I do not think you need to be one to understand that inflation is increasing. The impact of that will bear down on working-age families, particularly those with children. The IFS and the Resolution Foundation have done some excellent work trying to point out the risks that we as a country will be running for the next three or four years. The Child Poverty Action Group reminded us in a recent leaflet that child benefit has risen since the 2010s to where we are now by something like 2%, whereas costs will have risen for the client group that CPAG seeks to represent by about 35% between 2010 and 2020. These are forecasts, and of course forecasts can be wrong, but they are frightening in what we may be facing, particularly for families with children in the lower income brackets.
My plea is that we look at this more carefully and that, if these uprating statements are less useful technically in looking at the totality of the benefit spend, the Minister in his new position goes back and discusses this with his departmental colleagues. He has vast resources, he has some very experienced, talented and clever research people in the department, and I am sure he can help them to ensure that we avoid some of the really regressive scenarios painted by some pressure groups, which know what they are talking about. If we do not, Parliament will find it more difficult in future to be confident that we know exactly what is happening and the disposition of what is an essential policy area for the safety-net provision for low-income families in the UK.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)
My Lords, I hesitate to intervene after the powerful speech from my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, but the DWP bus does not come along very often, so I fear I must take this very small chance to jump on it. The Explanatory Memorandum was actually very helpful, which has not always been the case with DWP statutory instruments. Often the DWP has not had many accolades for its Explanatory Memorandums being helpful, so I would like to say that this one was. At the very end of the memorandum, paragraph 11.2 says:
“Small businesses, like all employers, meet the costs of Statutory Sick Pay without reimbursement but are able to access the services of the Fit for Work Service, a free occupational health service funded by Government for employees absent from work through ill health for four weeks or more”.
Can the Minister tell the Committee whether that service is being taken up? Small businesses are not always good at knowing what the law is, and I know that many of them have never heard of the access to work service for the employment of disabled people. That is very important if the Government want to halve the disability unemployment rate. I would like an update on the fit for work service, which I know was designed by Dame Carol Black, and I would be happy for the Minister to write to me.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction of this order and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, for their contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and I gather around this time every year—sometimes to decreasing effect, it feels—and we miss my noble friend Lady Lister, who is usually with us on these occasions. In the absence of her enormous knowledge, I will do my best to fight the good fight for these Benches.
I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that he is not out of order because the order increases the disability premium and some elements of working-age benefits. Therefore his area of comment is wholly in order for addressing these questions today. It was a comment in which I have an interest because I am about to do the same thing.
While obviously not objecting to the 1% uprating of the benefits that are covered, the triple lock or in-line-with-earnings increases as described by the Minister, we have serious concern about the increasing impact of the Government’s approach to benefit uprating on the millions of people who rely on benefits to look after themselves and their families. The real action here, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, pointed out, is happening offstage. It applies to the many benefits that should be on this list and are not.
The summer Budget 2015 listed a series of working-age benefits that would be frozen for four years from 2016-17 to 2019-20. We should remember that they had had only 1% uprating from 2013 and that there was the massive effect, described by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, of the shift from RPI to CPI as the measure for increasing benefits. That list includes child benefit, JSA, ESA, income support, housing benefit under women’s state pension age, LHA rates, child tax credit, working tax credit, universal credit and bereavement support payment. Many of these benefits affect working people and working families, but they all affect people who are dependent on benefits to survive. It is good that the disability and other premiums paid with these benefits are being increased by 1%, and I am glad to see that.
The freeze to the other levels of social security payments are having a detrimental impact on those who depend upon them. Between 2008 and 2014, the prices of essentials rose three times faster than wages. Combined with the period of 1% uprating and then the freeze, low-income households have seen a significant deterioration in their income. Now that inflation is starting to pick up, we need to be reassured by the Government about how they are going to ensure that Parliament can understand the degree to which households are protected from the consequences of those changes in ways that we could reasonably expect them to do.
The 1% uprating is based on the rate of CPI prevailing in the year to September 2016, which was reported at 1%. However, since then, inflation is clearly on the rise. Last week, we saw the release of the latest figures which showed that the consumer prices index rose by 1.8% in the year to January 2017. Last week we also saw the Bank of England inflation report which said:
“In the central projection, conditioned on market yields that are somewhat higher than in November, inflation is expected to increase to 2.8% in the first half of 2018, before falling back gradually to 2.4% in three years’ time”.
As the Resolution Foundation pointed out in a report entitled Under New Management in November 2016, the effect of rising inflation is that this policy is saving the Treasury rather more money than it expected. The report estimates that rather than the £3.6 billion the policy was due to save the Exchequer by 2020-21, the savings would rise to £4.6 billion. Can the Minister tell the Committee whether that £4.6 billion figure is accurate and, if not, what is the value of the savings now estimated to be according to his department or the Treasury?
On the other hand, the effect of these changes on households in receipt of benefits is also far greater than Parliament expected at the time when the decision was made to freeze benefits, and people on the lowest incomes are least able to withstand the effects of inflation because they have the least disposable income and in most cases they have little or no savings to depend on as a cushion. That is why Parliament has traditionally protected them from these risks by inflation-proofing benefits. As the IFS puts it:
“This policy represented a significant takeaway from a large number of working age households. But it also represented a shifting of risk from the Government to benefit recipients. Previously, higher inflation was a risk to the public finances, increasing cash spending on benefits. Now the risk is borne by low-income households: unless policy changes higher inflation will reduce their real incomes”.
That point was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. The IFS also points out that, as of last March,
“the freeze represented a 4% cut in the value of those benefits … relative to previous plans”.
Last October, the IFS, based on its inflation forecasts at that point, produced some other observations on the impact on claimants, saying:
“As a result, 11.5 million families were expected to lose an average of £260 a year, saving the government £3.0 billion in 2019-20. Given the latest inflation forecasts from the IMF, the policy now represents a 6% cut to affected benefits. The same 11.5 million families are now expected to lose an average of £360 a year (£100 a year more than expected in March), saving the government £4.2 billion in 2019-20 (i.e. an additional £1.2 billion on top of what was expected back in March). Greater losses are found among families—typically those on lower incomes—who receive more in benefits”,
so,
“8.3 million families affected now expected to lose an average of £470 a year”.
The Minister might claim, truthfully, that his party had a manifesto commitment that the working-age benefit system should be made less generous over this Parliament, but as the IFS pointed out,
“it is hard to see why the appropriate size of cut should be arbitrarily determined by the impact of movements in sterling on prices”.
Quite, but if the Minister does not want to listen to the Resolution Foundation or the IFS, or the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, or the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, or, unaccountably, even me, perhaps he might be persuaded by the following comments, reported in the Independent from another parliamentarian:
“When the original benefit freeze was set it was set against an estimate of a much lower rise in inflation … Therefore I’m sure the Treasury will want to look at to keep that under review because the purpose was not to have such a dramatic effect on incomes against a forecast of rising inflation … I’m sure the Treasury will want to look at that and keep that under review so that doesn’t actually happen and make it adverse in a way that it was not completely intended”.
That was Iain Duncan Smith, speaking to an event in Westminster, reported in the Independent on 8 November last, and that was before inflation hit the heights that we saw last week.
My questions for the Minister are simple. First, can he tell the Committee the latest estimate of the savings to the Exchequer of this four-year benefit freeze, as against CPI uprating, over and above the amount originally scored? Secondly, how big would the gap have to be between projected and actual impact on claimants of this freeze before the Government would revisit it? Finally, to echo the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, whom I commend for his determination to come back to this matter on behalf of all parliamentarians every time we discuss it, what is the mechanism for Parliament to revisit the issue and be assured of the adequacy of social security benefits in the absence of any appropriate annual mechanism?
Lord Henley
My Lords, again, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, spoke about his experience of uprating statements going back to, I think he said, 1983. I feel a mere child in these matters going back only to the 1989 uprating statement. I did a few after that, but I do not think that I have quite the assiduous record that the noble Lord has in these matters.
The noble Lord also talked about the process by which we go through these matters, and asked whether it is still the case that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State sits down and considers what uprating is necessary. I assure him that, within the confines of current legislation, he does and that he takes note of comments received in both Houses. I assure the noble Lord that I shall report back to my right honourable friend and others about the course of this debate.
Obviously, we have to make very difficult decisions on welfare spending. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is aware of that, as is the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. We also know very well that work, not welfare, is the best route out of poverty and that anything that can encourage people into work will be good for them in all possible ways. That is why our welfare reforms are designed to incentivise work for those who can and go wider than just the benefit system. They include such things as the national living wage, which will be up to £9 an hour by 2020, cutting income tax for more than 30 million people and the rollout of universal credit. At the same time, we remain committed to protecting all those who need support. That is why we made the reforms we did. As someone coming back to this world after some years out of it and having had some experience of seeing benefit offices, it is gratifying to see the rollout as it begins and to hear the comments of those making use of it. I am sure it is going to be a success. Anyway, I can give an assurance that my right honourable friend sits down and considers these matters.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, talked about the change from using CPI as opposed to RPI, an issue also touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. I appreciate that there is no ideal measure of inflation, and there never will be, but we certainly think that CPI is a better measure than the old RPI. I understand that the ONS is making changes to RPI, and it may be that some improvements can come forward in due course. However, at the moment, we are committed to CPI, which we think is a better measure and is the target rate used by the Bank of England. It also takes better account of how behaviour changes in response to price changes, using a methodology in line with international standards, and better reflects benefit recipients’ and pensioners’ experience of inflation by excluding mortgage payments. Again, we have to recognise that all the measures of inflation affect different people in different ways. I think all would agree that there is no ideal measure that we can use. CPI is the best and using the September-to-September measure is the only practical way in which to introduce the change in April the following year. I am sure that the noble Baroness would accept the difficulties of having to use a figure some months ahead, but any subsequent inflation will be taken into account in following years, so there is a catch-up designed into the system for future years.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, is not happy about the whole subject of freezing benefits, which goes wider than the uprating statement we are debating today. As she is aware, we have by statute frozen working-age benefits for a number of years—until the end of this Parliament, if I remember the dates correctly. It is not a matter for discussion today, but I repeat what I have said: we are dealing not merely with benefits but with work, which is the best route to get people out of poverty. As I said in response to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, we want to incentivise work for those who can work, while supporting those who cannot. The noble Baroness then asked a number of detailed questions about our estimate of the savings and cited estimates made by this or that group and ending up with the comments made by my right honourable friend Mr Duncan Smith. I shall not comment on any of those estimates at the moment; this is not necessarily the right and proper place to have that debate. If we have some appropriate figures that I think the noble Baroness will find useful, I am more than happy to make them available to her.
Lord Henley
I will have to write to the noble Baroness to assure her on that point.
I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, would prefer a greater and longer debate on freezing benefits. As I said, I do not think that this is either the time or the place.
Baroness Sherlock
I confess to being disappointed by both the content and the tone of the Minister’s response to the questions put not just by me but by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I wonder whether he could tell me two things. First, does he accept that a number of the benefits being frozen are in-work benefits? Secondly, if this is not the occasion on which Parliament can expect to hold the Government to account to find out what in fact will be the impact of a measure which now looks to be much more expensive to benefit- claiming families than they were assured in the first place, what is?
Lord Henley
My Lords, this is the occasion to deal with the uprating of those benefits which are being uprated. Parliament debated on another occasion, during the passage of the 2014 Bill, the freezing of benefits. The noble Baroness will not find it hard to find other occasions to raise the subject. When we are debating those benefits which we are uprating, it is not the time to pursue the question of the freezing of benefits.
Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017
(8 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Henley
That the Grand Committee do consider the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief. The Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order is entirely a technical matter that we attend to each year. This order was laid before the House on 16 January 2017 and, in my view, its provisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The order provides for formerly contracted-out defined benefit occupational pension schemes to increase their members’ guaranteed minimum pension which accrued between 1988 and 1997 by 1%, in line with the increase in the general level of prices as at September 2016. On that basis, I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his brief introduction to this technical order. It addresses, as we have heard, the required uprating of GMPs by CPI. The period in question is the year ending 30 September 2016, which we have just discussed. That period largely precedes the spurt in inflation—imported inflation—driven by the post-referendum depreciation of sterling. At 1%, it is well within the 3% cap on the GMP uprating. We will obviously support this order but, although it is superficially straightforward, uprating GMPs is a complicated area, as a recent NAO report identifies. It illustrates that, although GMPs were applicable for a relatively short period of time—1978 to 1997—there are ramifications well into the future. Some people with rights to GMPs would not reach state pension age until around 2050.
April 2016 saw the introduction of the new state pension, of course, which involved the end of contracting-out and of the additional state pension. Because the contracting- out position is incorporated in somebody’s starting amount, the Government no longer take account of inflation increases to GMP accruals between 1978 and 1988, nor for increases beyond 3%. I think that is correct, but perhaps the Minister might just confirm it. Can he also remind us what is happening to GMPs which are in payment?
The NAO also points out that, with changes to the state pension age, there is a growing time period between GMP age, which is 65 or 60, and the actual state pension age when payment begins. Other things being equal, this means a longer period during which the GMP is not fully uprated.
The scheme provider is now solely responsible for uprating, but only from 1988 and in excess of 3%, and for maintaining the records necessary to calculate each member’s GMP. The NAO advises that up to October 2018, scheme providers have to reconcile their records with HMRC. Individuals will be notified of the value of their GMPs as at April 2016 and will have to keep a record thereafter themselves, including when they transfer to another pension scheme. Can the Minister tell us how this is all going? What communications support these requirements, and what assessment have the Government made of compliance with these arrangements? How many individuals are involved in this process?
Finally, the Minister may be aware of the article on the front page of the money section of the Sunday Times last week, which seemingly involved contracted-out pensions and the provision of inaccurate data. Can the Minister please explain what is happening? What is the problem and its scale? Who is affected and how is it going to be fixed?
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is quite right to refer to the complicated nature of this field and to point out how long it is likely to go on. He talked about 2050. I did a few sums and thought that someone—I hope not me—could still be moving this order some years after 2050. Certainly, it has some years ahead of it as an annual order—when the GMP has to be increased by either CPI or 3%, whichever is the lower. That is why we have increased it, on this occasion, by 1%, which is the CPI figure for September.
The noble Lord also asked some rather detailed questions about what communications we were making to individuals and what compliance we sought from the benefit providers. I would prefer, on this occasion, to write to him in greater detail on that matter, because it might be dangerous to answer. Similarly—this goes beyond today’s debate—the problems reported in the business section of the Sunday Times, which I think it got slightly wrong, are a matter probably better dealt with by a letter from me rather than in a debate on the uprating of the guaranteed minimum pension, formerly SERPS. I apologise to the noble Lord for not answering his questions on this occasion but promise to write to him. I also accept his acceptance of the 1% increase—as it will be—and look forward to having this debate again for many years to come, though not necessarily with him or me involved if it continues as late as 2050.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful for the offer of correspondence on those two issues: dealing with information flows under existing arrangements and the Sunday Times article. It may be “fake news”—I think that is the term—and I do not know how accurate it is, but it seemed to tie in with important issues regarding data and the capacity of the system to cope with it.
I am particularly concerned about the arrangements for reconciling records with HMRC. My noble friend Lady Drake has been heavily involved in many pension matters over the years, particularly the Pension Protection Fund. She could wax lyrically about the dirty data that somehow came from defined benefit schemes, and how difficult it was to straighten those data out. I am not sure whether there is any of that in this, or how many GMPs are currently in payment. Having said all that, I accept the generous offer of correspondence on this. It would be helpful to have it as soon as possible, because I have to go back to basics every year to remind myself what it is all about.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, as my noble friends Lord Freud and Lord Young took the pensions Bill through, and admired her expertise on this subject. One day, no doubt, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and I will reach such a level, but in the meantime we will have to rely on correspondence between us. I am grateful to the noble Lord for accepting my assurance, and I will write to him in due course on those matters. I beg to move.
Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2017
(8 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Dunlop
That the Grand Committee do consider the Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2017.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Dunlop) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft order laid before the House on 19 December 2016 now be considered. The background to this order is the Smith commission agreement and the Scotland Act 2016, which gave the Scottish Parliament significant new tax and welfare powers with responsibility for nearly £21 billion devolved and assigned tax revenues and more than £2 billion in demand-led welfare spending. Indeed, in future more than 50% of the Scottish Government’s budget will come from revenues raised in Scotland.
It is perhaps appropriate that we are debating this order today—the day on which the Scottish Parliament is, for the first time, setting income tax rates and bands for Scotland. It is therefore important that, also for the first time, there will be independent forecasts and analysis of the spending revenues within the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, something to which your Lordships’ House attached great importance during the passage of the Scotland Act. It was also a key objective for the UK Government in the fiscal framework negotiations with the Scottish Government.
Prior to this point, the Scottish Fiscal Commission has merely scrutinised and commented upon forecasts produced by the Scottish Government. This order is therefore made in consequence of the Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016, which I shall refer to as the 2016 Act. It was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 10 March 2016 and received Royal Assent on 14 April 2016. The purpose of the 2016 Act was to establish the Scottish Fiscal Commission as a body corporate and to provide for its functions. These include preparing forecasts and assessments to inform the Scottish budget and a duty to co-operate with the Office for Budget Responsibility, so far as is necessary for it to perform its functions. The commission has a board of three commissioners, chaired by Susan Rice—Lady Rice—formerly CEO of Lloyds TSB Scotland, and it currently has a staff of 15. The impetus for the 2016 Act came from the fiscal framework agreement in February 2016 that set out the financial arrangements between the UK and Scottish Governments to underpin the new tax and spending powers in the Scotland Act 2016.
The commission was originally set up in 2014 as a non-statutory body with a main function of scrutinising the Scottish Government’s forecasts for tax revenues devolved to Scotland. From April 2017, the commission will become responsible for the production of forecasts on all revenue from fully devolved taxes and of income tax receipts arising from the rate-setting powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament. It will also produce forecasts of onshore Scottish GDP. This is important as under the fiscal framework agreement the Scottish Government are being given additional resource-borrowing powers, in part to assist in the management of any additional risks and volatility associated with extra devolution. The borrowing powers come into play if onshore Scottish GDP falls below certain trigger points.
This order is made under Section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998, which allows for necessary or expedient legislative provision in consequence of an Act of the Scottish Parliament. It will have UK extent and will enable the 2016 Act to be implemented in full. It contains provisions about the status of the commission and amends UK legislation which is not within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.
Article 2, for example, makes the commission part of the Scottish Administration, allowing for its designation as a non-ministerial department. The effect of this is that the commission will be accountable to the Scottish Parliament. Also, civil servants who work in the commission, which is currently a non-statutory body, will transfer to the new statutory commission and continue to be civil servants. The Civil Service is a reserved matter under Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, so it is not within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to enact such a transfer.
Article 3 reflects the fact that under the Crown Suits (Scotland) Act 1857 every action to be instituted in Scotland on behalf of, or against, an organisation in the Scottish Administration may be lawfully raised in the name of, or directed against, the Lord Advocate. In order to safeguard the perceived independence of the commission from the Scottish Government, Article 3 disapplies the 1857 Act so that the Lord Advocate, a member of the Scottish Government, should not represent the Commission.
Article 4 places an obligation on the Office for Budget Responsibility to co-operate with the commission. It is required to enable information sharing so far as it is necessary for the commission to fulfil its functions, and is a reciprocal duty to the one I mentioned earlier in the 2016 Act.
Finally, Article 5 amends the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 to disqualify members of the Scottish Fiscal Commission from being Members of the House of Commons. This is to protect the independence and impartiality of the commission and mirrors similar provisions in the Scottish Parliament legislation regarding elected representatives.
The UK and Scottish Governments’ Ministers and officials have worked closely together to ensure that this order makes the necessary amendments to UK legislation in consequence of the 2016 Act and the fiscal framework agreement. I hope that noble Lords will agree that it represents a sensible and appropriate use of the powers in the Scotland Act. I commend the order to the Committee.
Lord McAvoy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear and lucid presentation of the order. It is a step in the right direction that we on the Labour Benches welcome. It is commendable that both Governments have been able to come together to provide for independent scrutiny of Scottish Government finances. Noble Lords may be aware that some members of the Scottish Government were initially uncertain about the wisdom of setting up an independent body to scrutinise their work, and kept changing their minds. We are glad that they have been brought around to the idea.
As the Minister said, this measure emanates from the Smith commission. I am lucky enough at the moment to have the services of a Hansard intern, a young man from Latvia—one of the countries that escaped the Soviet yoke over the past few years—and he is interested in constitutional matters. The basis for this order is commendable in terms of the agreement reached, and the measure agreed must serve as a model for some constitutional change in different parts of the world. For the first time, there will be independent forecasts and analysis of the spending and revenues of the Scottish Parliament. This is incredibly significant because the Scotland Act 2016 turned the Scottish Parliament into one of the most powerful devolved Parliaments in the world. With that responsibility must come transparency, independent scrutiny and accountability.
This order is made as a consequence of the Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016, and enables the Act to be implemented in full. We welcome the reciprocal duty that this order places on the Office for Budget Responsibility to co-operate with the Scottish Fiscal Commission. Can the Minister say whether work is already under way to build structures for this co-operation between the two bodies, and whether the OBR is offering advice and guidance on recruitment and impartiality ahead of the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s expanded role?
This order embeds the newly empowered fiscal commission as part of the Scottish Administration and removes any uncertainty about its future. It builds a welcome infrastructure to ensure both current and future Governments are held to account. We look forward to the work the commission will do to shed light on Scottish Government finances now and for many years. This totally justifies the initial implementation of the Scotland Act 1998, which started us on the road to devolution. We welcome this measure.
Lord Dunlop
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support for this order. He is right to point out that initially the Scottish Government were not persuaded of the need for the Scottish Fiscal Commission to undertake independent forecasting. This was one of the positive outcomes from the discussions in which he and I exchanged many views on the fiscal framework negotiations.
As to the provision of information and advice, the order enables and facilitates the provision of reciprocal information between the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the OBR, and I am sure that that will take place. The noble Lord is right to point out the importance of constituting a Scottish Fiscal Commission that is properly resourced with the right expertise. It is fair to say that there is a relatively small pool of people who have the expertise to carry out this technical forecasting and modelling. I am sure that discussions are going on to ensure that the Scottish Fiscal Commission has the right people to do what will be its important job of making these forecasts and ensuring that the information on which the Scottish Government take their decisions is well founded.
Lord McAvoy
I would like to clear my conscience. I mentioned the Latvian intern but did not mention his name. He is Mr Ralfs Beitans—I feel a bit guilty about using his work and not mentioning him. The Minister’s response indicates the level of co-operation and agreement that has existed between the two Front Benches to deliver a powerful Scottish Parliament, and I am grateful to the Minister for that.
Lord Dunlop
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his excellent co-operation during this process. As I said during the passage of the Scotland Act, we will continue to return to this House and the other place to report on the progress of the fiscal framework.
National Health Service Commissioning Board (Additional Functions) Regulations 2017
(8 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord O’Shaughnessy
That the Grand Committee do consider the National Health Service Commissioning Board (Additional Functions) Regulations 2017.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations will confer on the NHS Commissioning Board, more commonly known as NHS England, new functions covering the work currently undertaken by the Department of Health’s Commercial Medicines Unit.
The principal function of the Commercial Medicines Unit is to procure, conclude and manage procurement framework agreements with suppliers of services, drugs, medicines or other substances or products. These framework agreements are for the use, in the main, of NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts. In securing competitive prices for these products and services, these framework agreements enable considerable savings to be made by the NHS.
The final report of the Carter review, on hospital productivity, suggested that the Commercial Medicines Unit might be best located within the NHS. After due consideration, the Department of Health and NHS England came to the view that the potential benefits could be realised if the majority of the unit’s work transferred to NHS England. The NHS Act 2006 does not provide NHS England with the necessary powers to undertake this work, so regulations are required to enable this transfer.
The regulations before us confer three additional functions on NHS England. First, they confer a power to conclude and manage framework agreements, which will enable NHS England to take on the functions from the Commercial Medicines Unit. Secondly, they impose a duty to provide assistance to the Secretary of State in relation to the exercise of the first function. This will ensure that the important contribution made by the Commercial Medicines Unit to other health priorities continues. Thirdly, they impose a duty to consult and collaborate with the registered pharmacists of every NHS trust and NHS foundation trust in relation to the exercise of the first function. These stakeholders play a vital role in the work of the Commercial Medicines Unit, and this duty will ensure that this role continues under NHS England. The Government consider that these regulations will bring together related procurement and commissioning functions within NHS England, which will enable the sharing of expertise and support the realisation of various benefits, including better use of NHS resources. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive introduction to the regulations before us this afternoon. I was interested when in his opening remarks he referred to the NHS Commissioning Board, more commonly known as NHS England. What struck me is that, when challenged on NHS funding, the Minister and his predecessor have been fond of saying that the NHS got the extra money that it had asked for. But what he really meant to say is that the NHS Commissioning Board put forward a five-year forward plan which talked about a £30 billion gap between the resource needed and the resource that was likely to be got, on the projections then published. We know that it was then told by the Treasury how much it could actually ask for. When we come to debate the NHS and its funding, it would give a much better reflection of the actual position if the Minister were to say that the figure which the Government have produced is what the NHS Commissioning Board was told to put into the five-year forward view.
I was puzzled by the way in which NHS England changed the name of its organisation to be that. Much of the two years we spent debating the 2012 Act was around the work of the NHS Commissioning Board. I was a little surprised that a quango took it upon itself simply to change its name and give itself the kind of title to which, statutorily, it clearly had no right—nor is it in its remit. It is interesting that when it comes to regulations such as these, which we have frequently, they have to relate to the NHS Commissioning Board. I suspect that very few people know what it is. At the end of the day, either the Government should regularise this by legislating to call NHS England by that name or it should revert to being the NHS Commissioning Board. As a matter of principle and practice, it is not a good idea to use a name that has not been given in legislation.
These are interesting regulations because, in a way, they take us back to our debates in relation to the Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill. Much of those debates have been on the cost of medicines, and the operation of the PPRS scheme and the statutory scheme alongside it. I guess that the question I would put to the Minister is: since negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry currently lie principally with the Department of Health, what implications does the transfer of this unit to NHS England have for the department’s own capacity to negotiate agreements in future? Does it essentially mean that NHS England will take over those negotiations?
I have obviously seen the Explanatory Memorandum and the reference back to the Carter report. I understand the reasons why my noble friend Lord Carter, thought that the CMU would be best placed within NHS England. But does this transfer equate at all to the recommendation in the Accelerated Access Review, which called for the creation of a strategic commercial unit to be established within NHS England? Would I be right in thinking that the transfer of the CMU is, in essence, the strategic commercial unit that the accelerated access review called for? What it actually said is that it wanted an SCU to,
“have the capacity and capability to consider a range of flexible pricing models as part of a commercial dialogue with innovators”,
and envisaged:
“Win-win scenarios, where innovators benefit from earlier, and, in some cases, guaranteed market access and the NHS and patients benefit from better value through a reduced price”.
In a sense, that takes us back to our debates during the passage of the Bill about whether we can develop more of a win-win relationship with innovators so that patients get access to innovation at a much earlier stage—but also, because the NHS is moving from a culture that is very often opposed to the introduction of innovation to one that embraces innovation, it therefore gets the advantage of better value for money in the end. If that is not to be the case, does the Minister think that the CMU has the capacity, capability and expertise to agree new and innovative commercial arrangements with companies? Will those processes support improved patient access to medicines and will NHS England consult on any new methodology or guides that will support the commercial unit role? How will the reconstituted CMU within the NHS interact with NICE and the adoption of NICE-approved medicines? If it has an active role, will that affect a patient’s right to NICE-approved medicines as covered by the NHS constitution?
Clearly, the experience of companies dealing with NHS England at the moment is that it is inflexible and is interested not in quality and outcome but simply in price. I have had many representations to that effect. My understanding is that NHS England simply has not got the capacity to negotiate these rather more innovative approaches to innovation, adoption and value for money. At heart, the question is this: will the transfer of the CMU to NHS England enhance the capacity of that organisation to move from a crude bottom-line approach to purchasing to one which looks at best value, innovation and adoption?
Apart from that, I will be interested in the Minister’s responses. As this is about procurement, I should remind the Committee of my presidency of the Health Care Supply Association and of GS1, the bar-coding association.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questioning which was, as usual, precise. I will attempt to respond to his questions as best I can. I shall start where he started. I do not think I can take any blame for any confusion that may be caused around rebranding the NHS Commissioning Board Authority as NHS England. It clearly has a commissioning role, and in that commissioning role there is clearly a good fit with procurement. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Carter, concluded. Bringing together specialised commissioning, general procurement capacity and the role of the CMU was a good fit and it might deliver better value for money for the NHS, which I know the noble Lord wants as much as I do, so we can clear that out of the way.
The noble Lord’s big question was about enhancing the capacity of NHS England to become more sophisticated. In one sense, he is getting slightly ahead of things because the regulations do not transfer the entirety of the functionality. Some of the functionality will continue to be in the department as it pertains to public health responsibilities—vaccination, for example, or the procurement of emergency treatments. However, those that are to do with the ordinary activities of the health service are moving over. From that point of view, therefore, there is no change: the framework agreements transfer and people transfer. It is simply transferring a unit from one place to another, but clearly with the idea that there will be an enhancement in everyday activities as a result.
The noble Lord is quite right to refer to the issue of access—we talked about that a lot during the Bill’s passage—and it may well be that in future, when we are thinking about what comes after the PPRS, the kind of things that he is talking about would be within the remit. It would be wrong for me to comment on that now, not least because the PPRS commits us to certain activities and behaviours on simplicity of pricing discounts and so on, and clearly the kinds of things he is talking about—the more sophisticated value-based pricing models—do not currently fall within that scope. I am clear, however, that the Government and the department will continue to take a lead in any future discussions about replacements that leverage capacity across the system.
In answer to a couple of the noble Lord’s other questions, there is no particular impact on NICE from these regulations. We know that within the PPRS there is a commitment to fund after three months: that is part of the agreement. I hope, therefore, that he is reassured about that. To repeat, this is, in essence, quite a simple measure that takes a set of responsibilities from one place to another with the aim of providing greater efficiency—by procuring framework agreements, and so on. That is separate, in a way, to what we have been discussing in the Bill, but it may be that in future the transfer and enhancement of that capacity could set the tone for the kind of negotiations that he would like. However, I hope that he will understand that it would not be right for me to make any commitment on that at the moment, bearing in mind the relationships that we have. If he is satisfied with those responses, I commend the order.
Pension Schemes Act 2015 (Judicial Pensions) (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2017
Baroness Buscombe
Moved by
That the Grand Committee do consider the Pension Schemes Act 2015 (Judicial Pensions) (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2017.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, the instrument is relatively concise and I can also be brief.
The purpose of the draft regulations is to make provision to pave the way for the creation of a suitable pension scheme for eligible fee-paid judges, to mirror the pension scheme for salaried judges established by the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993. This is required following the court’s decision in the case of O’Brien v Ministry of Justice.
The background is as follows. Following the case of O’Brien v MoJ, and subsequent decisions, it is now established law that a lack of pension and other specified benefits amounted to unlawful, less favourable treatment of some fee-paid judicial office holders in comparison to salaried judges doing the same or broadly similar work.
The Ministry of Justice made a commitment to implement a pension scheme for these fee-paid judges. This commitment was honoured for future service, subject to transitional protection, by the Judicial Pensions Regulations 2015. However, a new scheme is required as the remedy in respect of service from 7 April 2000, the date when the part-time work directive ought to have been transposed into UK law. The Ministry of Justice intends to create a new scheme, using the power created by Section 78 of the Pension Schemes Act 2015, which inserted a new Section 18A into the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993. However, that provision alone is not enough to enable a suitable fee-paid scheme to be created, as I will now explain.
The Public Service Pensions Act 2013 enacted the Government’s policy on public service pensions. As part of that reform, Section 30 of the 2013 Act placed certain restrictions on the content and operation of public service pensions, subject to an exception for pre-existing pension schemes. At the time of the 2013 Act, a need to permit the making of a new but historic scheme of this nature was not anticipated. These regulations seek to make provision by amending Section 30 of the Public Service Pensions Act so that it will not apply to the new fee-paid judicial pension scheme, so removing a barrier to the creation of the scheme, which will be established through separate regulations, subject to the outcome of the consultation process and parliamentary approval.
In conclusion, I hope that noble Lords will welcome these regulations to make the necessary amendment to make provision for the creation of the fee-paid judicial pension scheme. I therefore commend them to the House.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords—or perhaps I should say, “My Ladies”—I ought to declare an interest, a paternal interest, because my daughter sits as a part-time deputy district judge and I suspect that she will be one of those affected by these regulations. There is good reason to commend the Government’s decision to bring this order, but I want to touch on the wider issue of the judiciary and its position.
As understand it, there is a significant degree of unhappiness among the judiciary at all levels about their conditions. Some 36% of judges are apparently considering leaving the judicial bench over the next five years. That reflects something like 47% of High Court judges, 41% of members of the Court of Appeal and 40% of those on circuit, which represents a significant number. While the Government are here redressing something of an injustice to those affected by what had been the position in relation to pensions, there seems to be a wider concern. I am not expecting the Minister to respond in detail to this, but I should be grateful if she would take back to the department to inquire what, if anything, the Government are doing to ensure that able people are attracted from the Bar to serve in a judicial capacity and to remain connected to the judiciary. There seems to be concern in the legal world that we may run short of competent, high-flying lawyers who are willing and able to take on judicial office. Given the great record and traditions of the judiciary in this country, it would be most unfortunate if that proved to be the case.
As I say, I am not expecting the noble Baroness to answer the somewhat tangential question tonight, but this is an opportunity to raise it, and I hope that something is already going on in the MoJ, in conjunction with senior judges, to look into this. Perhaps in due course she can write to me to explain what, if anything, is happening and when there might be a resolution of what seems to be a growing issue. However, I am, of course, happy to commend the Government for bringing forward this order and we, as an Opposition, support it.
Baroness Buscombe
First, I thank the noble Lord opposite for the points that he made. His interest in this matter—through his daughter—is, in a sense, welcome. She is close to the situation that he referred to with regard to the wider issue of how we encourage—as the noble Lord said—“competent, willing and able” lawyers to take on the role and remain in judicial office. I assure the noble Lord that we take that issue seriously and will write to the noble Lord with a response.
On the draft regulation, this is a reasonable amendment that serves to honour the Government’s commitment to implement a pension scheme for the fee-paid judges service from 7 April 2000 that will mirror the pension scheme open to salaried judges at that time. These regulations are an essential legislative step to allow us to honour that commitment. I beg to move.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill
Tuesday 21st February 2017
(8 years ago)
Lords ChamberEuropean Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 View all European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 103(h) Amendment for Committee (PDF, 52KB) - (21 Feb 2017)
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons in 1972, during the Third Reading of the European Communities Bill, in favour of our membership of the European Union. I little dreamt that 45 years later I would be standing up to advocate the reverse procedure—namely, that we should withdraw from the organisation that I advocated joining. However, it is not me who has changed but Europe, as was symbolised by its change of name from the European Economic Community to the European Community and finally to the European Union. Increasingly, I became concerned about the incompatibility of the growing integration and our national democracy and accountability. I also became more sceptical about the advantages of the single market.
I voted in the referendum to leave but I fully accept that we have to take account of the 48% who voted to remain. Many of us understand and share the concerns about links for universities and the status of foreign nationals in this country. That is, I think, common ground and those are objectives in the negotiations. Equally, I believe that those who voted to remain have a duty not to undermine the Government’s negotiating position.
I admired very much the speech made yesterday by the noble Baroness. I also admired very much the speech made by Keir Starmer when he led for the Opposition. He did not attempt to conceal the divisions in the ranks of the Labour Party. I assure noble Lords opposite that there is no temptation to gloat, because it was like looking in a mirror at the Conservative Party in the 1990s. Mr Starmer made it very clear that the idea that the referendum was, as he put it, consultative simply did not hold water.
I admired Mr Starmer’s speech but I did not admire the speech of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has an extraordinary ability to say two completely contradictory things simultaneously. He said that he did not dispute the result; at the same time, he called on people to rise up. He said that people might change their minds. What he meant was that he might be able to change their minds. All this from a man who promised a referendum on the EU constitution and even published a Bill, but then ensured that the constitution was written in a different order to avoid a referendum.
The former Prime Minister said that people were not given the full facts—that the decision was made on imperfect knowledge. Of course, in a negotiation no one has full knowledge of where we will end up. As for not being given the full facts, people have had more than 40 years in which to make up their minds. He said that Brexit was driven by ideology. I am not sure what ideology he had in mind. If anything, the opposite appears to be the case—European unification as a movement has been almost a religion.
Noble Lords have mentioned endlessly in this debate “membership of the single market” as though that in itself is simply an argument. They have made no attempt to calculate the costs, as my noble friend Lord Lawson referred to yesterday, of the rules of the single market, and they have not bothered to confront the fact that many countries that are not members of the single market have increased their exports to the single market more than members, and certainly more than we, have done. They never bother to comment on the fact that the three largest trading partners of the European Union have no special trading arrangements with the EU, while six of its 10 top trading partners have no special trading relationship or agreement. As my noble friend Lord Lawson said yesterday, there is no reason why there should be a cliff edge.
If noble Lords are sincere in saying that they accept the result of the referendum, it should be possible for them to do all they can to support the Government in their negotiations in the national interest. The amendments being talked about seem more like additions to the Bill, in that they attempt to lay down conditions on the Government’s negotiating position.
On EU nationals, I have great sympathy with what has been said. But the Prime Minister has made it clear that so does she and that this is an objective of the Government. There is, however, no response from other countries in Europe and it would make no sense to make a unilateral gesture that would simply leave the 800,000 British nationals in Europe subject to the leverage of other people in the negotiations.
Equally, when it comes to a parliamentary vote on the deal, the Prime Minister has again said that there will be a vote, so it seems naive to say that Parliament should have the right both to reject whatever deal may be negotiated and simultaneously to decide to stay in the European Union. There are two objections to that argument. First, it would be a denial of the result of the referendum and, secondly, as surely as night follows day, it would make it perfectly inevitable that the EU would offer the worst possible deal in order to have it rejected by Parliament.
I recognise and acknowledge the anxieties of the 48% that should be taken into account. Surely we all want the best possible deal and the best possible access for our exports. But as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said on referendum night, I suspect before the result was announced:
“In. Out. When the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. Any people who retreat into ‘we’re coming back for a second one’—they don’t believe in democracy”.
I believe in democracy and I believe that we should proceed rapidly with the Bill without amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, much has been said already in what was an extensive and intensive debate yesterday, and like many of those who spoke in that debate I was and remain profoundly saddened by the outcome of the referendum. We are unpicking some 40 years of history, which by and large has fostered prosperity, developed co-operation on vital matters such as climate change, and inculcated the concepts of a social charter and structural funds to help poorer countries and regions to grow more prosperous. It has kept us safer through co-operation on law enforcement and counterterrorism and has fostered peace in Europe throughout my lifetime.
We are now being asked to withdraw from all this and to step away from the single market and the customs union with no certainty about what arrangements will replace them. It is not an inviting prospect for us in Luton at a time when General Motors’ proposed disposal of its European operations could leave the Vauxhall operation outside arrangements that allow goods to move freely within its main market without tariffs, quotas or routine customs control. The uncertainty about whether the UK will have continued membership of the European common aviation area is also not helpful to an airport-based economy, and it is certainly not helped by a slowdown in growth.
Of course, responsibility for this mess, which is what I believe it is, rests squarely with David Cameron. He gambled that a referendum would heal the split in his party but has ended up splitting the country. History will rightly judge him harshly.
As the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution set out,
“neither the question put to the electorate, nor the provisions of the Act under which the referendum took place, set out how or when withdrawal should take place in the event of a vote to leave”.
What Parliament enacted may have been a clear proposition—yes or no, in or out—but it was deficient in setting down how any mandate arising from the referendum would be taken forward; what, if any, feedback, decision-making or further endorsement should follow.
There are myriad consequences and issues arising from leaving the EU, including the need to incorporate some 5,000 pieces of directly applicable legislation into UK law. Many of the options are mutually exclusive. If Parliament did not originally spell out a process for dealing with the mandate, it is right for Parliament and the Government to take up the reins now. But I would argue that we need to be cautious about suggesting that this is all down to the choice of the people rather than down to the consequences of the clear choice that they made to leave the EU. We are dealing here with choices of government, and these should not be sacrosanct.
One of the most profound choices that the Government are seeking to make is to eschew membership of the single market and the customs union. They are prepared to sacrifice these at the altar of reducing immigration, notwithstanding research, most recently from the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE, again showing the benefits to national income, taxes and the budget deficit from immigration, and notwithstanding a report from the think tank Global Future that suggests that the Government’s approach could mean a fall in current net levels of immigration of no more than 15%, and that might be reduced further by the terms of new free trade agreements, which typically come with a demand for liberalisation on free movement.
I join others—and will vote with them—on insisting that the Government settle immediately the legal rights of EU nationals living in the UK, although I note the press reports that highlight potential practical difficulties with systems in administering a cut-off point. Is this right? The Government’s prevarication over this is cruel, given the substantial contribution that these communities have made to the UK. From local experience, I know the value of that contribution.
The alternative on offer to the single market is some vague prospect of,
“the freest and most frictionless trade possible”.
The OBR’s judgment, we heard yesterday, is consistent, it says, with most external studies that say that any likely Brexit outcome will lead to lower trade flows, lower investment, lower net inward migration and lower potential output. All this has adverse implications for the public finances and our social security system and will add some £60 billion of additional borrowing over the next five years. We know who bears the brunt of worsening economic outcomes under this Government.
As others have said, the White Paper sets out a framework for a deal that hardly amounts to a blueprint. Even if it did, these matters have to be agreed with our European partners. Article 50, once triggered, does not put us in the driving seat; for all practical purposes, it means that we leave the EU whether or not we have agreement. Transitional arrangements may well be in point, but these will presumably be subject to the ongoing jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
Complying with this Bill means an uncertain destination but no way back. That is the magnitude of the decision that we are making over the next few weeks. For me this is therefore a difficult choice between supporting what I believe is right for our country and the collision with the limits of our constitutional duty. I have to accept that the combination of the referendum result and the decision of the other place should prevail. However, we should push our authority to the limit in challenging the Government on their proposed deal. Seeking to ensure protection of workers’ rights, justice for EU nationals living in the UK, maximising free access to the market, sustaining our historic ties with Ireland and much more is one way in which we can salvage something from this process.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said that he is very sympathetic to EU nationals in this country. However, he is perfectly happy for them to be used as a bargaining chip. Frankly, I do not think that is consistent with the view of this House or with British values.
Given the pressure of time, I will focus on the importance of giving people a second vote—that is, not a second vote on the original deal but a second vote that is a first vote on the final terms of exit from the European Union. I concur with those who have said that the June referendum gave the Government a mandate for Brexit but did not give them a mandate to choose the most extreme form of economic separation from the EU. It has been Theresa May’s choice and that of her Ministers to opt for a hard Brexit, leaving both the single market and the customs union.
I want to look at the impact of that decision by the May Government on just one sector of our economy—the financial services sector. This sector makes up 7% of the UK’s GDP, pays more than £75 billion a year to the Treasury and provides over 2 million jobs, most of them outside London. It is one of the few industries in which we are a global leader, clearing over 95% of the world’s $600 trillion a day in interest rate swaps, leading not just in traditional areas such as foreign exchange and specialist insurance, but also at the cutting edge of fintech. We damage financial services at our peril.
However, Theresa May and this Government have decided to walk out of the structures that underpin this sector. In reality, this industry is as enmeshed across the EU as a piece of crochet work. Under the May agenda, the UK will leave not only MiFID with its passporting freedoms, impacting Barclays, the American banks and many of the small players which want to grow, but also a whole raft of enabling arrangements from e-commerce used by crowdfunders across the EU and delegation powers that are essential to locating asset management in the UK, to access to skills, entrepreneurs and investment. That is why, salami slice by salami slice, financial institutions, big and small, are quietly rethinking their business models, negotiating leases, applying for licences and working on staff flexibility. They are making sure that they can operate outside the UK the businesses they have previously based wholly or overwhelmingly inside the UK. They are looking at front offices first—I hope the Treasury notes that that is where the big deals are booked and where the big tax revenue pay-off occurs—but where a front office moves, a back office is always at risk of following.
I commend the financial institutions that have chosen to speak out, such as the London Clearing House, which has been quite open that its clients are demanding that it moves transactions to New York, taking its ecosystem and over 100,000 jobs with it. The insurer Lloyd’s has been regretful but clear that it must have a major EU hub. Even little fintechs are considering second headquarters. For many in the industry, decision time is approaching. Given how long it takes to set up new operations, they need answers on what the UK-EU relationship will be—indeed, they need to know what the UK relationship with global regulators will be—not in two years’ time but in six months or less. I fear that by that point negotiations with the EU will barely have started, never mind finished.
The Government dismiss all these concerns by saying that the EU needs us more than we need it. However, I point out that where Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Dublin are unable to take business from the UK, New York will. Once out of the EU, the only advantage that the UK has over the US in European terms is a time difference. The specialist skills of London are already being transferred to New York. That is well under way.
The Government’s answer is that they will replace MiFID and the other regulatory structures that we have with the EU with forms of mutual recognition or joint supervision through equivalency agreements—bespoke, untried, long-term equivalency agreements, dozens of them of extraordinary complexity. Unfortunately, what once looked like a possible solution, though hard to achieve in the timeframe, now seems likely to founder on the Government’s insistence that they will not in any way engage with the European Court of Justice to adjudicate, even on a joint basis, the rules of agreements.
At this point, when we are being asked to consider triggering Article 50, the Government can tell us for certain only that a large part of one of our key industries, a major contributor to jobs, taxes and exports, is at risk. It has been put at risk not by Brexit but by the Government’s hard Brexit decisions and red lines. No one in this House or in the other place knows where in the range of outcomes the actual, final negotiated deal will fall. Will we remain one of the two great global financial centres of the world? Will we lose major activities such as clearing? Will we be reduced to just a substantial financial centre? If we do not know the answers for this sector, we do not know what the outcome will be for the economy as a whole.
I fully understand that for the Government the economy is low on the EU agenda compared to reducing immigration and removing any jurisdiction from the ECJ. I am pretty sure, however, that those are not the priorities of the British people. So let the people see the final Brexit deal, consider its consequences and decide on it. In two years we will have facts and reasonable clarity, not just speculation. Surely then is the time for the British people to have the final word.
Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, but it is a pleasure also to disagree profoundly with her suggestion of having a second referendum.
I would like to begin by congratulating the Prime Minister on her excellent Lancaster House speech; it had vision and clarity, and was exactly what we have been hoping to hear for many, many years. She was quite clear that she accepted the result of the referendum and that the result was “out”—no ifs, no buts, no EEA, no one foot in and one foot out, but a clear and clean Brexit. That was what the referendum called for and that is what this Government are going to deliver; I am very pleased with her for doing that. It was, as the noble Lord, Lord Lang, called it yesterday, a transformative speech—it was actually a UKIP speech, and I am very pleased with her for delivering that, too.
Some of us in this House have been waiting for very many years—it has been more than 23 years since we debated the Maastricht treaty in this House—to hear a British Prime Minister at last saying what Mrs May said at Lancaster House. We asked for a referendum during the debate on the Maastricht treaty but were sadly defeated in the Lobbies due to the very effective whipping of the hereditary Peers by Lord Hesketh, who later saw the light and joined UKIP. I am only sorry that many of the Peers who took part in those debates with us are not here today to see history made. I think in particular of Lord Bruce of Donington, Lord Shore, Lord Moran and Lord Harris of High Cross, who were effective speakers against our membership of the EU long ago, and they should be remembered for that. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, who for the whole of his political life has been an opponent of our membership of the European Union. He was taken ill two weeks ago in the House. I later saw him in hospital and he said he wanted to be here today but sadly his doctors have told him that he should not travel to come and speak today—I think it may be something to do with Mr Blair crawling out from under his wallet and telling us to rise up.
I should remind your Lordships that this House already voted to leave the EU during the passage of my noble friend Lord Pearson’s European Communities (Amendment) Bill of 1997; here it is. This House—the House of Lords—voted to leave the European Union. In spite of the attempt to torpedo the Bill by the Lib Dems—for whom no surrender to Brussels is ever enough—we won that debate. I say to noble Lords today that they have already swallowed the camel; they should not now strain at the gnat in passing this Bill.
Reading this debate now, it seems to me striking how the arguments we made then are still relevant today—we have been making them for 20 years. The problem we then had was that we were making such arguments to Governments who, for whatever reason, were committed to what they laughably called our European destiny. So we did not get anywhere making those arguments to Governments, but, last summer, we were finally able to take those arguments directly to the electorate, with the result we saw in the referendum: an out vote.
Thankfully, we are coming to the end of the days when we had to ratify every EU measure that was put before us in this House or in the other place—we could oppose them; we could debate them; we could even occasionally convince, although perhaps only ourselves—but, at the end of the debate, we had to listen to the noble Lord or the noble Baroness the Minister telling us that it was “the Government’s treaty obligation” and that was the end of the story.
From a historical perspective, when we look back and think that it was only in 1926 that women were given the vote in this country, we should be rather surprised and perhaps shocked at that. I was equally shocked, and still am—I did a little research—to find that it was only in 1965 that President Johnson gave African Americans the vote in America. In 50 or 100 years, when people come to look at this debate here, they will be equally shocked and surprised that, until 2016, this country of Britain was still contracting out its laws to be made by people whom we did not elect, we did not know and we could not sack. The time of “pay and obey” is done, and not before time.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, we have a well-prepared speakers list giving everybody an opportunity to speak in turn. It is right and proper that we proceed with the order of business as it is before us.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to be able to take part in this debate, which is of such enormous historical importance. In 1975, believing that we had joined a trading bloc, I voted in favour of remaining a member of the EEC. However, it has been clear for many years now that we have been somewhat reluctant passengers on the European train, and our partners have been irritated by the brake that we have sought to apply to the political and federalist aspects of the project. As Sir Winston Churchill said in 1953 in relation to the embryonic European institutions,
“we are with them, but not of them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/53; col. 891.]
I have spent a large part of my working life overseas, especially in Japan. I was always clear in my mind that the firm I represented, Kleinwort Benson, derived its standing and the trust of its clients in no small part from the fact that it was a British firm headquartered in the City of London. It was nothing to do with the fact that the UK was a member of the EU.
I have also worked in Brussels as director-general of EFAMA, the trade association for the investment management industry in Europe. By 2006, it was already clear that the European regulators, the predecessors of EBA, ESMA and EIOPA, were intent on harmonising regulation across Europe. The diminution of the UK’s influence over European regulation accelerated after the financial crisis and the eurozone crisis, but it is increasingly at the global level that the interconnected major financial markets will develop the optimum regulatory framework and the influence of our own national regulators will surely be restored and enhanced after their subordination to EU regulators comes to an end.
Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, I believe that the City’s success owes nothing to the EU and its future prospects are brighter and more secure freed from the European yoke and its somewhat dirigiste ways. My experience in Brussels increased my doubts that the UK could ever commit to the vision of Europe to which the European institutions aspire. However, I believed that the UK could and should reform the EU and our relationship with it from within. David Cameron tried to do this, but what he was offered as a new settlement was too far away from what I believe would have been in the UK’s interest. With some reluctance, I abandoned hope that we could reform the EU and our relationship with it from within, and decided to support the campaign to leave.
It was very clear from debates in your Lordships’ House and in another place that the European Union Referendum Act was not intended to ask the people to advise. It was clear that Parliament agreed to ask the people to decide this question. I agree with what Charles Moore wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday:
“The judges in the Supreme Court and the Divisional Court had the greatest difficulty in understanding the point—plain to the most ordinary voter—that a government decision to invite the people to decide something by referendum is of great constitutional significance, not a sort of footnote”.
It seems clear that Tony Blair suffers from a similar difficulty. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, was wise in his drafting of Article 50, in so far as it provides that the Union shall negotiate the arrangements for a member state’s withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. This clearly means that the UK’s future trading relationship with the Union, in both goods and services, should be agreed alongside the terms of withdrawal. One idea which may well have merit is that we should enter into a treaty of collaboration with the EU which would govern our future bilateral relationship and would contain a number of pillars within which we would commit to collaborate as closely as our mutual interest will allow.
I would ask the Minister if he thinks that proposing such a treaty has merit in that it could help create a more positive background for the negotiations that lie ahead, helping to facilitate the best possible agreement on free and unencumbered trade between our markets in both goods and services. It goes without saying that the rights of EU citizens who have made their homes and lives in this country must not be altered in any way, but I shall oppose any attempt to amend this Bill because I believe that would restrict the Government’s flexibility in negotiating the best possible agreement for our future relationship. Furthermore, the Government have made a commitment that both Houses will be asked to approve both the terms of withdrawal and the agreement before they are put to the European Parliament.
I do not underestimate the challenges that lie ahead, but I am confident that the Government will find the right way forward and that the opportunities that this historic decision will unlock outweigh the disadvantages of being shackled to a regional trading bloc with a different outlook on the world to our own.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to be in this House; we all know it. Many have expressed misgivings about the unelected nature of this part of the legislature, but the rationale is one I want to remind us about. The rational for our being here—appointed—is that we bring expertise from so many different walks of life. Expertise is an idea that is now derided. The strength of this House is that we have people from many walks of life and with great diversity. We have seen holes being plugged in recent times, with people coming from our different communities. That abundance of experience is to be brought to bear on the legislation that comes before us. I ask this question quite pointedly: are we supposed to abandon that experience when it really matters and when we are dealing with the most important issue of our lifetime?
We in this House have a higher duty. We are more than fine-tuners of legislation. The idea is that this House takes the long view, and that we have to consider the well-being of our kingdom—of our nations within this kingdom. We are the guardians, too, of hard-won rights and liberties. In the modern world that has included the ones that have come from our collaboration with our European neighbours. They are important ones—the rights to live, work, study and love across Europe, our rights around employment, our maternity rights, and our rights on the environment and on many other areas that enhance our lives.
We do not have to look over our shoulder in the way that our elected House does. We are also stewards of the constitution. We also do not have to worry about the threats that are made by the hectoring media, and we can ignore trolls on the internet because most of us are at an age when those things do not count. We in this House should be able to exercise independent judgment, and I believe that we have a duty to do so in this historic decision. The consequences may be dire for these islands. They may be dire for future generations. I say as a Scot that I am worried for Scotland. I say as someone of Irish heritage that I am worried about peace in Ireland. I am worried for our economy. As a person from a working-class background, I think that the ordinary folk of this country are going to suffer greatly. I am worried for a vast array of good law that has come from this alliance. I say that as a lawyer and as the chair of the EU Justice Sub-Committee.
While there is a myth that we are the victims of a wash of law that comes from Europe, in fact we have contributed greatly to the creation of that law: harmonising standards, ensuring that the judgments in our courts are enforced easily and speedily throughout the European Union and protecting small businesses doing business with other countries. We have created consumer rights, and the quality of goods that are being sold has to meet our standards. It means that we can easily sue through our courts and have the judgments made effective.
We have to think very seriously about our role. Membership of this trading bloc has protected us against the downsides of globalisation. I ask us to ask ourselves: “Do you think that this conjunction of Brexit with Trump is not perilous for the United Kingdom? Is it not dangerous to become more reliant on a nation led by a man who is temperamentally unsuited to high office and so unstable and irrational? Should we not be thinking about how that affects foreign affairs and why we are not better placed by being part of this Union?”
I want us to think about this business of, “The people have spoken”. I am tired of hearing this distortion. It is a degrading of our public discourse. It is a poisoning of honest debate, as 48% of our nation who voted, voted against leaving. It would be incredibly divisive if we ignored them. I want us to think very seriously about the implications of this process. Like others, I reject the triggering of Article 50 in the way that the Government have laid it out, telling us that the single market is already off the table. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, telling us that the Prime Minister made a UKIP speech. What a shame.
The Government have now agreed that the final deal will come before both Houses, but I will ask a question. A statement like that has political force but does not have legal force. What does the promise mean if it is not in the Bill? I am concerned about what happens if our negotiators do not reach an agreement, or part of Parliament votes against the agreement. We have been told by Ministers such as David Jones that, if a deal is agreed and Parliament rejects it, we simply go off to the World Trade Organization’s trading rules. That should be a matter of serious concern, so I want to see that in the Bill so that we might have a proper opportunity to vote on those matters.
I am also concerned, as many are, about the position of people who have lived in this country for a number of years and whose rights are going to be trampled on. I hope that an amendment to protect them will be forthcoming and will be voted on by this House. This House has gained increasing public respect in recent years. The reason is that we protect the common good. We are expected by the public to bring the weight of our experience to bear and to say that, basically, that experience is worth something. If our consciences are telling us that Brexit is a folly, with potentially disastrous consequences for the country, we have to listen to that voice of conscience and instinct. History will record what each of us does and our children and grandchildren, and theirs in turn, will ask, “What did you do when this was decided? What did you do at this crucial juncture? Were you shackled by convention, fearful that the House was going to be abolished? Did you dance to the tune of the Daily Mail, or did you stand up for principle and posterity, for the values of tolerance and inclusion, for the interests of our young and for the neglected communities in our midst?”. I will support vital amendments and, if they are not accepted, I am going to vote against the Bill. This House should be urging a rethink on this whole project. This House should be saying, “Not in our name”.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I need to make a few declarations. The first is that I have the privilege in this House of chairing the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee. I would say this, but in my opinion it is the most significant committee at this point in terms of the angles that it is looking at, such as financial services and the EU budget. My other declaration is more personal. I am married to a German, I have lived and worked in France, and I have a house in Italy. So I have a big dog in this fight, not a little whippet.
However, I have to tell the House that on the passage of this Bill I will be voting with the Labour Opposition and the Government Benches. Why do I take the position I do? It is not because I am any less a remainer today than I was on 23 June—I am every bit a remainer; as I explained, I have a deep and personal motivation to wish that the result of last June had not happened. But I believe that a second referendum entails risks for which the price is too high: too high for the country overall and too high for the other European countries. It has been stated that the people voted for a departure but not a destination. In my view, people had a very clear idea of the destination: the destination was a break from the EU. I agree that they did not know exactly what the terrain would look like, but they knew they were taking a risk.
A vote is always conducted on imperfect information. There is an inherent risk in any decision about the future, whether it is intervention in Syria or, as on this occasion, the EU. Take as an analogy the Scottish devolution referendum in 1998. At the time, Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem unionists in Scotland were told that the electoral system was such that no single party could take power alone and so the nats would not be able to take power and re-open the independence question again. We all know how that turned out. Take the euro. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, voters in several EU states had a referendum on joining the currency. In their nightmares they could not have imagined the financial crisis and the banks too big to fail nearly bringing down the sovereigns. In Greece, Italy and indeed even in Germany, people could not have known what was to hit the euro in less than a decade. People always act on imperfect information.
The other reason why I believe that we now have to implement the result is the referendum Act of 2011. Let me remind the House that that Act commits us to a referendum if further powers or competencies are passed to the EU that entail treaty change. That is the current situation. There are people across this House who wished to try to defeat the Act—I was one of them—but we failed. We now have a situation where treaty change, driven by the exigencies of European integration, is inevitable. This House knows that the eurozone crisis, the security issue, the need for joint co-operation on immigration and a host of other things will bring the Europeans to the point at which they will need treaty change, if not in the next five years then in the next 10. We would have had to take this issue to the British people anyway, if not in 2016 then perhaps in 2026.
Let me turn now to the central purpose of the Bill, which is in effect to trigger Article 50. While it may be theoretically possible to revoke Brexit while the talks on the question are still going on over the next two years, politically we cannot revert to the status quo ante. It is contrary to what the other 27 countries of the EU envisage in terms of their understanding of Article 50: that in effect it is politically irrevocable.
Once we have passed this Bill, there is no longer any possibility of a negotiation where the UK could go into the talks again with a set of demands on the proviso that if they are not good enough we will have another referendum. I say “again” and “another”, because we have already done that. From 2013 a referendum was promised if the Conservatives won the election. After 2015 the Government spent a year renegotiating a new settlement with the EU, securing what I think was a very good settlement. However, we were not able to sell that to the people, and here we are.
The EU has seen the latest bout of UK-inspired disruption for six years now, since 2011, with at least a further two years to go. The idea that we can try the same thing again and again shows a profound misunderstanding of how the EU works and ignorance of our partners’ patience and preoccupations. They will not go into an Article 50 negotiation or give us any serious terms if they believe that we will prolong the agony, theirs and ours, with the risk that we might have the same result after another vote. In fact, the contrary is likely to happen, as there is already a view across the Channel that what we were offered last year was too generous. So to stop others from using the same ploy we are likely to lose some of our opt-outs and special exemptions. To keep united, the EU needs us to move on so that it can resolve the myriad problems confronting both the Union and us.
Janan Ganesh writing in the Financial Times today lays out a future for Britain’s relationship with the EU where we, the remainers, will have to mobilise, to make our case, and to wait for new relations to evolve. Bit by bit, the UK will have to renew its engagement with the EU if it is to thrive and not just survive. Pragmatism will be driven on that occasion by the voters themselves, again. He says:
“Brexit is an idea whose only effective rebuttal is its own implementation”.
It will take time and it will take patience. I hope to play my small role in the passage of this Bill.
Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)
My Lords, I have been very impressed by the wide-ranging scope of so many of the speeches. In contrast, I want to concentrate on a narrower subject that has been touched on only lightly so far in the opening Front-Bench speeches and in a few words from the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, my noble friend Lord Hannay of Chiswick and the noble Baroness, Lady Henig: that of police security and intelligence co-operation in Europe. In that, I wish to draw the attention of the House once again to the excellent report by the European Union Committee on Home Affairs entitled Brexit: Future UK-EU Security and Police Cooperation, debated by noble Lords on 7 February, and in doing so I declare my interest in policing matters. I also wish to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, who chaired the relevant sub-committee that produced the report.
I will not repeat what is set out in the report or what was said in the debate other than to say that reading either brings into focus the striking unanimity of view by witnesses from the police and the intelligence agencies about exactly how significant were the agreements with Europol, the Schengen information system and the European Criminal Records Information System, which is described as,
“an absolute game-changer for the United Kingdom”,
by the National Crime Agency, together with the European arrest warrant. Noble Lords and the Minister will have read the report.
The point I want to make, however, is that this subject is unique amid the many areas of negotiation that lie ahead, in that co-operation on the way forward for the UK and the 27 on this subject is unequivocally in the interests of all 28 national Governments. This will not be an argument; it will be about how far we can do things together. It is not about a sector of government or an industry, but all the Governments of Europe in their own national interests.
My point today is to urge the Government to deal separately and at speed with this section of the negotiation in order to resolve the vexed issue of what future relationships on these issues the UK will have with the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which has already struck down most of the early abuses of the European arrest warrant which the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, identified early in the debate. Speed in starting this process separately from everything else is at a premium.
I am pleased to quote from the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, to the debate of the EU Select Committee’s report on 7 February, who said:
“there is a cliff edge in this sector if the two-year period provided for under Article 50 expires without any agreement on either a temporary or lasting solution. This cliff edge is far more real than it is in the trade field, where … we can always fall back on … WTO membership … But there is no plan B for justice and home affairs … we shall simply drop out”,—[Official Report, 7/2/17; col. 1697.]
of these arrangements. The terrorists, the paedophiles and the drug barons will breathe a sigh of relief. The British ones will return for business as usual to the costa del crime. We once opted out of all these arrangements and this Prime Minister, as Home Secretary, opted back into the most important of the security, law enforcement, justice and intelligence-sharing arrangements. We need a kind of reverse grandfathering now to accept and acknowledge the judgments of the CJEU in this narrow sphere. Otherwise we shall, as in the excellent joke told late last night in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, be half way down the cliff holding on to the branch when it breaks. In that event, all the peoples of Europe will be at greater risk.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I rise with trepidation to speak in this historic debate. We live in troubling times. As the Prime Minister has rightly said, we must all respect the result of the referendum. That is why we are here today. Having spent many years trying to help ordinary people who have been affected by economic or pension policy changes to achieve better outcomes, I have often warned Governments when I believe that policy is damaging or unjust. I have always relied on economic or social rationale for such policy analysis, rather than political logic. Indeed, I have seen many times how short-term political considerations have led to long-term problems. I fear that this is happening now as politics is being put above economics.
For the first time in my life, I have been afraid of saying publicly what I believe is right. I fear the personal attacks, social media threats and hated-filled letters to which those of us counselling caution in interpreting the results of the referendum are subjected. I have listened to politicians admitting that they believe that leaving the EU in the manner apparently planned will be economically damaging and could undermine peace and prosperity for the future, but then saying that they will vote for it anyway. In all good conscience, and despite the consequences I may personally face, I cannot follow that example. I have been proud to sit on these Benches and to work with so many marvellous colleagues and with noble Members on other sides of this House. However, even though it will upset many, I have to say that the Bill could do as yet untold, unquantified damage to our economy and to the future of our great nation. In their hearts, many noble Lords believe this too.
Of course, the easiest thing to do is to keep quiet and just go along with what is happening. Believe me, I have felt the pressure to do so. However, my judgment is that the Bill needs amendment. It seeks to bypass proper parliamentary scrutiny and assumes that the will of the people expressed at just one moment in time has given carte blanche for any course of action, even the most extreme. That is not right. On an issue of such magnitude, it is irresponsible to plough ahead without proper preparation, as we seem to be doing at the moment. Of course, I accept that the elected Chamber has the final say, but what is the role of this House? Is it to just trot through the Lobby regardless of our considered views? No, I believe that the role of this unelected Chamber is to point out where legislation needs amending and to ask the other place to reconsider when we believe that mistakes have been made. If we do not do so on this issue, then, when?
Having studied UK and European economies and policies since the 1980s, I have seen that many of the EU’s problems stem from putting politics above economics. The euro, which I never supported, is a classic example of a political construct with damaging long-term economic consequences, but politicians who could have foreseen this ploughed on regardless. More focus on the longer-term economic and social consequences of pension policy, with better planning and safety nets, could have averted many problems too. I absolutely respect the result of the referendum. The people have spoken; they made a decision. However, MPs have interpreted this as a mandate to rush headlong into lighting the fuse of a two- year time bomb. Once lit, we probably have around 18 months to work out a way forward for our country of 65 million people. Should we not be as best prepared as possible for the coming crucial period? My question is: are we ready?
Clearly, there is deep dissatisfaction with the EU among millions of British people. Indeed, worldwide there is deep disquiet with conventional politicians and political discourse. But the way to rebuild trust and confidence in politics is not to lead the country over a cliff edge without taking care to put in strong safety nets. Yes, the people have spoken and, yes, we must listen. They now trust us to do our best for them. Some of my leave friends have covered themselves with the mantle of patriotism, as if they alone are acting in the national interest and protecting its sovereignty. I respectfully say to them, “You do not have a monopoly on patriotism. We do not question your love for this country. Please do not question ours”.
We should not be hurried into this without far better preparation for such a potentially irreversible journey, and without a careful and credible plan. The White Paper is not such a plan. It is not a considered assessment of the consequences of triggering Article 50 or leaving the single market and the customs union. It is a wish list. The White Paper does not quantify the costs. It is a cost-benefit analysis itemising only the benefits and none of the costs. Where is the risk assessment? It is full of hype and hope detailing great possible outcomes. As a marketing document, this would fail the “treating customers fairly” test that is applied to all financial firms. You could not sell someone a washing machine, let alone a pension, on the basis of this type of analysis. Yet for the most important financial decision that our country may make and this House is being asked to consider, there is not one estimate of the costs.
And what about immigration? From a demographic and economic point of view, immigration is absolutely essential. The NHS, social care, agriculture, academia and construction rely on immigration. Our ageing population is moving into retirement with fewer younger people to support it. Immigration has helped power our growth for the past few years. The conclusion that the British people voted to stop immigration regardless of the impact on the economy, and to leave the single market regardless of the impact on our living standards, is unsafe. Some did, but most were led to believe that somehow leaving the EU would mean no more immigration and a better economy. That is, quite frankly, fantasy.
Finally, all parliamentarians were freed from party-political shackles during the referendum. Why is that not the case now? If we are going to get a great deal on leaving the EU, why the fear of putting it to Parliament or the people? I ask all noble Lords to act in accordance with their conscience and to exercise their judgment of what they truly believe is in the best interest of all the people of the United Kingdom, and of our children and grandchildren who were not given a vote. If that means sending the Bill back to the other place with amendments, so be it. Is that not what we are here for?
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I will address my remarks primarily to my own Benches. Whatever our differences in response to the referendum last year, we are all now, with very few honourable exceptions, strong pro-Europeans—including the many Members on my Front Bench whom I am proud to call my friends.
Internationalism has always been a core socialist and social democratic belief. Interdependence in our globalised world today makes what was always a moral value an economic and security imperative as well. Today, we are debating this miserable measure to trigger the process of detaching the UK from the most successful peace project in world history. I hang my head in shame that the leaders of this country and my party were not able to win a majority for remain last June. It will live with me to my dying day.
There are many guilty men and a few women, too. There has been the failure of successive Governments, including, I regret to say, our own, to present a consistent case for our EU membership; a collective weakness in going along with the idea of a referendum—“a device of dictators”, as Clem Attlee once so accurately quipped; and of course David Cameron’s miscalculated opportunism. But let us be frank, I say with terrible sadness that the debilitation of our own party contributed to Brexit. We have a leader who, unlike the vast majority of Labour members, including many of those who joined up to support him, has never been a European true believer. In the referendum he failed the key test of democratic politics—to cut through media cynicism and the mass of seething public discontents with a compelling, positive case for Europe that forced voters to listen.
Now I see no clarion call for the fight—only a three-line Whip in the Commons to force Labour MPs to troop through the Lobbies alongside a right-wing Tory Government dancing to Iain Duncan Smith’s tune. That was even at Third Reading, when all our so-called red-line amendments had been defeated. Of course we must live with the referendum result—but I do not believe that public opinion is fixed for ever in the same place.
I would not have liked it, but there could have been a national consensus behind Brexit. A Government who were determined to establish that could have proposed a different approach that took account of the 48% and not given top priority to the ideologues of the Tory right. That would have been a Brexit based on the single market and the closest possible political and security ties. But in January we had the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech, which prioritised sovereignty and immigration over jobs and living standards—and the British electorate last June did not vote for that.
The referendum cannot mean that Parliament is bound to accept whatever withdrawal deal Mrs May cobbles together. If her terms are contrary to the national interest, there must remain open at least the possibility that the Brexit decision might be reversed. But I do not see Labour fighting for that. The remnants of the 1970s hard left are still stuck on “socialism in one country”. A leading adviser to Ed Miliband opined the other day that,
“Brexit opens the door for a new and exciting programme—from regional industrial strategy to the end of the power of the City of London”.
I say: think again.
Then of course there are the Blue Labour intellectuals, who think that drastic cuts in immigration are the way for Labour to reconnect with the working class. Their analysis is highly questionable and their policy cannot be implemented without unacceptable cost. As regards their political tactics, John Curtice’s analysis for the British Election Study shows that even in Labour-held leave constituencies, 57% of 2015 Labour voters voted to remain.
As for cutting low-skilled migration, there is no possibility of achieving this without huge damage to our NHS and social care, or any chance of finding in the next five years the workers that Britain needs to build the houses and infrastructure that we all want to see. It is time for Labour to tell the truth. The biggest losers from Brexit are going to be working families and the poor. As the devaluation of the pound forces up prices while benefits are frozen, a sharp rise in child poverty is the inevitable consequence of Brexit—and on sterling, I warn you, we have seen nothing yet as Mrs May teeters along her infamous cliff edge.
I venture that our internationalist forefathers would be shocked by our present state. Keir Hardie, who left school at eight, bravely condemned racism in South Africa, backed independence for India and fought to build solidarity with European social democratic parties in the hope of averting the catastrophe of the First World War. He never flinched in the face of the jingoists and imperialists of the day—many of them, of course, in the working-class electorate. The same could be said of Bevin opposing Nazism and Munich in the 1930s.
If all the Labour leaders of the past had bowed the knee to populism, would the great Labour Governments of Harold Wilson, with Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary, ever have abolished hanging, legalised homosexuality or introduced the first laws on racial equality? Labour faces two choices: accept a catastrophic hard Brexit or expose the multiple deceits that it represents, and campaign for public opinion to shift before it is too late. I know where I stand: as a proud member of the Labour Party, I am going to fight for the internationalist, pro-European and egalitarian convictions I have held for the last 50 years.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I take a rather different approach from the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. That may be one of the strengths of this House.
I would like to address three issues. First, on the Bill, I agree with our Convenor: the decision is now taken and there is no turning back. That was set out with remarkable clarity by my noble and learned friend Lord Judge last night. We must now get on with it and bring the expertise of this House to making it a success. As for a parliamentary vote at the end of the process, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hill, that in an extremely complex negotiation with 27 partners and a two-year timeframe it is simply not feasible.
Secondly, in contrast to some noble Lords, I would like to introduce an optimistic note. I believe that the decision to leave the EU will eventually be seen to have been right for Britain. That is for three reasons. First, the direction of travel towards ever-closer union was increasingly uncomfortable for many people in this country, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, outlined. Secondly, there was a real desire to take back control of our own affairs, expressed not in detail but in a very widespread sentiment. Thirdly, the prospect of massive levels of uncontrolled immigration was placing unacceptable pressures on our society. Indeed, Mr Blair acknowledged in his speech last Friday that, for many, immigration lay at the heart of their decision to leave. I would like therefore to speak briefly about this central issue.
The fact is that there were good reasons for the public’s view. It is no use skating over them. At current levels, we will be adding to the population of this country half a million every year. That is the population of Liverpool. Imagine building that every year. Secondly, at similar levels, we will have to build a new home every five minutes, night and day, for new migrant families. Thirdly, there is the rapid change in the composition of our society—a society that is already struggling to absorb and integrate newcomers. The present Government, and indeed earlier Governments, have understood the need to get the numbers down. Unfortunately, our European partners stuck to what they saw as a position of principle and they declined to offer any viable remedy—hence, I suggest, in large measure, the outcome of the referendum.
Lastly, I will speak about the central question of what in fact can be done to reduce immigration from the EU. Efforts have been made—one was made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson—to suggest that Brexit will make no difference to immigration numbers. Clearly, if that is true, the project is in real difficulty. But it is not true. Migration Watch has made some suggestions. Here I declare a non-financial interest as its chairman. In briefest outline, the key lies in the fact that 80% of EU workers who have arrived in the last 10 years are in lower-skilled jobs. We have therefore recommended that the current work permit scheme be extended to EU migrants who wish to work here. We estimate that that would reduce net migration from the EU by about 100,000 a year—that estimate has not been seriously challenged. That would be a significant step forward. Of course, there will have to be some transition arrangements—the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to various categories where there is the need for transition—but in the medium to long term, that will be its effect. For others, such as students, tourists, the married, the self-sufficient, we would like to see, and we believe can get, visa-free access in both directions. That, we think, is extremely important to maintain the enormous variety and important links that we have with the people of Europe.
I recognise that I have skated over a lot of complexities, but I thought it right to outline that there is a way forward. I fully appreciate that the ride will be bumpy—perhaps extremely bumpy at times. It may well take five or 10 years, but in the end we will have stepped away from a union that in my view we never really fitted into. We will indeed have taken back control of our own country.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, one of the deep delights for me in your Lordships’ House is the fact that we have such deep divides in opinion and yet we can still stay polite. That was the position that I found myself in during the referendum campaign, when I was campaigning to leave the EU. I found myself in some unsavoury company at times, with some people with whom I share not a single view, apart from the fact that the UK would be better off outside the EU.
I believe passionately that we have made the right decision, but at the same time we have to be absolutely sure that we go about it in the right way. The Bill that the Government have presented to us is simply inadequate. Had there been a decent White Paper with some detail about the things that many of us care about, I would have felt calmer about voting for the Bill as it exists. However, the Prime Minister is approaching these negotiations with a blank sheet of paper. Where are the underlying principles? There are underlying principles in the EU, but where are the underlying principles that we will maintain during negotiations, or are there to be no principles at all?
The Green Party is particularly concerned that the Cabinet will attempt to dump protections for everything from wildlife and the countryside to the social protections that we see as normal in society nowadays. The Government could use a combination of exit negotiations and secondary legislation to do all sorts of things that the majority of people who voted leave would not want to happen. It is wrong to use the referendum result as cover for bypassing proper parliamentary procedure and scrutiny. The Lords has the job of ensuring that a democratic process is followed throughout the different stages of the negotiations.
As somebody who has advocated leaving the EU ever since we joined as a result of the 1975 European Communities membership referendum, I resent people suggesting that I am out to wreck the Bill by seeking to amend it—someone even said that it would be “traitorous”. That is an unpleasant thing to say about people who are trying to improve things. As for threats from the other place to replace the House of Lords with a different sort of Chamber or abolish it altogether, for me, that would be a welcome bonus. I believe that it is time for us to be abolished and replaced by a democratically elected Chamber. For me, therefore, that is no threat at all. However, it is bullying. What do we do with bullies? We stand up to them.
I will try to amend this Bill. I have put down five amendments that I feel would definitely improve the Bill and I will support amendments from other Members of your Lordships’ House. It is our job to advise and to reform and improve the sometimes very poor legislation that comes from the other place. My five amendments cover the following areas: transitional arrangements; legal enforcement; environmental regulators; access to justice; and employment and equality protections. These are self-evident. They will ask for detailed plans, lots of preparation and proper funding, which I know this Government have a huge problem with.
I am going to keep my remarks brief because some of what I would like to say is probably best left unsaid. However, before finishing, I would like to add that I also commend the amendment from a recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which will protect the residence rights of EU citizens legally resident in the UK on the day of the referendum— 23 June 2016. It is a precautionary but self-evident amendment and it would be cruel not to include it. I cannot see why the Government would have any objections to it being in the Bill.
Finally, although the outcome of last year’s vote was what I wanted, I have not taken a moment’s pleasure from it in the intervening time, partly because of the way in which the campaigns on both sides were conducted and partly because of the conduct since. There has been so much hatred and vile rhetoric, which has inflamed people. I am sure that many of us here have had abuse. That is a normal part of any progressive politician’s inbox but it has now reached levels that are just incredible.
We should take pleasure in issues such as immigration, because it is good for our country: it is good for the economy and it is good for our culture. I also believe that if you accept free trade, then why not accept the free movement of people? When we look at the Bill and vote on it next week, I hope that the Government will understand that we must not lower our standards. Whether it is on food, social protection or protecting our countryside, we must not go down the route of making things worse. In a sense, society is already worse because of the referendum and the Government must do everything in their power to heal as much as possible.
Lord Gilbert of Panteg (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, whose contribution perfectly illustrated the breadth of opinion that this House brings to this debate. In the referendum I campaigned for the remain side as an adviser to Britain Stronger in Europe, an interest I declared in the register, and which ceased following the referendum. I campaigned alongside old friends from my own party and new friends from other parties and from none. I do not think any of us enjoyed a campaign which created such division, but I do not doubt that the Government were right to fulfil their manifesto commitment to renegotiate our membership of the EU and to allow the British people to decide in an in-out referendum—originally, of course, a Lib Dem policy of unusual robustness.
I reflected at the time of the campaign on the words of Liam Fox MP who said:
“Those who wish to remain in the EU are not ‘unpatriotic’, and those who wish to leave are not ‘idiots’”.
The campaign was not a thing of beauty, and it had some low moments on both sides, but it brought together people who set aside differences to fight for something that they passionately believed in. It engaged people who had never got involved before in our politics. I believe that the arguments about the trade-off at the heart of our membership of the EU—the balance between the benefits of access to the single market on one hand and control of our own laws and of immigration on the other—were weighed up by voters when they cast their votes.
I do not agree with noble Lords who argued yesterday that leave supporters did not know what they were backing. They knew what they were doing, and as democrats we must accept their decision. The result was close, but it was clear, and it was equally clear that a vote to leave would lead to the triggering of Article 50, which is what this Bill does. We know that the process of negotiating our exit from the European Union is incredibly complex. Our diplomats, our civil servants, this House and the other place face a great test. A very heavy burden falls on the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
We now have to work together to get the best deal for Britain. I hope that we will work together in such a way that we restore trust in our politics, and that in our debates we will be thinking of the 48% as well as the 52%, that we will be ambitious for our country and respectful of one another. It is not enough to set the right tone in this House, as we have done in this debate. I did not agree with many of the arguments made by my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, but I was shocked by her account of the abuse she has endured for her views and for speaking passionately and, frankly, bravely for what she believes to be right.
We have to do more to ensure that our own discourse is courteous. We have to do more than that. Those of us who have any influence must shout out those who are behaving in this way, and do everything we can to support the police in taking appropriate action.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Green, I am optimistic about the future because I have always believed that Britain can be a success in or out of the EU. I am optimistic because I believe in the course charted by the Prime Minister and the principles powerfully set out at Lancaster House. I welcome the Prime Minister’s determination that Britain will be an outward-looking, forward-looking nation confident of its place in the world, but I am not so insensitive that I do not understand that many of my friends on the remain side of the argument on both sides of this House do not share this optimism. They have fears and concerns that they must feel free to express, and they must have the opportunity to urge their case for the kind of Brexit that they think is in Britain’s best interests.
It is not thwarting the will of the British people to do so, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, pointed out in her admirable speech. It is their duty as Members of this House to make those arguments. I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister. I know from many years’ working alongside him that no one is better equipped to deal with the intricacy and detail of this work, and I know that across the House his openness and the time he commits to meeting and consulting with noble Lords is appreciated. I wish him and his colleagues well in the task they face.
Listening to my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal in her generous opening speech, I was reassured that the Government recognise the role of this House and the contribution it that can make during the negotiations. It is clear that a great deal of good will is going to be needed if the Government are to meet their commitment to ensuring that this House, through debate and scrutiny in this Chamber and through work in Select Committees, is able to make the contribution that she described.
On the basis of the remarks from both Front Benches yesterday I see an abundance of good will and I welcome that. However, I accept the argument made so powerfully by my noble friends Lord Hill of Oareford and Lord Hague of Richmond that to tie the hands of our negotiators while the negotiations are under way is not in Britain's best interest. I therefore believe that the right balance has been struck between the vital need for real parliamentary scrutiny and the need for Ministers to be able to negotiate on our behalf in good faith. That is why I believe that this Bill, which simply allows the Prime Minister to notify our intention to withdraw from the EU as mandated by the British people, should pass without amendment.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, I do not believe that leaving the European Union is in the best interests of this country. I voted to remain. I very much wish that the remain side had prevailed in the referendum. However, it did not. The people of this country voted decisively—not overwhelmingly, but certainly decisively—to leave, with a majority of 1.3 million over we remainers. However, as others, including my noble friend Lady Kennedy have made clear today, the referendum vote last June was not legally or constitutionally binding either upon Parliament or upon the Government. That said, it is hard to escape the political reality that it was a clear instruction from the British people. Nevertheless, it raises questions about how the result of the referendum fits in with our representative democracy.
Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Hague, said that Tony Blair would not have been “amused”—I think that was the word that he used—if he—that is, the noble Lord, Lord Hague—had challenged the result of the 2001 election within nine months of its taking place. He is probably right. However, the crucial difference is that the people of this country had the right to change their minds four years later in 2005. Will the British people have the right to change their mind in 2019 or 2020 when the results of these negotiations are clear? Is the truthful answer not that the position will become settled, not just for this generation, not just for us, but for the next generation and probably long after our generation has gone?
Accordingly, I seek clarification on two issues from the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, when he answers this debate. In paragraph 26 of the recent Supreme Court judgment that found that the Government were wrong to believe that they had the prerogative power sufficient to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty and that only Parliament could take that decision, the Supreme Court said,
“it is common ground that notice under article 50(2) … cannot be given in qualified or conditional terms and that, once given, it cannot be withdrawn”.
The judgment goes on to say:
“It follows from this that once the United Kingdom gives notice, it will inevitably cease at a later date to be a member of the European Union”.
There is some doubt, because the Supreme Court said that it had not fully tested that argument and obviously there are differing views. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, who, as the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said earlier, knows a thing or two about drafting treaties, has been quoted as saying that the Government can withdraw from Article 50 at any point during the negotiations. What is the Government’s view?
It is a vital point. Once Article 50 is triggered, will this country be irrevocably committed to leave without an agreement on future relationships or without the sort of agreement that our European colleagues say they are willing to give us, which will be much worse than the agreements that we already have? I stress that I am not asking the Minister a political point; I am asking him for his legal view on the legal advice. Can he, unlike the Justice Secretary, who evaded this point repeatedly at the weekend, give us a clear answer?
The fact is that at the end of the negotiating period in 2019 it will be almost three years since the referendum decision, and demographics change. In a few weeks’ time there will be half a million new 18 year-old voters. At the same time, approximately the same number of the over-65s who were eligible to vote last June will have died. In two years, those figures will be even more startling. It was clear in the referendum that a substantial majority of 18 to 30 year-olds wanted to remain but that the majority of those aged 65-plus wanted to leave. Binding future generations with no option but to accept whatever the outcome of these negotiations happens to be seems at the very least to be unwise, unfair and probably unworkable.
I am the chairman of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce. Since the referendum, the chamber has worked very hard to encourage discussions with our members on free trade agreements. We had a conference at Lancaster House last year and, of course, we visit the region regularly, and I shall be doing so again very shortly. Like many others, I am committed to doing everything I can to keep this country prosperous and to support trade and investment whatever the outcome of the negotiations. However, the Government must answer the vital questions about what will happen in those negotiations.
Our currency has lost 15% to 20% of its value, prices are rising in our supermarkets and family budgets are more squeezed than ever. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, probably made one of the most telling points in her remarks yesterday when she said that, whatever the people of this country voted for on 23 June last year, they did not vote to become poorer. So a take-it-or-leave-it vote in Parliament will not be sufficient and it will not be fair—not fair to business or to manufacturing; not fair to families; not fair to the people of this country; and, overwhelmingly, not fair to the young people who will have to live with the results of these negotiations far longer than any of us debating here today.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, with 190 of us speaking, there are about 23 of us for every line of this short Bill, but that shows how important the Bill is. There were powerful speeches yesterday, including from the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, who spoke at 12.07 last night. There was even unprecedented applause from the Public Gallery for my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham after her passionate defence of EU citizens living here. There have been brave and passionate speeches today, such as those from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. But, for me, the most moving speech yesterday was that of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who likened the debate to an elegy. The UK’s involvement in the European project might turn out to be, he said,
“a fine, if ultimately doomed, cause”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 74.]
We appear to be on course for much more than a Lord Patten Hong Kong moment.
In the UK, we rarely learned about the EU as a project for peace, even though in recent memory on our continent there have been conflicts in the Balkans, Northern Ireland and Cyprus, with freedoms brutally suppressed in eastern Europe. Nor was it often pointed out in the UK that almost half of our trade is with the EU. We look at the US and marvel at how it could possibly have elected Donald Trump. Round the world, including in the Commonwealth, I have found that people wonder at how we could have voted to leave the largest, wealthiest and strongest trading bloc in the world.
So how does this Bill chart our way forward in the light of the referendum result? There are indeed different routes, and I seek clarification in the Prime Minister’s speech. She prioritises controlling borders over our membership of the single market. She rejects the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates that single market, yet she wants the maximum,
“freest possible trade in goods and services”,
for British companies in the EU. She says that “we may wish to retain” elements for our strong industries—for example, the financial services and automotive industries. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hill, pointed out yesterday, we are not the only ones negotiating; there are 27 others. What will they make of the words “we may wish to retain”?
Recently, in Berlin, I spoke on a panel with two Brexiteers to German businesspeople. Like Merkel, to a person they said, “No cherry picking”, even if it damaged their immediate interests, lest the EU as a whole be undermined. Our Prime Minister agreed in France that she would not cherry pick. In which case, what then for the financial services and automotive industries? How does the UK prioritise sectors of its economy? What about the pharmaceutical industry or high-tech? What happens as our economy changes? Any privileged access for certain sectors must mean some kind of equivalence in regulation. Do we invent another ECJ? Theresa May wants us to have a customs agreement with the EU but does not want to be in the customs union. What would this mean, given our interconnected supply chains? What would be the threshold for it being possible to have deals elsewhere?
Our trade with the rest of the world has been growing, seemingly unhampered by our being in the EU. However, in 2015, India took only 1.4% of our goods and desires a trade agreement that prioritises freer access to the UK, and New Zealand took only 0.2% of our goods. Yes, we must redouble our efforts, but we must also recognise the significance of the EU market to us and our greater ability to secure good trade deals via the EU.
We understand that there will not be a hard border in Ireland, but how is that to work? Are we about to see people trafficking displaced from Calais to Ireland?
We gather that we will not be paying what are described as “vast amounts” to the EU. It is not mentioned that the net amount is under 1% of GNI.
We wish to maintain our lead in science and the universities, but we already see EU students looking to Canada rather than the UK. We hear that Oxford and Warwick are considering campuses in Paris so that they can access EU funds.
We are told that we will have no cliff edge but transitional arrangements. However, the Government also make it clear that we are willing to walk away. That means that risk remains.
The Prime Minister’s speech appeals to those who voted for Brexit and seeks to address the concerns of those who oppose it. The problem is whether the two strands are compatible at all. My noble friend Lord Marks described this as the biggest foreign policy mistake in decades, so let us look at our position in the world. Justin Trudeau apparently feels lonely on the world stage, and one can see why. The EU is still the champion of liberal democracies and the rule of law, though populist movements even now challenge that. Populism has achieved an extraordinary result in the USA. We see a revived Russia active on Europe’s borders, in Crimea and Ukraine, threatening the Baltic states. The global world order is shifting eastwards. By 2050, China will be the largest economy in the world, with India in second place and Indonesia in fourth. Being part of the EU gave us disproportionate impact in global affairs. We are all members of NATO and, with France, we serve as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We have indeed served as a bridge between the US and the EU; others will now become that bridge. The world is an unstable place and we must all be aware of populist, simplistic movements across our continent—not surprising in the wake of profound economic crisis.
This short Bill presages a long and complicated process. Parliament must be fully engaged, including meaningful votes at the end. If, at that end, we judge that what has been negotiated turns out not to be those sunlit uplands and is not in the interests of our now divided country, we must not be afraid to say so.
Lord Lisvane (CB)
My Lords, almost exactly 44 years ago I was in Strasbourg as one of the secretaries of the British delegation to the European Parliament, at the first session of the Parliament that had the United Kingdom as a member state. Bringing up the century as the 100th contributor in this unprecedentedly long list of speakers may have a certain symmetry about it, but it is in no way an outcome that I wished for when I cast my vote on 23 June last year.
Over the years, I have spent a good deal of time on the relationship between this Parliament and European institutions. I devised the protocol on the role of national parliaments which was appended to the Amsterdam treaty, thanks to its enthusiastic endorsement by the highly effective then Minister for Europe during a UK presidency, someone for whom I had and continue to have great regard—and who by one of life’s little ironies is now the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU.
As many noble Lords have said, this is a refreshingly short Bill, but I am a little puzzled by the catch-all provision in subsection (2) of Clause 1. Is it simply an insurance policy—an attempt to avoid an “Oh crikey” moment within Government when some inconvenient provision of legislation is unearthed? Or do the drafters have something particular in mind—something which might be found to be at odds with the main provision of the Bill? It is as well to recall the old rule of legislative drafting: if you do not specify the target at which you are aiming, the courts may not agree that you have hit it. I am also looking forward keenly to the Government’s response to the magisterial intervention of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead about what further legislative authority may be required. No doubt there will need to be a ratification of the exit treaty according to the CRAG 2010 procedure, but if prior approval of the terms of that exit requires legislation, that would of course add a new dimension. How practical any choice would be as the clock ticks towards the end of two years is another matter entirely.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, and others, have spoken about parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiations as they proceed. My particular concern is about the legislative process that will follow, and of which the Bill now before us is a precursor. Chapter 1 of the White Paper says that the great repeal Bill will repeal the ECA 1972, preserve EU law where it stands at the moment we leave the EU, and where necessary make changes to allow that law to function sensibly. There will be a triage process where this Parliament and the devolved legislatures will,
“be able to decide which elements of that law to keep, amend or repeal”.
In the referendum campaign we heard a lot about regaining our parliamentary sovereignty; perhaps it is a little ironic that we have had in the first instance to rely upon the assistance of the courts. However, it would be even more ironic if the legislative process of withdrawal involved a major transfer of power to the Executive.
The extent of delegation of powers to Ministers, and the level of parliamentary scrutiny, will be crucial. One test, and it would be a strict one, could of course be that secondary legislation must be “necessary” to allow EU law to function sensibly, and to reflect the outcome of negotiations. However, if the test is merely that that subordinate legislation should be “expedient” then that allows a much greater degree of ministerial discretion. The means of scrutiny will be key. Although super-affirmative instruments allow in-depth scrutiny, Governments are quite allergic to them, and I doubt whether Ministers would be attracted by a surge of super-affirmatives. Perhaps some bespoke process might be devised—the issues are certainly substantial enough to warrant it—and I look forward to the conclusions of the Constitution Committee on this aspect.
I will conclude with two other thoughts. The first is on timing. There is a temptation to think that policy areas will come forward one by one to be tied up in neat parcels and dealt with by whatever legislative or scrutiny process is in place, but that is not the way that negotiations proceed in practice. A deal in one area may depend on reaching agreement on a wholly unrelated issue elsewhere. The practical effect of all this will probably be to move everything to the right, and only late in the two-year process will there be something to bite on in legislative terms.
It is welcome that the White Paper states in paragraph 1.8 that,
“any significant policy changes will be underpinned by other primary legislation”.
Here again, however, the pressure of time may be the problem. The process will, in any case, be a business management nightmare and the temptation to proceed by skeleton Bills will be powerful. That will pose real questions about parliamentary accountability.
Whatever means are found to scrutinise and authorise the process, I hope that it will involve people outside government, Parliament and the devolved legislatures. The changes in prospect will have profound effects on the lives and livelihoods of the people of this country, and Parliament has some ground to make up. Evidence-based scrutiny is the best sort, and this should be an opportunity to allow access to the process to those who will be directly affected, rather than have them simply as onlookers of a private conversation between Parliament and the Executive.
Noble Lords might feel that I have strayed a little from the Bill before us, but I would suggest not. The Bill would trigger notification, but it would also start us on what will be an extraordinary challenging time for Parliament. Now is the time to think seriously about how we meet that challenge.
Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, although I voted in the referendum, I did not campaign in the run-up to it because despite believing, on balance, that we would be better off out, there were genuine and strong arguments on both sides. However, we are where we are, and we now need to get on with it. Before I go further, I must declare an interest as a beneficiary of payments under the common agricultural policy.
I listened carefully to the debate yesterday and this morning. Much of it has been fighting last year’s battle. I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I take the rather novel course of making a speech on the Second Reading of the Bill before us. Many issues have been raised and amendments have already been tabled that deal with all manner of matters, and I have no doubt that there will be more to come. I intend to address only three key areas that have been raised in another place and are covered by amendments that have already been tabled here.
The first is EU nationals living here and their right to continue to do so. That is something that many of us—if not all of us—would wish to see. The Government have said that they are prepared to give them that right and that it must be reciprocal, with our citizens living in EU countries being given the same right. There is pressure unilaterally to give EU citizens the right to continue to live here, but it is in the nature of negotiations that related and reciprocal matters are dealt with together. If one point is conceded, this risks losing the reciprocal point, so by definition, to do this would run the risk of British citizens currently living in another EU country losing the right to continue to reside in that country. That would be grossly unfair on them, and that is why I would resist any attempt to insist upon the unilateral approach.
The second issue I want to address is that of scrutiny by Parliament between the triggering of Article 50 and the completion of the process two years later. In this context, scrutiny means two principal things: the provision of information and allowing time to debate it. I have no problem with allowing plenty of time for debate. As regards the provision of information, the Government have said that they would provide Parliament with the same information that the EU Parliament receives. That seems fair and right, but as far as the provision of additional information is concerned, I look to my career as a negotiator. I negotiated a significant number of corporate acquisitions and disposals in Europe and the Far East during that career. One of the golden rules of negotiating is that information about your counter party’s position and the detail of what is important to them, is gold-dust. You learn everything you can about their backstop positions, what they will negotiate on and what they cannot, the intricate details of their financial position and things that might not seem important but might later prove to be. It is a forensic science, and it makes all the difference to the outcome. Any information about our position that comes into the possession of the large number of people and institutions that make up our counter party—the Commission, the Council, the Parliament and their various members—will be used against us. That is why I would resist the provision of additional information.
My third issue, impact assessments, is closely related. I have explained my reasons for strongly resisting the provision of information to this Parliament beyond that provided to the European Parliament. An impact assessment on Brexit, if it were to be of any value, would reveal information about our options and negotiating position which would be hugely valuable to our counterparty, the negotiating representatives of the EU. That information would, without a shadow of doubt, be used against us by them. I am afraid that confidentiality arrangements that allow limited access to documents have a habit of failing to prevent leaks, so I do not find that suggestion of any comfort. As such, I resist any proposal for impact assessments.
Those are my views on three key areas. Many other issues have been and will be raised, and I look forward to hearing the views of noble Lords still to speak, to the Minister’s response and to debates at subsequent stages.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, as a signatory to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, I would like to draw attention to the impact of Brexit on the UK’s trade, aid and security policies relating to developing and post-conflict countries. Aid to developing countries is under attack almost daily by elements of the press. Just this Sunday there was a report in the Sunday Times about using Brexit as an excuse to divert aid to eastern European countries to buy their good will. Will the Minister give an assurance that Brexit will not be used to divert the 0.7% of GNI devoted to development aid and that only countries on the DAC list are eligible for ODA? The fact is that development aid fulfils an essential task: not only is it right to help the poorest in the world but it is essential if we are to reduce the factors that push people out of their own countries and, in desperation, lead them to seek shelter with us.
It is a pity that on leaving the EU we will not be able to influence its attempt to manage the largest mass movement of people we have seen since the Second World War. The Calais camp on our doorstep may have been demolished but the problem has not gone away, and refugees are returning to the region because they have nowhere else to go. Can the Minister say, now that we have declared ourselves to be on the road to a hard Brexit, what consideration the Government have given to the Le Touquet agreement between ourselves and the French, whereby they police our border on their soil and vice versa? Can the Government guarantee the border will not move to Dover?
I will return to the broader subject of the impact of Brexit on aid, trade and security in relation to developing countries at later stages. For now, I would like to talk about the rights and wrongs of the process by which the Government are taking us toward Brexit, which is the undeniable result of the advisory referendum, albeit with a very small margin. What is happening is the stuff of nightmares. It is unprecedented in British history to have both the Prime Minister of the day and the Leader of the Opposition on the side of extreme risk-taking. But how else can we characterise their willingness to enter Brexit negotiations with hard-line rhetoric seemingly designed to remove any vestige of good will towards us? The only option we will be given at the end of this do-or-die road is a vote to take it or leave it. Given that the exit options have the potential to change our country so fundamentally, surely it is only fair and democratic that we ask the people what kind of Britain they want to live in. The process started with the people; it should end with the people.
I genuinely do not understand why that is controversial. The only reason why anyone would oppose that that I can think of is if “take back control” did not include the people. Come to that, the Brexiteers did not want it to include Parliament either. Who is meant to take control? Them? An unelected Prime Minister? What happened to trusting the people?
There are those who say that it is the patriotic duty of Peers to wave this Bill through. If noble Lords do not mind my saying so, that is utter tosh, because what, then, is the point of us? It is indeed our patriotic duty to debate and scrutinise this Bill and any amendments it attracts. It is then incumbent on each and every one of us to vote according to what we believe to be in the best interests of our country—and hang the consequences.
When people voted to leave the EU, by and large they did not vote to leave the single market. During the Richmond Park by-election, I knocked on many doors. Many who had voted to leave last June also voted for the Common Market in 1972. They do not want the hard Brexit that the Government are offering them. That is why Liberal Democrats, with their clear message on fighting against a hard Brexit, against leaving the single market and in favour of safeguarding the future of EU nationals, were able to overturn a 23,000 Conservative majority against a popular local MP and send Sarah Olney to Westminster. Let me end this point by quoting Winston Churchill, who said,
“the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin … Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/6/1940; col. 60.]
That was prophetic in 1940 and is perhaps prophetic again today.
Boris Johnson said that Brexit would take us to “sunlit uplands”, but my theory is that, as we plod our weary way uphill and look back on the grassy meadows bathed in mellow light that we leave behind, we will hear the curfew toll the knell of parting ways. I hope that noble Lords will pardon my taking liberties with Gray’s Elegy, but it is not as grave a liberty as that taken by Boris Johnson in his shameless parody of Churchill’s words. The “sunlit uplands” that he referred to were those of a united Europe, which our Government seem content to put at risk.
Baroness Murphy (CB)
My Lords, I am truly astonished by the events of the past eight months. The future of the country is apparently to be decided on the outcome of a single vote—as Kenneth Clarke said, an opinion poll on a simplistic yes/no question on which few had any relevant information, nor any means to acquire it. As we have heard, the noble Lord, Lord Green, of Migration Watch is of the firm opinion that it was based largely on worries about migration; it is a vaguely anti-foreigner vote. Indeed, the contributions to the debate so far, and what I have heard in the past eight months from our Government, have given me absolutely no reassurance that the people’s advice on this matter should be accepted by Parliament as the last word.
The hard Brexit that we are promised seems to make it all the more important to think again about what we are subjecting the country to. To quote from the Daily Express, the notion that one should not,
“thwart the will of the people”,
does not mean that Parliament should become the poodle of the people. On three occasions—in Denmark on the Maastricht treaty, in Ireland on the Nice treaty and in Ireland again on the Lisbon treaty—voters initially rejected an EU proposal, only to vote in favour of it in a second referendum. I was in Dublin at the time of the second vote on the Lisbon treaty in 2009, and it was clear that the ordinary voter—the non-political voter—had no more idea about the content of the treaty the second time round than they had the first time round. They were voting on their emotional warmth towards the EU. Yet here, the Government have decided to give in and go with the rather angry flow on the first vote, even though the majority recognises that it will be to the detriment of the UK, of Europe and of the world. Well, I am unwilling to abandon my conviction that we should be full members of the European Union. However imperfect—and I agree it is imperfect—it is a whole lot better than the isolationist future proposed in this Bill.
Actually, it is not just the economics of the decision that worries me, although as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said, nobody voted to be poorer; it is the likely adverse impact on the health of the population through our health service, and on our future achievements in science, engineering and medicine. I really detest the unpleasant anti-migrant stance being pandered to. However, I am far more worried about the failure of the long-term political determination to make Europe safe from ourselves for ourselves. It seems we have very short historical memories. I am with Kenneth Clarke, the Member who, to me at least, made the most sense in the other place. But I am also with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker: I am with Tony. And here today I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who made such sense on how we might work our way towards getting a further opinion from the population; and with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, who as always spoke such great sense in this House.
I cannot change my mind just because other Members of this House who were remainers have decided it is now politically convenient to change sides; nor should they expect me to. While I am sympathetic to the intelligent insights of the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, into the mind of Brussels, which wants us to make up our minds fast so that we can all get on with it, when the outcome is so catastrophic, frankly, we should wait, try again and see whether we can cajole and persuade people that the emotions they have today are wrong. I will leave you with John Donne, and a poem which will mean something to us all:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less”.
I fear that this Bill will make clods of us all, to be washed away as Europe slowly disintegrates. I will not collude with any step that seeks to distance us from our European allies, and I will support the Liberal Democrats and those others in this House who wish to amend as far as we can, but also seek to persuade that we can make things happen another way.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, but I fear I am going to take a slightly different line. All great issues are essentially very simple. We make them complicated when we do not want to face them. Our leaving the European Union will count historically as one of the greatest ever examples of this. Quite simply, we are leaving. In the short time I have to speak, I am not going to talk about yesterday, or even much about today, but about tomorrow, about the future—the future of our country, of our people and quite probably our House of Lords.
Nor do I plan to talk about how I cast my vote in the referendum. It is on the record, but it is now irrelevant. Referring to how we voted in debates such as this is seriously counterproductive. It tends to colour not necessarily what we say but how our remarks are perceived by others, who assume we are seeking to justify our position and remake our case. For those of us seeking to move forward, this is just not so. The vote was taken; it is behind us; and we must now as a House prepare to face the future.
It has been said by some that in last year’s referendum the people did not really understand what they were voting for, the ramifications of their actions, and what was at stake. This is, I believe, wrong and patronising. No one could possibly understand every little consequential detail, but surely people knew and understood the broad principle and its effects.
There are three big differences between a general election campaign and this particular referendum. In a general election, the country divides broadly speaking on party lines; in the referendum, party allegiance counted for nothing. In a general election, each party produces a long and detailed manifesto, which few people take the time and trouble to read through; in the referendum, all the most important issues were set out by the Government and the opposing parties, and were further teased out in protracted debates—many on national television. The country was, and still is, as engaged as never before on this issue. Finally, in a general election people have just three weeks to take in all the available information and come to a decision, again usually falling back into their party groupings; in the case of the referendum, the country has had 40 years to watch the EU unfold. People have had plenty of time to digest its effect on their lives and quietly make up their minds. Many people will have had personal experience of the effect of belonging to the EU. Indeed, fishermen and farmers, to name but two groups, will know and understand the workings of the EU as well as anyone. I suspect that the votes cast in this referendum were given more careful consideration than any cast in this country in living memory, and to doubt the genuineness of people’s decisions is to do them, in my view, a great disservice.
Churchill said, as has been quoted before, “Trust the people”, and that is exactly what we should do. This debate, despite the way it is going from time to time, is not or should not be about the details of our leaving and the negotiations involved, but simply about the principle of leaving and starting the process. The country is looking to us at this crucial time. We are in the spotlight as never before. Which road are we going to choose?
Most people are expecting, and certainly the media are confidently predicting, that we will be difficult, grudging, unhelpful, obstructive, curmudgeonly, backward-looking and yearning for what has gone before. What a wonderful opportunity to prove them wrong. Let us be forward-looking, positive, helpful to the Government, constructive and, dare I even say it, optimistic. I know that for many of us this will mean a real leap of faith. It is asking a lot, but such a lot is at stake. I know and understand that divisions and loyalties are long-established and run very deep, but we must have faith—faith in the people, faith in their decision, and faith in their willingness to make it work. If they are willing to make that commitment and effort, should not we be prepared to make it too?
I have played a lot of sport in my life at all levels, and one thing I know for certain is that it is quite impossible to achieve a successful and happy result if half the team members not only want you to lose but are vigorously working to bring that about. I repeat what I said at the start of my remarks: all great issues are essentially very simple, but we make them complicated and we do not want to face them. We must face this one, the biggest decision that we in this House will ever be asked to make. We must face it and make it a success for the sake of the people, the country and, I believe, the future of your Lordships’ House.
Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)
My Lords, immigration dominated the EU referendum. Who can forget UKIP’s “Breaking Point” poster unveiled by Nigel Farage during the campaign? Given that the debate was about whether we should leave the European Union and not about whether we should leave the world, it is worth noting that not everyone who comes from mainland Europe to the UK has the intention to immigrate, nor is every immigrant who comes to our shores from the European Union. Recently, the other place defeated attempts to persuade the Government to give EU citizens permanent residence after Brexit, a right I hope will be accommodated by reciprocal arrangements. We can all speculate about what might happen in the future. I want to look at what is actually happening now. You do not have to travel very far to recognise that some of the decisions being taken are almost tantamount to shooting oneself. Of course, it is not difficult to shoot oneself in the foot, but to stand on your head to do it takes some energy.
Just who are these workers that the Government think we can do without and treat with such derision? It is recorded that some 55,000 NHS workers are from EU countries—doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, support workers and administrative staff. European workers make up 10% of our registered doctors and 4% of our registered nurses. It is common ground that the UK economy needs more workers with these skills, so why are we so ready to turn our backs on them as we say goodbye to our membership of the European Union? It is also common ground that we need more care workers. Currently, 5% of our care workers are from EU countries; approximately 90% do not have British citizenship and their future immigration status remains uncertain. Our nursing homes are closing at the rate of one per week due mainly to a shortage of nurses. It has also been reported that 15% of our researchers and lecturers in universities and higher education are already leaving or rejecting UK higher education posts because of Brexit. Many of these are scientists and researchers whose skills we badly need. Some 90% of British fruit and vegetables are picked, graded and packed by 60,000 workers from overseas, mostly eastern Europe. One farmer is quoted as saying:
“either we bring the people to the work or we take the work to the people”.
This shortage of agricultural labour brings economic danger because we import some 25% of our food from other EU countries.
The Government seem to be confident that they will be able to deal with the countries on which we are turning our backs. As a former negotiator, I would not be so confident. It is reported that the number of EU citizens applying for permanent residence has risen by nearly 50% since the referendum. However, research carried out for the Financial Times suggests that three-quarters of EU citizens working in the UK would not meet current visa requirements for non-EU workers if Britain left the block. The media coverage last weekend of the leaked documents from MEPs will be no surprise to many EU residents in the UK. They already find themselves in a legal no man’s land long before we actually leave the EU. Is it any surprise that EU nationals are already leaving what they see as a sinking ship? The financial and emotional cost to applicants and their families is enormous. What about the cost to us of losing their skills? What of UK citizens living in other EU countries? Recent headlines have warned of a backlash over the Prime Minister’s Brexit approach. Many have lived and worked in EU countries for years, building families and communities and being model citizens. They do so often into retirement and beyond. What are we offering to them? Not a lot—and some would say nothing at all.
I for one wanted to remain in the EU, but as a believer in the democratic process and accepting that the majority of people chose to leave, I accept that the will of the people should prevail. But this is not a political game. People on both sides of the Channel cannot be left in limbo. Decisions have to be made about their futures. Part of my responsibility in another life was the oversight of the union’s membership in Gibraltar. Ten years after retirement, I am still receiving letters about the position of Gibraltarian citizens. That is a neglect of duty and of moral responsibility. If we do nothing for weeks and months, we must address the uncertainties and fears of the Gibraltarians. I say that because I remember working through the problems associated with Gibraltar’s status some 10 years ago. Let us not ruin the relationship that has been built between Spain, Britain and Gibraltar. That also underlies this debate. I trust that the Government will give it serious and urgent consideration.
This is not a political game. We must reach an early decision, because too many decisions are being left in the out-tray without any attention in terms of businesses, communities and the lives of individuals. We must act now. The European Community came together to ensure peace. If we are to leave, let us leave in peace with our heads held high.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, one effect of growing up as a post-war child was hearing the amount of discussion and determination among the political classes that we would never have another war in Europe. At the top of my list of worries about Brexit is that we shall see an insular, narrow-minded nationalism taking hold and turning us from an outgoing, internationalist nation into an inward-looking nation.
We have heard much in the past day and a half about interdependence, which has to be one of the keys when we think about what we should do next. Brexit is not all about trade, although to listen to the Government you might think that it was. I firmly believe that, first and foremost, it should be about peace and security. I agreed strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, when he said yesterday that endangering peace and security in Europe would be grounds to reject the deal. Incidentally, although I agreed with some of the speech made by Tony Blair, I thought it ironic he should tell everyone to rise up. When more millions than were ever seen all rose up and marched when he was Prime Minister, he took not a blind bit of notice.
Many of your Lordships will know that I spend a lot of time in France when I am not here. My experience of reaction to the UK decision to seek Brexit is that it has been one of extreme concern that it will accelerate the rise of extremist nationalist parties. That is happening all over Europe now. Europe and its member states therefore have many concerns and worries other than negotiating a Brexit deal with the UK. Those whose job it is will of course concentrate on it but, politically, any deal will have to be negotiated against a fast-changing political picture in Europe. It is not as though our negotiating partners will stay unchanged. By the end of two years the Europe with which we are negotiating will be very different. It may be a much longer timescale than the Government are thinking.
In the meantime, I worry what we are going to do about the day-to-day legislation we should be looking at. My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie put it so eloquently yesterday when he said that day-to-day life will be sacrificed. We will be spending time on the great repeal Bill and not on all the other incredibly important issues. There are so many pressing issues in the area which I concentrate on in this House—the environment, agriculture and food—yet the immense changes that are going to happen as a result of Brexit will be a threat to our food quality, animal welfare standards, family farms and landscape. If at the end of this we have a hard deal where WTO rules apply, we will see our food production driven down to the lowest common denominator. It would be a disaster in so many ways. It would not be accompanied by lower food bills: another day-to-day effect will be people seeing those go up.
Over the course of this debate it has bothered me that in the Government’s mind there appears to be a direct trade-off between UK citizens living in the EU and European citizens living here. In fact, UK citizens living in the EU face 27 different sorts of issue and their position is not necessarily equivalent to that of EU citizens here. The Government should, therefore, settle the situation of EU citizens here—thereby creating some good will—but at the same time do far more to help British citizens abroad, who have been left with no information, not even a helpline. The Government could decide now to give much more information about the future to those people who have to plan to relocate and find new jobs, schools for their children and care for their elderly. This would be about not the result of the negotiations but what their rights are now. That has been put on the sidelines because of this so-called trade-off.
There has been much talk of patriotic duty: I believe mine is to try and do what is in the best long-term interests of this country. As my noble friend Lord Newby said at the beginning of this debate, it is unconscionable to sit on our hands. If there is no deal, or the final deal is appalling, or it threatens peace and security, there is an absolute duty on us as parliamentarians to call a halt. I hope we will amend the Bill in order that we can offer that safety net to the Government and the country.
Lord O'Neill of Gatley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I would like to make four points. First, the decision to hold a referendum on membership of the EU in the first place was driven by politics, especially those of the party governing the country. Not a great deal of thought was given to the economics of the issue, but now that we are faced with the reality we must do so. Secondly, while the decision to leave the EU is hugely important for the future of the UK economy and our society, I do not believe that it is the only important economic issue for our future. I believe that the challenge of productivity, the ongoing apparent weakness of key aspects of our education system and skills training, and the highly unbalanced nature of the overall British economy are all at least as important. Of course, sadly, it may be the case—indeed, it probably is the case—that each of these challenges will become even more difficult as a result of the decision to leave the EU. If the decision to leave were to result in more serious focus on these challenges, and smarter, better-thought-out polices, it might allow for some positives out of the EU departure than otherwise might not have occurred. There is, as of yet, no real evidence to support such an optimistic hope but one lives in hope. In this context, this House certainly has a role to play, and it should by ensuring we make the best out of a poor hand.
Thirdly, as someone closely associated with the changing nature of the world economy, I would have hoped for sharper thinking about trade issues. There has been, and remains, enormous focus on legal and other technicalities of Article 50 and trade deals. While partially understandable, the degree of it in my view is misplaced. The biggest drivers of trade are the performances of domestic demand growth and competitiveness, as well as the geographic distance from trade partners.
A country’s imports are greatly driven by the level of its own domestic demand and the cost of imports relative to domestic goods and services. Similarly, exports are typically driven by domestic demand in the most important markets and the price of those exports for foreign consumers. While bilateral and/or multilateral trade agreements are important, they are not as important as rates of domestic demand growth. It is noteworthy in this regard, for example, that today China is the number one importer—I emphasise importer—for at least 70 countries, without having meaningful trade deals with hardly any other countries, other than, of course, being a member of the WTO.
This kind of evidence suggests that UK trade could prosper outside the EU, but we would need to go about life perhaps somewhat dramatically differently than we have started to do so far. Since the referendum result, we should have, and should still be doing even more than before to try and boost our so-called golden relationship with China—not doubting it—and aggressively pursuing stronger relationships with other rapidly rising economies, including, of course, India. At the same time, we need somehow to do our best to keep as close as we can to our geographic neighbours in Europe. While their share in our overall trade has declined, and is set to continue to decline, it will be a long time before any other country or region gets close to the importance of the EU.
Focusing on geographically distant and smaller countries, as beautiful as they are, such as New Zealand, may be easier, and might suit the politics, but they will not be materially relevant for the economics of our future trade performance. It is also the case that some highly globally integrated industries, which among other things, are very important for UK exports. They need something effectively as close to the single market rules as possible to continue thriving. This is true for autos and financial services, and no doubt some others.
Fourthly, as important as our trade ambition should be, the bigger concern for me is our ability and desire to continue to attract the world’s most talented and skilled immigrants. There is a huge amount of evidence that skilled immigration is very positive for productivity, for some key industries, and of course, for our excellent universities—perhaps crucial. The Government need to be highly focused—and more focused—on making sure that any obsession with demonstrating overall impact about immigration does not result in losing key talent.
I would also like to say in finishing that it also continues to make little sense for overseas students to be included in any overall target for reduced immigration targets, and I encourage the Minister to request a shift in this part of the Government’s stance, irrespective of this Bill and any amendments to it.
The Marquess of Lothian (Con)
My Lords, last June I voted to leave the European Union. After years of urgently needed reform of the Union being promised and never delivered, and finding ourselves on the path inexorably to ever-closer union, I decided that the time had come to leave and, thankfully, a majority of the British people took the same view. This has been and still is a marathon debate and we have heard an enormous number of views. Most of them I have seen as trying to refight the referendum all over again and I do not intend to be part of that argument. That argument has had its airing. I want to look forward to what is going to happen after the Bill is passed. The Bill will start the exit process simply and without frills. We do it no favours by hanging amendments on it. The process will be complex anyway and it will not be helped if this House appears to be making it even more complicated.
We have heard a lot in this debate and before about the need to set out a negotiating strategy publicly in advance. I learned during the peace process in Northern Ireland that successful international negotiations are better carried out under the radar. Attempts publicly to lay down the ambit of negotiations help only the other side. Equally, you do not negotiate with your cards face up on the table, much as Mr Barnier would like you to. You hold them close to your chest and play them at the best possible moment. No successful negotiations can be conducted if one side in those negotiations is at war with itself. I make this point in all seriousness. That presents an open target to the other side and we must think very carefully about how we deploy our feelings as we move forward. We have all expressed our views over these past months and I respectfully suggest—although, I have to say, not with great hope—that in the national interest we should now all exercise restraint and let the Government get on with it.
That is not all. There is another thing we need urgently to look at. We have a duty to think with imagination and self-belief about the future, not just our relations with Europe but our place in the world. The democratic decision to leave the EU provides an enormous opportunity to do this. Whether we seize it depends on whether or not we plan and prepare for it now. It will not happen if we are still fighting our old referendum battles. We must now put them behind us and look forward. It is not about just bilateral trade deals and rights of residence. Of course those are essential elements, which must be established as we move through the Brexit process and beyond, but we need to raise our eyes and our aspirations. We need urgently to decide how we see a future Britain. We need a new, bold view of what we want Britain’s role in the world to be—something which, I have to say, has rarely been possible within the EU. We should seek once and for all to end the culture that Churchill once described as being “adamant for drift” and to outline a clear new purpose towards which we can begin to plan now.
The history of our country was built on a combination of vision, dogged determination and the courage to take on the odds and win through. I believe that those elements are still part of our national psyche. Over these past years, they may have been somewhat dormant. The time has come to reawaken them. The Bill presages a momentous point in our history—whether for good or bad ultimately will depend on us. One thing is certain: successful momentous outcomes do not fall into your lap. You have to go out and earn them. We need a vision and a strategy and then that dogged determination and courage to make them a reality. That ultimately is how Brexit will be judged and, in the end, that is a challenge for us all.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow a friend of over 50 years. Even Brexit will not divide us.
The Prime Minister’s foreword to the White Paper says that we are “a great global nation”. Few would quarrel with that. What concerns me today is our responsibility to that globe. Have the Government considered properly the effects of our proposed withdrawal on developing and post-conflict countries in particular, including Commonwealth countries and our own overseas territories? The noble Lord, Lord Morris, has just reminded us of Gibraltar. I have tabled an amendment because even the White Paper is silent on this.
Ironically, before last June’s fateful decision, David Cameron had presided over some of the higher moments relating to our global responsibilities, most notably the new dawn of the new sustainable development goals. Today the more vulnerable countries, which value their relationships with the UK, fear that our leaving the EU also means a downplaying of our international relations and our many commitments to help them. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said a lot more about that.
I start with the effect of Brexit on post-conflict countries in eastern Europe, having just returned from a visit to Kosovo, a country which we have championed and were the first to recognise. The Government can hardly deny that leaving the EU must mean giving up on enlargement, one of the cornerstones of our European policy. I have had reassurances from Ministers that we “remain committed to European security”, but what about the civilian CSDP programmes in Ukraine and Kosovo? The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, made strong points on security. I expect the Minister will say something definite about this.
NATO will remain the principal channel of security in eastern Europe. However, Russia has always feared and exaggerated Europe’s influence on its own former protégés. The EU’s projection of ideas can have an implicit political impact and the Commission may have overreached itself in Ukraine. Surely, however, we must stand firmly behind the Copenhagen principles of human rights, democracy, transparency and the rule of law that underlay membership of the EU. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, reminded us that we were behind many of these principles from their origin. I assume that they continue to apply post-Brexit, not just for two years but well beyond the time of our departure. They may be difficult to apply in some countries, but we must resolutely stand by them. I fear that leaving the EU could weaken that resolution.
The European Union also brings these ideas to the poorest countries. In Africa the UK has been prominent in EU programmes, such as those to defeat piracy and to rescue trafficked migrants from the Mediterranean. We need to know how we are supposed to continue these operations other than in partnership with the EU. Will the Minister comment on that at least? In Mali and Niger the UK has played a small part in the EU missions against terrorism which, on the whole, have been successful in containing al-Qaeda, especially in the north of Mali.
Trade is another major area that brings considerable uncertainties. Once we leave the EU, we will need to negotiate separate free trade agreements with all 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that currently enjoy tariff-free entry into Europe. This will not be an easy process in itself, but if it is left to the last minute some of the poorer, smaller nations could be left high and dry as far as our trade relations go.
On aid, I hope it goes without saying that the UK will continue to join international partnerships devoted to health campaigns against HIV/AIDS, polio and malaria. I expect our leadership role there to be unchanged, but all this will have to be reviewed. We make a huge contribution to health services in Africa, just as health workers from Africa make a vital contribution to our own NHS. Long may this continue while they can obtain visas and rights of residence.
I am less certain where we stand with the European Development Fund and ECHO. The EDF focuses on the least developed countries and the UK is the third largest donor. Our departure will have a great impact. ECHO is the EU’s humanitarian programme. It monitors emergencies on a daily basis throughout the world. Both are programmes of major importance to the poorest and most disaster-prone countries and the ones that are vulnerable to climate change. The EDF is technically outside the EU budget but it is a significant instrument, linked to the Cotonou agreement. Have the Government calculated the effect of our withdrawing from these on the beneficiaries as well as on the programmes?
EU member states form the world’s largest source of development funding, and taken together they currently make a huge contribution to poverty reduction and help to defeat epidemics. The UK’s withdrawal presumably will not mean that we no longer share data with other European countries, yet without partnership of some kind, we will be losing that important connection in international health—just as my noble friend Lord Blair reminded us also happens in policing and with the European arrest warrant. Can the Minister explain how this will work? Far be it from me to present Cassandra-like forecasts of doom, but no one has yet done the homework, and our former civil servants on the Cross Benches are quite doubtful about the cost of the whole process. But what is certain is that by withdrawing, we remove an important pillar from the European structure of aid and development, which we know is bound to hurt our most vulnerable trading partners.
Lord Trimble (Con)
My Lords, this is obviously an important debate, but I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I say that there is a certain degree of unreality about it, not just because so many people are anxious to refight old battles but because the discussion is about a negotiation. However, there is no negotiation at the moment, so to a certain extent this is so much hot air, talking about what might happen or what you might do. It is not until we get into the negotiation that we will start to encounter reality.
Therefore I say first to our Front Bench that we should trigger Article 50 as soon as possible, perhaps not even wait until the enactment of this Bill. The more time that is spent before Article 50 is enacted, the more time there is for people to waste their energy and confuse themselves—and there is plenty of that happening. I am not suggesting that immediately after triggering Article 50 things will be easy. They will be very difficult, I think, at that point.
I remember some time ago taking evidence in a Select Committee about the trade agreement, TTIP. A couple of witnesses observed to us that the European Union was a very difficult body to negotiate with. When asked why, one said that it spent so much time getting a common position among all 27 countries that it found it incredibly difficult to move away from that position. When we go in and put down our proposals, they will have already spent time working out their proposals, and I am not sure whether there will be any real progress after that.
As to how one should conduct the negotiation, I agree with the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and my noble friend Lord Lothian, and with yesterday’s speech by my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford, which all included good things to bear in mind about the negotiation. But we will just have to see how that works out.
What do we do in the meantime? We have 15 to 18 months to go. Addressing our Front Bench again directly, I think we should bring on the great repeal Bill as quickly as possible so that Parliament can get into it. There will be a lot more meat in that than there is in this Bill, and all the things that people are talking about as likely amendments would be dealt with much better in that context than in the context of this Bill. In fact, as the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, observed in the Times today, this is not a matter of scrutinising or improving the Bill, as all the amendments would put strange new things into the Bill that were not part of it. That is not really what we should be doing at this stage. We should do that at a later stage.
Bringing forward the great repeal Bill and going through its processes is fine up to a point, but there is a huge amount of work to be done alongside or after that, because that Bill will bring all our existing EU legislation into our own system. We can then look at it and consider what we want to keep, what we want to amend and what we want to remove. That will be a huge job, and it is difficult to see what will go into the Bill that will do it. We should start on that job as soon as possible. Saying that we will wait until the exit negotiations are complete is just sitting twiddling your thumbs when you could be doing something useful. We will have to consider how we are going to deal with this. We need a bespoke solution. Trying to modify normal legislative practice could cause some difficulty. Some people are anticipating the largest and most comprehensive Henry VIII clause that there has ever been. I do not think that is a terribly good way of doing it. We will have to find a way. We could then spend time—indeed, this House, with its experience in these matters, could make a significant contribution—sorting out what we do with the inherited acquis, which cannot just be left without being looked at; it has to be considered.
Another thing should be in the great repeal Bill. There is probably a plan for it to be in there, but if not I am sure it will go in. There should be some clauses to meet the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, yesterday. Such clauses could be tailored to provide the parliamentary involvement that he said the courts have indicated will be necessary. We should look at that.
By virtue of getting this Bill going, we underline and strengthen the Government’s position that they are prepared to walk away from a bad deal. It is important that they are prepared to walk away. If you are dealing with a negotiation such as this with lots of rules, it is importance to remember that you have no leverage if you are not prepared to leave the table. At the same time, you have to persuade people that you bring to the table something that is worth having. Those points are not entirely consistent, but you have to be prepared to do it. We will have to be prepared for something fairly tough.
My final observation does not follow from anything I have just said. It goes back a bit. There have been references to David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate our position in Europe, which led to the referendum. My comment is simply this: had Europe really wanted to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union, it should have given him something of substance, something really important, to enable him to win his referendum. Its failure to do that tells you an awful lot about its basic approach.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has often shown by his example something which can inspire us.
As speaker number 112 on this list, I must be your Lordships’ dinner gong as well. This is quite appropriate since, as a historian, I found in my archives a reference to the Flemings—when they negotiate, they ask you to lunch. This pearl of wisdom derives from a history of the 16th century, written at the time by the noble Bishop Bartolemé de las Casas, which I have in my library.
Lunch or not, I am a survivor of the first referendum on Europe—that of Harold Wilson in 1975. I organised, at that time, a list of no fewer than 200 writers who supported the idea of Britain in Europe. They included two of our Nobel prizewinners for literature—Sir Vidiadhar Naipaul and Mr Harold Pinter. I also wrote a pamphlet in the 1970s, entitled Europe, the Radical Opportunity, at a time when I still thought the adjective “radical” had a benign usage. I mention those activities, since I am tempted to say that I regard myself as still bound by the referendum vote of 1975, rather than of 2016. How long does a referendum bind its voters? There has been no discussion at all on this important constitutional matter.
I was impressed by many speeches yesterday, but I want to mention three. The first was by my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames who was archbishop of Ireland. He adjured us to be exceptionally sensitive about the words we use. Language is more important than we think it is, he wisely commented.
I was also impressed by, and pleased with, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem —I hope that I have pronounced that correctly—who insisted that Britain should adopt a generous, positive and affectionate attitude to all the European Union citizens who have come to live here. Mean behaviour is always a mistake.
I also enjoyed the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, not just because I once went to tutorials in Newnham, an important suburb of Cambridge, with a great scholar, Dr Walter Ullmann, but because I, like her, believe that the great achievement of the European Union, European Community or Common Market—however you put it—has been to confirm a permanent peace in Europe enjoyed by our generation. We do not always remember that Britain has been a continuous participant in European wars—not just the great wars of the 20th century but all those beforehand, with the exception of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
I was also affected by the eloquent speech of my noble friend—whom I am glad to see more or less in his place—Lord Faulks, who, like me, voted to remain, as he told us, and who I think argued that the time to contrive a new creative relation for this country has not quite come. That point was of course made by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope. However, it will have to be done, perhaps using NATO as our starting point, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.
The late Lord Dacre of Glanton, Hugh Trevor-Roper, whose absence from this House is very much regretted, and always will be by those who remember him, described in one of his essays how his hero, the great Edward Gibbon—a Member of the other place as a matter of fact—was a European. It is an accolade which all historians and enlightened persons should aspire to obtain, whatever the details at the conclusion of our negotiations on this matter.
Death of a Former Member: Lord Dixon
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon, on 19 February. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and his friends.
US Overseas Aid: Global Gag Rule
(8 years ago)
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Baroness Barker
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the reinstatement by the government of the United States of the global gag rule, which requires that overseas organisations in receipt of US aid cannot provide abortion services or information about family planning.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, the UK will continue to demonstrate leadership for comprehensive evidence-based sexual and reproductive health and rights, including safe abortion. We will continue to extend access to contraception for millions of women who cannot choose whether and when they have children.
Baroness Barker (LD)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. When similar policies have been enacted by previous US Presidents, they have had a devastating effect on maternal health programmes across the world. Has DfID made an assessment of whether this global gag policy will have a direct effect on any programmes it runs? What steps will DfID take, along with other Governments such as the Dutch Government, and the Gates Foundation, to try to offset the disaster that will befall millions of women as a result of this policy?
Lord Bates
The noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that we have been here before. This has been the policy of successive Republican Administrations since the Reagan presidency. Therefore, in a sense, people knew what was coming down the track. Clearly, a very important part of what we in the international community do is family planning, and the Government are committed to ensuring that that continues. Specifically on the Dutch initiative and the She Decides conference, which is being held next week, DfID will be represented there. Also, later in the year, we will host a family planning conference, similar to that which we held in 2012. We hope it will be an opportunity for the international community to come together and decide how we move forward and work through these issues.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, was the Minister right to benchmark this decision against what happened under Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the aftermath of international funding flowing into China, which led to the one-child policy, forced abortions and the sterilisation of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women, and which has now distorted the population balance in China so that there are 33 million more men than there are women—115 boys born to every 100 girls? Is this coercion of women not something that we should be very concerned about?
Lord Bates
That was part of the rationale, not under the Mexico City proposal but under the Kemp-Kasten amendment. Our understanding of the executive order signed by the President last month is that it references the Kemp-Kasten amendment. That is another reason why we need to work through and understand what it actually means for what we are doing in this area.
Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)
My Lords, when President Clinton was putting his Administration together in his first term, he said, “I want my Government to look and behave like America”. If that doctrine was correct then, does the Minister think it holds good under the current Administration?
Lord Bates
The noble Lord leads me down a path. Our opposition on this is quite clear. When you look at the numbers and work in the international community, you recognise that the United States is the most generous country in the world, through its people and its private foundations, in what it gives to family planning around the world—it accounts for something like 47.5% of the total amount. Therefore, if we really care about people rather than political positions and statements, it behoves us to say that we want to work with our friend and ally to resolve these matters for the benefit of those whom we seek to help.
Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)
My Lords, will the Minister assure us that women who have become pregnant as a result of rape in conflict situations will still have access to safe abortion?
Lord Bates
That is something on which this Government and the previous coalition Government did a great deal of work—my noble friend Lord Hague led on that—to raise the profile of the prevention of sexual violence in war. We will continue to work on that but, of course, in all cases when we are dealing with safe abortion we have to pay cognisance to the legal framework of the country in which we operating, and that requires a degree of sensitivity.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, this measure will have a devastating impact on millions of women around the world. Will DfID issue guidance to country offices on how to mitigate the impact of this new policy?
Lord Bates
We have to remain calm in this area. We know what the policy is and we have worked within this context before. The Secretary of State in her letter of 8 February to Stephen Twigg, the chairman of the International Development Committee, made it abundantly clear that our position is absolutely resolute in support of sexual and reproductive rights. We need to work with international partners. That is part of the constructive engagement which will take place at the London conference later this year.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, is it correct that this executive order is not exactly the context in which we have worked before? There is a danger that it goes far beyond sexual health services and will affect services for those with Zika, TB and AIDS and maternal and child health services? Can I press the Minister a little further? As he said, his department has been very strong in the area of women’s health. Will DfID be supportive of the Dutch Government when they try to fill the gap and save women from some of the disastrous effects of this policy?
Lord Bates
We are certainly leading by example. We continue to be the biggest funder of organisations such as Marie Stopes. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that this measure is different, that it contains some different elements and that we do not quite understand how they work. That is why it is important to keep a good relationship with the United States Administration, particularly USAID, so that we can work through these issues and find out how we go forward in a way that does not put more lives at risk.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the Dutch Government have announced that there is a possible £600 million shortfall in funding. They have had a response from 20 countries. Can the Minister confirm whether this Government have responded to the direct call of the Dutch Government? Will he reassure the House that at the London conference they will make sure that this shortfall is a priority discussion among our partners there?
Lord Bates
A couple of weeks ago I was with the Dutch Development Minister here in London at the Nordic Plus Group meeting and this issue came up. It is fair to say that we believe in a constructive engagement approach with USAID to find out all the details of what the measure actually means before we move forward. But certainly, as I mentioned to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, we will attend the She Decides meeting in Belgium next week. Of course, we are open to taking work forward on this important issue.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, following on from the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, can the Minister confirm that this Government recognise—as we did in coalition—that international law trumps national law in conflict situations when dealing with the cases that she talked about? If he is not sure about that, can he please write to me?
Lord Bates
There is a very specific form of words which the noble Baroness will be aware of that we are required to use in this situation, which was internationally agreed. I will put that in writing to her.
West Papua
(8 years ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Indonesia concerning human rights abuses in West Papua.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, we raise our concerns about West Papua on a regular basis. Our ambassador and his staff visit West Papua periodically, most recently last month. President Joko Widodo has committed to a peaceful and prosperous West Papua and taken steps to improve the situation there. We support these initiatives and would like to see further progress in implementing the President’s vision. We will continue to engage with the Indonesian authorities on this issue.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
I thank the Minister for her reply. Sadly, however, human rights violations have dramatically increased since 2014, particularly the denial of the West Papuans’ right to freedom of expression. A particularly sinister development is the appointment of retired General Wiranto, who has been indicted by a UN-sponsored tribunal for crimes against humanity. Despite what President Widodo has said about free and fair access to the press, that is simply not the case. Therefore, will Her Majesty’s Government support what is now a range of nations in the South Pacific that are continuing to raise these issues at the General Assembly of the United Nations?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we should recognise that overall the human rights situation in Indonesia has improved significantly since the late 1990s. Of course, we have some specific concerns, including about respect for some communities, and the noble and right reverend Lord has raised specific issues about West Papua. Throughout all these issues of concern on human rights it is important to note that the President has made it clear that he pays more attention than his predecessors to the importance of the future prosperity of West Papua—and it is the case that prosperity tends to follow proper respect for human rights, which we uphold through the UN.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I declare a past interest as an adviser to BP on its big gas investment in Papua. Will the Minister express a view on whether it is correct to feel that these human rights abuses and the cases that are brought forward of such abuses are completely counterproductive to the Indonesian Government’s policy of trying to reconcile the indigenous inhabitants of Papua to being part of Indonesia? If she says that that is the Government’s view, do we convey that view to the Indonesian Government?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we convey the view to the Indonesian Government that we wish to work with them in their stated objective of improving the condition of people in West Papua. With regard to abuses, it is the case that the Indonesian President is committed to addressing the problems in the region. The previous co-ordinating ministry for legal, political and security affairs established an investigative team to resolve past cases of human rights abuse. However, we remain concerned by the slow progress that has been made and we are encouraging the Indonesian Government to prioritise a swift resolution. The fact is that where human rights are recognised and protected, prosperity tends to follow.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister reiterated the point about exerting a more positive influence on the Indonesian Government, particularly with regard to religious freedom. What practical steps have the United Kingdom Government taken to ensure that religious freedom is able to be practised in West Papua, particularly in terms of the practical training of police and other civil servants to ensure that the words of the President are not only heard but fully implemented?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, it is of course important that we are able to talk as we do with the Indonesian Government about ensuring that security has to be maintained. It is a fact that Indonesia faces the threats of terrorism and instability that are around the region, not just in Indonesia, so we have to respect the action it needs to take on that. What we do is work with the Indonesian Government to ensure that there is support for their work both in Indonesia and at international level. That work is done through the FCO but also more broadly in government.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, with West Papuans continuing to be arrested and imprisoned for peaceful actions such as—as has already been said—demonstrating and even handing out flyers, and after Steven Itlay, leading a prayer ceremony in West Papua on 5 April 2016 to pray for West Papua to be accepted as a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, was arrested and convicted of treason and spent seven months incarcerated, will the Minister reassure noble Lords that Her Majesty’s Government have specifically condemned these actions?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I ought to make it clear, against the background of the actions that the right reverend Prelate described, that we fully respect the integrity and sovereignty of Indonesia. In that particular case, arrests were made because of actions to propose that West Papua should be separated from Indonesia. We are concerned by reports of pre-emptive arrests of West Papuan people in various cities across Indonesia more recently, in December 2016 —as well as by the reports to which the right reverend Prelate referred of security forces harassing individuals with alleged links to separatist groups, particularly in advance of the West Papuan elections. However, we should note that, regardless of that, in the democracy that Indonesia now is, the recent elections in December passed off peacefully.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, the Oxford Foundation for Law, Justice and Society last year advised the ending of all UK military training and equipment for Indonesia until we could be sure that there were reliable mechanisms in place to verify its adherence to human rights standards. Can the noble Baroness tell us whether that has been done?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we always take a very rigorous view about how our training and also any supply of material may be used. As I have said at the Dispatch Box before, if we receive credible information that there has been misuse, of course we will take appropriate action and either cease supply or make sure that future supply is under specific rules—and we have not had to remove our supply.
Cycling: Women
(8 years ago)
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Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to encourage more women to cycle.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, with the permission of the House I beg leave to move the Question standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. He has been delayed returning from the Scilly Isles. Some people will do anything to avoid the Brexit debate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I am sure I speak for all noble Lords in wishing him a speedy return. This Government are committed to increasing participation in cycling and to making it the natural choice for short journeys or as part of a longer trip. We reaffirmed our commitment to cycling and walking by committing in the 2015 spending review over £300 million for cycling over the five years of the spending review period. This investment supports initiatives that will encourage more women to get cycling, such as the provision of new cycle infrastructure and training.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he agree that the Government could do a bit more? Given the number of recent deaths of women cyclists in London, there is still fear and concern among women. Does the Minister agree that supporting local groups which encourage women to cycle would be a good start in helping to increase the number of women cyclists? I should have declared an interest as secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group and a regular cyclist. After all, every new cyclist on the road, if they usually drive a diesel car, would be a double bonus.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I of course acknowledge the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for cycling—and, indeed, his professionalism. As I was leaving the House yesterday, I noticed the noble Lord in his fluorescent jacket and attire. He is quite right: there is always more to be done to encourage cycling, and the Government have invested a great deal in encouraging local schemes. The noble Lord will also be aware that we are shortly to publish our new cycling and walking infrastructure investment strategy, which will underline support for local initiatives such as the noble Lord has mentioned.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, as a former chairman of the All-Party Cycling Group, I welcome the increase in cycling which is evident on our streets—both men and women. Does my noble friend agree that an increase in cycling can play its part—only a part—in reducing not just congestion but the frightful air pollution in our cities?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I agree with my noble friend that encouraging the greater use of any form of sustainable transport is a positive way of tackling air quality issues. The Government have worked hand in glove with both the previous mayor and current mayor here in the city of London on initiatives to encourage cycling.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats and then I am sure we can hear from Labour.
Baroness Randerson
Thank you. Women cyclists are proportionately more likely to be injured or killed than men. The overwhelming majority of cycling accidents and fatalities involve vehicles, disproportionately lorries. What action are the Government taking to ensure that the latest and most effective safety features are adopted for all lorries on our roads and not just the newest ones?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Baroness is right to raise the issue of such fatalities, of which there were 100 in 2015. The figures show that lorries account for some 5% of transport on British roads, but they account for about 19% of fatalities. She will be pleased to hear that the Government have encouraged the use of all the latest technology. From 1 July last year, new lorries now incorporate the new safety mirrors which give an extended rear view of any cyclist approaching from either side.
Baroness Corston
My Lords, as someone who used to represent the city of Bristol in the other place, I commend to the Minister the work of Sustrans, which 25 years ago was promoting, particularly in schools, safe cycle routes and cycling all over the country. What support do the Government give to Sustrans?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I can assure the noble Baroness that I know the work of Sustrans. When I was a councillor in Wimbledon, as part of my brief as the cabinet member for environment, I and others undertook a safer cycling programme in Wimbledon Park with Sustrans. The Government continue to invest in safer cycling, particularly for children. As the noble Baroness will be aware, we are investing over £50 million in the Bikeability schemes, which will ensure safer and more secure cycling for over 1.3 million children.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that a major obstacle to safe cycling on many of our roads is the very poor quality of road surfaces and the large number of potholes? In my own experience as a regular cyclist in the city of Oxford, one spends a good deal of time dodging potholes, and therefore exposing oneself to greater risk from traffic accidents. If he does agree, can he do anything to encourage local authorities, when they invest in road repairs, to prioritise improving the surfaces for cyclists?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord will be aware that the Government have committed to extra funding to deal with potholes. He mentioned the city of Oxford, which is benefiting from extra funding as a Cycle City Ambition city, along with Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester and Norwich. The funding in Cycle City Ambition cities amounts to £10 per head, which is a substantial increase on the £2 per head figure in 2010, and a major step forward from the £6 per head we see elsewhere in the country.
Baroness Sharples (Con)
My Lords, a few years ago, I had a bicycle with very small wheels and I was allowed to ride on the pavement. Does that still apply?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am not sure whether my noble friend still has her bicycle and is asking whether she will still be allowed. I am sure we all welcome her cycling aspirations, be it on a cycle with large or small wheels. There is still a law on the statute which prevents cycling on pavements, and there are some important aspects to this. Of course, when that law was enacted, cycling was not as widespread as it is today. An increasing number of children are cycling and if that law were applied in full, even they would perhaps be penalised. I am sure that no one in your Lordships’ House would want to see that.
Air Pollution
(8 years ago)
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The Lord Bishop of St Albans
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the issuing by the European Commission of a final warning to the United Kingdom for failing to address repeated breaches of air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide, what action they are planning to take to deal with levels of air pollution in cities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, we will set out new plans for nitrogen dioxide by 24 April, and publish a final plan by 31 July. The department is working across government, particularly with the Department for Transport, and with local authorities. This includes implementation of clean air zones. Since 2011 the Government have invested £2 billion in greener transport, with a further £290 million committed in 2016. We need to go further and faster, particularly on nitrogen dioxide.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I thank the Minister for his reply. While I am grateful for the valuable assistance that Her Majesty’s Government are giving to cleaner fuels and alternative fuels, there is a growing consensus that we need both urgent and robust action on this now to solve the problem of air pollution, not least that caused by the nitrogen dioxide emissions from diesel cars. Will the Minister tell your Lordships’ House what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to ensure that new diesel cars are not exceeding those nitrogen dioxide emissions, not just in laboratory conditions but on the roads, which is quite different? Will Her Majesty’s Government consider phasing out any cars that do not reach those limits?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, it is important to ensure that what happens in the laboratory is also what happens in real driving tests. That is why the Government have been at the forefront of calls for action to introduce real driving emissions testing. This is clearly essential to meeting our air quality goals, and the test will come in from September this year. I think the right reverend Prelate talked about extending to cars the whole purpose and thrust of the Government’s investment, along with others, which is to ensure that we have low-emission vehicles. We are one of the leading countries in this area and I think we will see very good results from that leadership.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on their recent consultation on air quality, and I have been looking through some of the responses. Perhaps I may declare an interest in that I was encouraged by successive Governments to buy a diesel car, which I then did. What is the Government’s policy on potentially introducing a scrappage system? How would they intend to pay for such a system, and, assuming that we will have left the European Union by 2020, which body will in future police nitrogen dioxide limits?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, on the question of a scrappage scheme, we are obviously considering the steps needed following the High Court ruling on updated data emissions from diesel vehicles, but we think that the use of clean air zones is a more targeted and proportionate approach to dealing with emissions. Moreover, we are pressing on with plans in five cities and we are working with the Mayor of London. On the issue of a post-Brexit regime, all the regulations on this will come into our domestic law. The air quality regulations were made under the European Communities Act and so will be preserved via the great repeal Bill.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, if the Government have been so remiss in meeting their environmental responsibilities in the present circumstances —in which they face fines for non-compliance—what possible chance is there that our environment will be properly protected when that sanction no longer applies?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I would not seek to be partisan, but perhaps I should say to the noble Lord that the dash to diesel happened under his party’s regime. That is one reason why we are now having to resolve the problem. In fact, nitrogen dioxide levels went down by 4% between 2014 and 2015, and we are seeking to continue that. However, we are retrieving a situation that the noble Lord’s party assisted in the passage of.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us exactly which towns and cities are being affected by the reasoned opinion of the European Commission?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I have a list of 16 zones, while the five cities that we are working on as regards clean air zones are Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton. I should say that my honourable friend Therese Coffey has been discussing these matters with representatives from other cities because under the Transport Act 2000, local authorities can impose clean air zones if they so wish.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, did my noble friend hear the answers given by our noble friend Lord Ahmad concerning more cycling? Is he aware that sometimes it can take more than an hour to drive from Parliament Square to the Tower of London? That has been caused by the barricades that have been put up to assist cyclists, who also get in the way on the main carriageways.
Lord Tebbit
The noble Lord opposite speaks very impertinently to me and other people of my age, who would have grave difficulty cycling on the roads these days. However, a principal cause of the excess nitrogen dioxide in the air of Westminster and along the Embankment is those wretched barricades that were put up by the former mayor.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I hope I can continue in the right vein by saying that I would advise that the Circle and District lines are a very good way to get from here to the Tower of London and that part of London. However, my noble friend makes the serious point that no one wants congestion. We obviously want to encourage cycling and I hope that once we have installed the facilities for cycling, this will provide an easier time for the very tolerant taxi drivers and the people who need to get about in vehicles, such as emergency vehicles. Like all these things, there is a balance to this and I hope we can get these cycling lanes in place and then ensure that London runs ever more smoothly.
Technical and Further Education Bill
The Earl of Courtown
That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Technical and Further Education Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 23, Schedule 2, Clause 24, Schedules 3 and 4, Clauses 25 to 45, Title.
Neighbourhood Planning Bill
(8 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Young of Cookham
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 4, Schedule 1, Clauses 5 to 9, Schedule 2, Clauses 10 to 13, Schedule 3, Clauses 14 to 44, Title.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill
Tuesday 21st February 2017
(8 years ago)
Lords ChamberEuropean Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 View all European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 103(h) Amendment for Committee (PDF, 52KB) - (21 Feb 2017)
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, this is in many ways a sad occasion for me because, as the House knows, I was a European Commissioner for many years. I was very proud to serve in that role; I believed then, and I believe now, that the work on which I was engaged was in the underlying and long-term interests of the United Kingdom. Now that we have decided to leave, I share many of the emotions that were expressed last night by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, at the beginning of her speech. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, for the words of appreciation that he expressed for those of us who have worked in European institutions and who have sought to further the cause of Britain in Europe. However, we failed to convince our fellow countrymen and women, and we therefore have no choice but to accept the result of the referendum.
The referendum was fought on the basis of in or out, and the Government, supported by Parliament, promised to accept the result. Indeed, I myself promised to accept the result when we debated the referendum Bill in the summer. To attempt to go back on that result would not just have been a massive breach of faith; it would have ended in disaster. The Government would have lost all credibility both within this country and within the European Union, and it would have been quite impossible for them to conduct any sort of constructive policy either here or there. I hope that this is a point that my noble friends Lady Altmann and Lady Wheatcroft, who spoke with such emotion, would like to reflect upon. The right course now, in the Government’s own words, is to set out to create a new partnership that works both for us and for the European Union and its member states, with whom we have so many bonds of friendship and common interests. These are economic, financial, foreign policy, strategic and security, and I believe that the approach set out in the Lancaster House speech and the White Paper is the right place to begin.
I say that not least because it respects the stated wishes of the other EU leaders. They have made it quite clear that their emphasis is on the integrity of the European Union. What they do not want is a repetition of the negotiations over opt-outs and derogations involving issues of principle that necessarily characterised the Cameron negotiations. If we go down the route of aiming to stay in the single market and the customs union as an object of policy, we will be going down exactly the route which our negotiating opposite numbers do not want. We cannot combine those objectives with taking back control of immigration and rejecting the supremacy of the European Court of Justice. It is, therefore, far better to set out with the 27 remaining members of the EU and with the EU institutions on building a new UK-EU partnership covering all our common interests that takes account of their red lines and of our referendum.
The negotiations may well be very tough—the noble Lord, Lord Birt, expressed a strong view on that last night—but they need not be either protracted or overly difficult, and I shall explain why. In a normal negotiation, the two sides have to put together a new structure. In this one, we start with a structure because we are all members of the European Union. The question is how much of that structure to dismantle, to the disadvantage of both sides, and how much to retain under a new brand and in a new form as part of a new partnership. There is no need in these negotiations to start from scratch and then go through all the work that would have to be done. We should start from where we are and see how much of the existing arrangements it is in the best interests of both sides to keep within the context of the new partnership. There are models that could be moved from one to the other; there are models that can be built on; there are models that can be retained. That is the direction down which the negotiation will, I hope, go. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, might be right and it might all end in failure, but, personally, I take a more optimistic view.
Of course, the other 27 members and the EU institutions will not want the new deal to be as good for us in their eyes—I emphasise in their eyes—as the existing relationship. We must accept that. The challenge for Britain will be to make up for that by taking advantage of the new opportunities that open up for us in trade and in other fields as a result of leaving the Union. That will not be easy, but I hope very much that we will succeed. I hope, too, that we will maintain as much co-operation as possible with the other members of the EU on matters of foreign policy, security, research, Europol and wherever else is to our mutual advantage.
I hope very much that the new partnership will be a more harmonious one than our membership of the European Union has sometimes been. We must not look back on the past through rose-tinted spectacles. All of us who have been involved with the European Union know that the marriage was not always a very happy one, and we must hope that the new partnership will be set up on more lasting lines.
Lord Darling of Roulanish (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I agree with just about everything he said. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests. In particular, I am a director of Morgan Stanley, a trustee of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and president of Chatham House.
Invoking Article 50 is the inevitable consequence of the referendum result last year. There is no alternative but to do that. I am being consistent here. Throughout the Scottish referendum campaign, in which I played some part, I made it very clear that the result would be binding. If we voted to leave, that was it; there was no going back. For the sake of consistency, and because I happen to think it is right as a matter of democratic principle, if we ask people what they think and they come back with an answer, even if we do not like the answer, we have to go along with it. There is no point in trying to rerun the arguments that should frankly have been made with more force on my side last year. It did not work and we now have that result. It is now up to us to ensure that we try to shape things so that we get the best possible result for the United Kingdom, as the noble Lord has just said.
However, that will not be easy. I also, of course, part company with the many who have spoken who take a different view from mine—mainly from the Benches opposite—who are more or less inviting us to give the Prime Minister and the Government a blank cheque. I am not prepared to do that. The problem is this: whereas a narrow majority, but a majority none the less, voted for us to leave the European Union last year—we know what they are against—there was no plan B, no alternative on the ballot paper. It is not at all clear exactly what people were voting for. The truth is that there will be a whole spectrum of people who voted to leave the European Union and will not be happy until we treat it as any other third country—keeping it at a distance—and those who just wanted a rearrangement and a slightly different sense of direction.
The problem is that the leavers did not expect to win and the remainers thought they would, and the result was that there was no plan B waiting to be taken down. That is why we get the impression that the Government over the last few months have been very much making up matters on the hoof and why we have a White Paper which must be the thinnest government publication I have ever seen—I say that having been a Member of a Government for 13 years. This has precious little to commend it.
The next two to five years will be critical and, of course, they also take place in unusual circumstances in British politics. The Prime Minister has chosen to tack towards the Brexiteers because she does not see that there is much in the way of opposition that would pull her back the other way. However, that means that the middle ground of British politics has been abandoned, which is a very dangerous place for us to be. There are many people in this country—even a majority—who are prepared to say that there will be a different relationship, but they want a voice and at the moment they are not always getting it.
I might also say that the idea that after a referendum people will come together may be a pious hope. I live in Edinburgh; Scotland is more divided now than it was two years ago. The wounds every day are being reopened and, as the House will know, the nationalists never accepted the result and have always said they will come back. I imagine that had last June’s result gone the other way, the idea that those who were against the European Union for the last 40 years would have kept quiet and gone away is fanciful.
Those of us who believe in openness, in trade, and who take a liberal view of where this country should stand in the world, will not want to abandon everything that we believe in but we have to accept the referendum result. However, we must also be ready to engage.
Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, I would say that there are alliances to be made if only the Prime Minister and the Government would allow themselves to make them. This is not a divorce with one party on either side of the table. There are 27 on the other side, and in many ways 27 different views as to where we ought to end up. If we were living in a rational world—the world described by the noble Lord, Lord Hill, yesterday—and there was no politics in all of this, I suppose we could say, “We all have problems with freedom of movement of people, so why not look at this again?”. We know that there are problems with the construction of the single European currency—the euro and the Eurozone. However, we have to recognise that the politics on the other side of the channel is different. We are the only country that joined the European Union largely because of trade. Most of them joined to escape their history, to avoid some of the terrible things that happened in the past. That is why we have an attraction to an ever closer union because they saw it as a political rather than an economic construct.
We also need to have a grown-up conversation with our own people. Negotiations inevitably involve compromise, and it does not matter whether you are negotiating with the United States or anyone else. By the way, I do not regard a deal with the US as an alternative to a deal with the rest of Europe. If America is to come first, it seems to me that somebody will have to come second. I do not have the slightest doubt that we will get some sort of deal but I just wonder what it might be. So it is not an alternative, and that is all the more reason for engaging constructively with the European Union as we go through the difficult issues of trade and the free movement of people.
All these issues are set out in the White Paper and they all sound absolutely fine, except that someone on the other side has to agree to them. That is why I do not accept the argument that from now on those of us on the remain side should sit back, say nothing and simply give the Government a blank cheque to proceed. We cannot do that because there are so many uncertainties and unanswered questions, whether on the freedom of movement or sectoral trade agreements, which sound like we are going back to the planning agreements of the 1940s. How will all this work?
Finally, none of these negotiations will be conducted in secret. It is not a case of sending away negotiators who will come back in two years’ time. There will be a running commentary on all this every single day. You cannot talk to 27 other countries and expect anyone to keep quiet for more than about 30 seconds. So let us be grown-up about it and engage positively. However, the Brexiters and the Government have to accept that there is a large section of the population in this country and a large number among the membership in this House and the other place who will not for one moment accept some of the extreme arguments being put forward and who think that the voice of reason must prevail for the good of our country in the decades to come.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I have tabled an amendment on Euratom. Contrary to what the Leader of the House said yesterday in her opening speech, there is no mandate to leave Euratom. It is not part of the EU and it seems that, as a country, we are in danger of cutting off our nose to spite our face for no reason in terms of an electoral mandate.
Today, I want to speak primarily about my great-grandfather, Samuel Miller. He was a master sergeant in the Middlesex Regiment in the late 19th century. I think that he served in South Africa but in the late 1870s he was posted to Dublin. There, he fulfilled his military duties and one year later, in 1880, my grandmother, Edith Blanche—later Leddra—was born. Because of that accident, I was able to take on Irish citizenship, and indeed did so in 1996. I am a dual national. Therefore, after Brexit takes place, I will be able to have all the privileges of a European citizen, but that will not be the case for the 16 million people who voted to remain part of the European Union. Not just those with relatives who were born in other EU nations but those born in Ireland will also be able to decide whether to continue to have those privileges as European citizens in the UK beyond Brexit.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of some of those privileges. They include non-discrimination alongside other European nationals, the ability to move and reside without hindrance in European Union countries, the ability to work within the European Union, to establish a business, to export and to trade without red tape, the ability to have diplomatic representation, the ability to use our qualifications throughout Europe, and of course the right to healthcare and a European health insurance card when travelling in the EU.
I looked through the White Paper with a great deal of interest. As other noble Lords have said, it is not very long. Strangely, although there were a number of comments about reinforcing UK citizens’ rights in the rest of Europe, it said absolutely nothing about the 16 million of us who will be denied those privileges and rights through the vote of the 17 million. On that, there is a complete void. It is because of that that I feel that those 16 million who along with me voted to remain—I am not going back in history; this is just how it was—have been abandoned by this Government. It is not mentioned in the White Paper. There is no plan for us to retain those rights.
I have spoken with the European Parliament. It is my intention with other parliamentarians who have a similar concern not to negotiate with our own Government—I have no questions for the Minister today, because the Government cannot give what I am asking, nor do they have the power to do so—but to take a delegation of other parliamentarians to meet the rapporteur of the European Parliament and to ask it to protect those rights of our citizens either through membership or associate membership, and to try to achieve that where our own Government have clearly failed and have no interest.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, like previous speakers, I believe that the people’s decision in the EU referendum requires the Government to trigger Article 50. The Government should get this Bill and get ahead with their negotiations as soon as possible.
With regard to those negotiations, we must accept the logic of the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech. To regain control over immigration, the EU rules require the UK to leave the single market. If the UK is to make independent trade deals with third countries, we must leave at least parts of the customs union.
On the other side of the account, as the noble Lords, Lord Tugendhat and Lord Darling, said, the UK has much to offer our EU neighbours in terms of access to our markets, our financial services, our security co-operation, our universities and research establishments —and much else. Correspondingly, we have much to gain from our European partners.
Thus far, I go along with the Government. Like the noble Lords, Lord Tugendhat and Lord Darling, I believe that there is a deal to be done in rational negotiations. Press reports today suggest that Germany and some other of our European neighbours are prepared to take such an approach. I hope that those reports are right. But we cannot be sure that the negotiations will be rational. We have to allow for the possibility that, as the noble Lords, Lord Lawson and Lord Birt, said forcefully yesterday, such an agreement may not be available. We may ask our partners for things that they may feel unable to give; and they may ask of us things that we are unwilling to give, such as continuing large subventions to the EU budget.
Is the outcome of last June’s referendum to be interpreted as meaning that a majority of the United Kingdom want to leave the EU whatever the terms? The Government clearly think so. But on a matter of this importance have not the Government a duty to be sure before our departure becomes final? One has to ask why those who base their arguments for Brexit on the will of the people are now opposed to consulting the people on the outcome of the negotiations. One has to suspect that they fear that they will get a different answer, but, if so, we ought to know. I must say that I was surprised by the closing part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, when he said that establishing the up-to-date view of the British electorate would be undemocratic.
I have a question for the Minister—there have not been many speeches that I have heard that have left questions for the noble Lord who is answering the debate tonight. Do the Government regard the views of the British people on the outcome of the negotiations as irrelevant to our departure?
I said previously in your Lordships’ House that I will support an amendment requiring the Government to consult the people again before our departure becomes final. Having said that I would support such an amendment, I will—but, in truth, I doubt whether such an amendment to the Bill is of much significance. As the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said, much will happen over the next two years. If there is no agreement, or if the terms of any agreement are unsatisfactory, and if there is evidence that public opinion may have changed, I expect that the Labour Party will not be as co-operative as it is now, rightly, over the passage of the Bill. We know the position of the Liberal Democrats and of the Scottish Nationalists.
The Government may well be defeated in the House of Commons, as well as in this House, at the end of the negotiations. A matter of this importance is certainly an issue of confidence. If I am right that there is the prospect of that happening, by one route or another, the Government or a new one will have to return to seeking the views of the British people—and so they should.
Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. I recognise that at this stage in the debate one struggles to find anything original to say, so I will content myself with a few short points.
On the Bill, it never occurred to me that after the vote happened last year there could be any question but that Parliament should have a voice before the triggering of Article 50. I recollect, possibly rather tragically, as a teenager sitting in the Public Gallery of the House of Commons during the six-day debate it had before the decision was made for Britain to join what was then the Common Market. My noble friend Lord Lamont permitted me to be a signatory to the Maastricht treaty as his deputy—my opportunity, he said, to put my footprints on the sands of history. I recall that, both before and after the agreement of that treaty, there were two-day debates on it in the House of Commons, which undoubtedly informed the way in which the negotiation took place. It is important that on something of this magnitude and gravity Parliament must have a role, a voice and a say.
Having said that, of course a decision has been made, not an expression of preference or view, by the public in the referendum. They were invited to make a decision and they did so. Therefore, it is completely appropriate that there should be a full debate, as is happening in this House, but it is totally inappropriate for the Bill to be significantly amended, and I hope that this House will think again. To me it would be a double affront to democracy to seek to overset both the verdict of the public and of the elected Chamber on this issue.
I remained undeclared during the referendum campaign and took no part in it. I thought the arguments were finely balanced, and that if there was a vote to leave there would be some short-term downside and some medium to long-term upside opportunity. For those who cheerfully say, “Well, we are in the short term and there has been no downside”, I simply say that the short term is not over yet. We are only eight months into this period, and the short term certainly includes the two years we are going into when the negotiations will take place, when businesses looking to invest will have concerns before they do so. With regard to the longer-term upside opportunity, I stress that it is opportunity and not certainty. Whether those opportunities are realised depends very much, obviously, on what happens in the meantime. Of course, as many of your Lordships have said in the course of this debate, the eventual arrangements are not in our sole gift; these are to be negotiated. We hope that collective economic self-interest among us and our 27 current partners will prevail and that there will be sensible arrangements which benefit all, but we know that rationality does not always obtain in politics.
There must of course be control over immigration, although I suspect that the actual number of immigrants is unlikely to fall by much, although its composition may well change. It is also extremely important that this country remains not only open to talent from around the world but that it actively seeks it, because that has been our history and much of our strength.
Will economic self-interest prevail and outweigh the desire that there clearly is in some parts of the EU to hurt the UK and to make sure, as my noble friend Lord Tugendhat said, that the UK cannot be seen to be better off afterwards than it was before? It was clear to me, as Trade Minister, that many of our partners in the EU see this as a zero-sum game. They see a benefit to one country as being a loss to others. We know that they are wrong. I hope that there is a consensus in this House that that is wrong. Economics is not a zero-sum game.
In the context of the excellent EU Financial Services Sub-Committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, looking at the clearing of euro-denominated instruments in London, of course it is open to the European Central Bank to ordain that that must happen within the EU. We know that that activity is not just about the euro; it is co-mingled with the clearing of other currencies. There are huge efficiency gains to the whole of the European Union from that continuing to be the case, and there would be a significant efficiency penalty, as well as potentially some systemic risk, if that were to be undermined. There are only two financial centres where this can take place—London and New York—and there is no place in any kind of medium term where that can take place within the rest of the European Union. Certainly, the European Central Bank can ordain that, but it is not what the doctor would order for the eurozone’s fragile financial system.
My last point is this: what is within our unilateral gift is to set the environment for business to take place in this country. It needs to be unequivocally welcoming, and we need to make this, as it has been for much of my lifetime, the go-to destination for people who want to put to work their expertise, their energy, their money and their ideas. That means a proportionate regulatory environment, a simple and low-rate tax regime, and continuing support for the world-leading science and research base. If we do those systematically, the arrangements to be reached with the European Union will matter—they are certainly not marginal—but we can do a huge amount ourselves unilaterally to make sure that the upside opportunities in the medium and long term that I see from Brexit can actually be realised.
Lord Triesman (Lab)
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Maude. I was once told by somebody else that he and I were true free marketeers and entrepreneurs, so I had better draw attention to my commercial interests in the register.
I will say a few words about the way in which I want to approach this. I have, sadly, been on the losing side in general elections. I recognise that the Government that were elected are the Government that are elected. But it never once occurred to me that I should be expected to abandon values or not try to do the job of Opposition. It was a fundamental expectation of our democracy that we should review things, hold people to account, amend and sometimes even reject—although in this case I accept the result in the referendum—but we should do so responsibly and respectfully, and without threatening one another or the existence of the political Chambers in which we work. None of that is of any help in trying to get a proper discussion in our democracy.
Indeed, I always thought that the point of being described as the “loyal Opposition” is that there is, of course, loyalty to the Crown and loyalty to the nation, but there is also loyalty to the concept of opposition and doing the job properly in a democracy; that is what people expect. For that reason, if we were to say, on a massive existential issue, that we are just going to wait until somebody thinks that we are more right, and then we will have the freedom to act as we wish and we should pass over any of the other tasks of the Opposition, that would be a woeful neglect and would never be understood by anybody in a democracy such as the United Kingdom.
I say to other noble Lords: be careful what you wish for. In many ways, it is the absence of a serious Opposition at the other end of this building that is the gravest risk to the Conservative Government. Not being able to say to people, “You have sometimes a rather curious view of the world, and there are other things and other voices that need to be considered”, is hugely dangerous, and we can avoid it at least in this House. Keir Starmer has done a fine job—a heroic one in many ways—but nobody could say that opposition has been shown fully. For example, the Prime Minister probably came here yesterday to seek a nostalgic reminder of what opposition was like, on the grounds that she had a very small chance of seeing it in the Chamber in which she operates.
I opposed leaving for lots of reasons, notwithstanding the EU’s irritating characteristics. There are a number of reasons why it is important to consider what we might say in the context of the Bill. When it started out, the decision that “Brexit means Brexit”—a transposition of a line from Alice Through the Looking-Glass: it means whatever you want—morphed, rationally or not, first into leaving the economic area and then into something along the lines of leaving the customs union, or at least substantial parts of it. It has morphed all the time, and the only thing that has finally ended up as consistent is the Prime Minister saying that she would rather have no deal than an unacceptable one. I have never believed that politicians were good negotiators and I will say it candidly in this House. Anyone who went into a negotiation and said, “This is my final point”, can expect the people on the other side to play it for all it is worth. It is an amateur approach and needs to be thought about with a great deal more seriousness.
I believe that we will be worse off on a number of fronts: the economic future; the staffing of the NHS and care homes; the excellence of our universities; in defence, where our key counterpart in the White House is an isolationist and, at least on the question of Sweden, a fantasist; on Europol; on Euratom; on the environment; on employment protection; on Ireland and hardened borders; and on the security of the United Kingdom as a union, which is something I have always supported. I think that we have problems, and the referendum debate on both sides did not throw much useful light on those issues.
I know that others disagree with me: they think I am wrong; I think they are wrong; and that is absolutely fine. However, none of us knows what it will be like in two years’ time. Of course we do not know what the conditions or the final settlement will be. In those circumstances, it is perfectly fair to say that the final terms need to be approved by a future Act of Parliament and we should consider that amendment. I also believe that it should go back to the people, exactly for the reasons described by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. If there is no agreement, it must be open to Parliament and the people of this country to consider whether they want any kind of system to replace the one from which they will be departing. Those are fundamental, existential issues for our country.
We should not play with people’s lives. They have put down roots; their kids go to school; they have families here. They are people about whom we normally express profound values. Let us not play with that. The use of “grandfathering” yesterday was not an accidental choice of word. It is about family and deeper values in the way we deal with people.
My final brief point is that this has been a very divisive period. A number of communities have felt the full force of that, including my own. I do not know how they have done it, but the Portuguese Government have managed to track some of the Sephardic community that left in 1492. I am in the happy position that I may apparently be offered Portuguese nationality, although I will have to take an exam in Portuguese which I am not optimistic about. Real, deep strains are coming out and people are experiencing fear and violence. To all the Brexiteers who said, “That is deplorable, the law should protect people and we always want to do so”, I say, “Stand up and do the things that protect people—do not leave them in this position where their lives seem parlous for no reason at all”.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is in his place, I will thank him for the opportunity to debate this legislation which we might not have had if he had not played such a good role in the Supreme Court. As our party spokesman on home affairs I want to make absolutely clear that I support the protection of the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK and of UK citizens living in the EU.
This afternoon I seek to make only one point and to use one example to illustrate that point. The British people did not know the full consequences of leaving the EU at the time of the referendum and did not therefore make an informed choice. They are entitled to a vote on the final deal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, said, none of us, on either side of the argument, knew what the full consequences of leaving the EU were going to be at the time of the referendum—and, of course, we will not know definitively until the negotiations are complete, although there are some things of which we are certain and which I will come to.
Let us be honest: no one, least of all the Conservative Government, thought much about the consequences of a leave vote because they never believed it would happen, as the noble Lord, Lord Darling, has just said. That is why the people need to decide, once they can make an informed choice, whether to accept the final deal negotiated by the Government. One thing is for sure: it is the people who started the process that will lead to the negations to leave the EU. Therefore, it is only the people who should decide, by means of a referendum, whether they want to go through with it once they have all the facts.
I come to my example. As the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal said yesterday, the Government’s White Paper sets out in detail the 12 objectives for the negotiations, one of which is to continue to co-operate with our European partners in important areas such as crime, terrorism and foreign affairs—the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, clearly articulated how important such co-operation is. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire pointed out yesterday:
“The White Paper also pledges to maintain close co-operation on internal security, intelligence and crime, but without accepting judicial oversight of such sensitive issues. That will not be possible”.—[Official Report, 20/02/17; col. 30.]
A major plank of the leave campaign was to make the UK Parliament sovereign and for law to be decided by British courts. But, as I shall seek to demonstrate, essential co-operation with the European Union on issues of terrorism, serious and organised crime, policing and justice—matters that are the primary role of any Government to keep their people safe—cannot be achieved without ceding sovereignty. To be effective in combating terrorism and serious and organised crime, such as people trafficking and child sexual abuse, and to bring to justice criminals who flee from the EU to the UK or vice versa, there needs to be a mass exchange of information between the countries of the EU and the UK.
At the moment there are shared electronic databases, with more due to come on stream in the coming months. They enable a police officer who stops a suspect in the street in the UK to check instantly whether they are of interest to the security services anywhere in Europe and whether they are wanted under a European arrest warrant. Fingerprint and DNA samples found at the scene of a crime can be checked across the EU in seconds, minutes or hours, rather than in the weeks or months—if it could be done at all—that it would take using Interpol.
These EU databases are subject to data protection law agreed by EU member states. Compliance is overseen by the European Court of Justice. At the moment we have a say as to what these EU data protection laws are. When we leave the EU, we will not. If we are to continue to have access to these vital databases, we will have to comply with EU data protection law over which we will no longer have any say.
The Government have also said that they will no longer be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. So who will adjudicate on our compliance with EU data protection law? The Government may say that there should be a bespoke body specifically to adjudicate on such matters, as it suggests in its White Paper. This will obviously duplicate the work currently undertaken by the ECJ. Who is going to pay for this bespoke body that will ensure that the UK complies with EU law over which we will have no say? One thing is for sure: it is not going to be the Mexicans.
The British people believed that we would be safer outside the EU. They believed that we would no longer be subject to EU law and that we would no longer have to pay anything to, or for anything to do with, the European Union. That is what they were told during the referendum debate, whether in good faith or not. The reality is that we will either be much less safe if we no longer have access to the information held on these EU databases, or we will have to give up sovereignty by complying with EU law over which we will no longer have any say. We will either still be subject to the ECJ or we will have to fund an alternative body to adjudicate on these issues. Not many people realise this, and even fewer realised it at the time of the referendum.
This is why we are proposing an amendment to the Bill which will enable the British people to decide on the final deal when they know exactly what the consequences of leaving the EU are. This is not necessarily because they were misled or did not understand, but because it is only now beginning to dawn on all of us what the full consequences are going to be. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said, what is not democratic about giving the final say to the British people?
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, I am as much a Eurosceptic as any Brexiteer. I do not like the way in which the European Parliament works. Nobody knows their MEP; MEPs have no connection with their constituencies and move from Brussels to Strasbourg every month. The euro is a disaster; one size will never fit all. Thank God we did not join it. I thought that we missed out on Schengen for business and tourist visas, but one of my favourite sayings is that good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. We are lucky not to be in Schengen. In many ways, we are not affected as much by the migration crisis. From a security point of view it is better not to be in Schengen.
There is no question but that, with our democratic system, we have to accept the result of the referendum, however narrow it was. When the Minister sums up, will he clarify why, when we passed the referendum Bill, this was an advisory referendum? Why was it not set in stone that it would become law straightaway? Why was there no supra-majority, which is normal for something like this? Compare it with the AV referendum, which was very simple. The outcomes were spelled out—yes or no; for or against AV. It was a simple yes or no question. Here, however, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jowell, said yesterday, the question was black and white—remain or leave—but with a technicolour answer.
As several of my fellow Cross-Benchers and other noble Lords have said, we have to accept the result of the referendum. However, because the outcome of the no vote is totally unclear, it is not that simple. People voted to leave for a number of reasons. Many, sadly, believed the figure of £350 million a week to save the NHS. No one put it to them that this was despite its being a gross figure and despite the fact that the £8 billion to £10 billion of our net contribution is barely 1% of our Government’s annual expenditure per year. I have met people who voted for that reason. People voted to take back control of EU laws. When I have asked people who did this to name any EU laws that affects them day to day, they cannot name one. I built Cobra beer from scratch over a quarter of a century and I have not spent one hour of one day worrying about EU legislation. EU law, the law that is made in this country, is predominantly made by us in this Parliament, whether it is about taxes, planning or business rates.
The biggest issue of all was immigration. How badly this subject has been portrayed. These 3 million EU citizens, many of them leaving homes and families thousands of miles away, not knowing the language, come over here, work hard in an alien culture and put in five times more than they get out in taxes and benefits. Are we grateful to them? If we are grateful to them, right now, without legislation, we should be guaranteeing that they should be allowed to stay here. The Government should confirm this and I ask the Minister to do so. Far from being a burden on our country, these people work in our public sector. In fact, many parts of our public sector would collapse without them. Some 160,000 work in our NHS and care sector. Sajid Javid wants to build more homes: 250,000 people from the EU work in our construction sector. We have less than 5% unemployment, the lowest in living memory. We have the highest level of employment in living memory. What would we do without these people? We would not be the fifth largest economy in the world.
I am chancellor of the University of Birmingham and I chair the advisory board of the Cambridge Judge Business School. Some 20% of our academics come from the EU. I am president of UKCISA, the UK Council for International Student Affairs. We have 450,000 foreign students, 180,000 of them from the EU. It is not just about the money that comes for research. As the vice-chancellor of Cambridge said, more worrying than the loss of revenue is the damage to the networks of collaboration on which world-class science depends today. The Indian high commissioner gave an interview just this week in which he said, “Yes, we can talk about free trade agreements, but we also need to talk about visas and immigration”. Does the Minister accept that we should stop including international students in our net migration figures? They should be removed at once.
When these facts are made clear, when we move away from going back to hate crime and racism thanks to this wretched referendum, then people will have every right to change their mind. After all, the Prime Minister changed her mind; she was a remainer. Phillip Hammond changed his mind. Our court jester, Boris Johnson, was emphatic to remain just a couple of years ago. We are respecting the will of the people but not accepting that the people can change their minds. Look at the hypocrisy of it. It is said that countries such as the United States of America, China and India do not have trade deals with the European Union but they still deal with the European Union and that Brexit means that we are unleashed to do deals with the whole of the rest of the world, but we are going to give up the biggest deal on our doorstep—50% of our trade. What hypocrisy. Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind”. Here, the facts may not change but people will wake up to the facts and then they may want to change their minds.
I think it is wrong that this House of Lords has been threatened. I think it is wrong that people are told that they are not patriotic if they are not for Brexit and that they are not for Britain if they are not for Brexit. That is wrong and it is disrespectful. The attitude of this Government, who have had to go to the High Court and the Supreme Court and have produced a White Paper only when pressed to, is neglecting government. If we want to negotiate now we will have to negotiate with many different countries, yet the Government are saying that no deal is better than a bad deal. Leaving the single market and ruining our economy would be a bad deal. To emphasise what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, logically, because of the nature of this question, there is no way we can respect the will of the people if we do not go back to them with the deal that we have and ask, “Are you now happy to leave on this basis?”.
Where sovereignty is concerned, I conclude by saying that we have our sovereignty. We measure our roads in miles and our petrol in litres. I pour my draft beer in pints and sell it on the supermarket shelves in litres. No one can force us to join the EU army or force us into further integration. As the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, said, there will be complications for the Civil Service. There are 38 countries and regional assemblies that we will have to negotiate with—six in Belgium alone. The majority of the youth of our country voted to stay. We have to think of the youth of our country. I conclude by quoting Professor Deepak Malhotra of the Harvard Business School, a world expert in negotiation, who said, “Karan, read a book called The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman about the beginning of the First World War”. We are currently commemorating the centenary of that unnecessary war that sacrificed millions of lives. He said, “Reading that book is like watching a train crash in slow motion”. That is what we are watching right now.
Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)
My Lords, we have heard many home truths in the previous speaker’s speech. I voted to remain and I regret but certainly accept the outcome of the referendum. There is a wide perception around the country, which is true even among the remainers, that we now need to get on with the negotiation under Article 50. It is not, as some would assert, because suddenly a national consensus supporting Brexit has now emerged, but because of the simple and common-sense realisation that uncertainty is economically damaging and marking time is not healthy politically. So the Government have my strong support in sticking to their timetable and getting on with the negotiation. There will be plenty to do in the coming months before the elections in continental Europe have concluded, and plenty to avoid as well, I might say, not least a massive bust-up over the value of European Union assets which could sour subsequent negotiations.
No one can tell at this stage how we are going to get on. Let us hope for and do what we can to further enlightened behaviour around the negotiating table to obtain what the Prime Minister has termed as the best possible outcome. We certainly need the partnership that has been promised. As many noble Lords have pointed out, the UK’s hand is not totally devoid of cards to play, and we have plenty to offer our partners. If the deal is a good one, it will be supported in the country at large and I do not think that it will be necessary to have electoral verdicts on it. But that does not exclude the need for endorsement by Parliament in statutory form, and I hope that this issue, which is clearly going to come before us, can be resolved without further resort to the Supreme Court. Parliamentary sovereignty is not to be mocked.
Sadly, we cannot exclude the possibility that the outcome will be judged as less than satisfactory either by the people or by the Government, or indeed by both. What happens next is the question preoccupying many, and we have heard references to the need for another referendum. If the British people judge that responsibility for a bad deal is borne by EU negotiators, which might well be the case, the likelihood of them wishing to crawl back into the European Union can be ruled out. I do not think, as some people fondly hope, that a second referendum will be a sure-fire ticket for a return. Equally, as it has been well put in the debate, the British people did not vote to be poorer and they will be entitled to judge whether the negotiations lead to that outcome. Moreover, they will want a say in any radically new economic model which the Government propose as a response to a bad deal. So, frankly, I think that we can rely on the normal electoral processes of this country kicking in to deliver a verdict on what should happen next, and I reckon that this will happen in a timely way. Our system will certainly cope with whatever outcome the negotiations deliver.
In the time remaining for me to speak, I want to focus on a different aspect which has not been covered so fully by other noble Lords. Whatever the final outcome, which could take years, this country has embarked on a course where it cannot respond in a “behaviour as usual” manner. Underlying the political and economic turbulence of our times is a technological revolution of vast proportions and significance. The word “transformational”, which is overused, is nevertheless appropriate here. We shall need to master rather than be overwhelmed by the changes in train and turn them to our advantage. That means leadership by government and followership in the country. An important start has been made in the Government’s consultative document on an industrial strategy, which must turn not only into a good strategy but into implementation plans which lead to the exploitation of the strong science and research base of this country, upskill the workforce, draw in the private sector as a partner and reward achievement.
Giving them a future is especially owed to the young people of this country, and we know how the majority of them voted. As a people and as a country, I do not think that we like massive organisation and planning, but this is a moment in our history when we must make the most of the opportunity we have of laying a new economic base for the whole of the United Kingdom.
The Government have a lot on their plate, and I hope they have both the bandwidth and the nerve to take forward an ambitious industrial agenda. It is emphatically not a time for characteristic half-measures or failures of departmental co-ordination. Long-term consistency of policy often fails us Brits—we tend to mess about—but we really cannot afford this. A bipartisan approach would be a strength and would, I suggest, help with the task of recreating national unity, which certainly does not exist at the moment. I plead that we do not allow preoccupation with Brexit, important as it is, to drown out the important task of mapping out our national future.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, in the referendum last year I voted for Britain to remain in the European Union. Along with millions of other people, I did so not out of a lack of patriotism but because of a deep and abiding concern for my country. I was convinced that leaving the European Union would be an act of monumental self-harm that would diminish Britain’s prosperity and our influence as a nation. I saw nothing from the supporters of Brexit during last year’s campaign, nor have I seen anything from the Government since, to change that view. However, this debate is not about refighting the referendum, nor is it about the principle of whether or not we should leave. Instead, it is about a seemingly narrow Bill that disguises a far broader intention. Without a meaningful provision to ask the Government to think again, the Bill seeks not just a mandate to leave the European Union but a mandate to negotiate a very specific outcome.
What was set out in the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech and in the Government’s White Paper is the hardest of Brexits, giving up our membership not just of the single market but of the customs union too, before even getting to the negotiating table. This is only one possible interpretation of the referendum result, and it is an interpretation for which there is no majority in the country. The referendum campaign, and the relatively narrow margin by which it was won, revealed a country deeply and almost evenly divided. Even among the 52% who voted to leave, there were multiple and often contradictory reasons for wanting to do so. There will have been leave voters who believed the claims that Brexit would mean an extra £350 million a week for the NHS. Others will have been persuaded that it would mean the revival of traditional industries and an end to the impact of globalisation. Still more will have believed assurances that we could end immigration while not having to leave the single market. However, it is now clear that Brexit meant none of these things. They were fake promises and false assurances, specifically designed to deceive.
Rather than seek to heal this divided nation, hold an honest conversation with the country and try to build a national consensus, since 23 June this Government have chosen a very different route. Through the constant repetition of empty phrases such as “Brexit means Brexit”, they have sought to simplify the mandate, disguise its central complexity and distort the meaning of the result, while what they ultimately seek becomes clearer with every threat made to our former partners. Their clear goal is an offshore, small-state Britain, meaning not more money for the NHS but less, and the systematic reduction of the rights of British workers. I have no doubt that this vision of Britain as a mid-Atlantic Singapore is strongly supported by hard line ideologues in the Conservative Party and in some sections of the media. But equally I have no doubt that they would never have won the referendum had they been honest enough to articulate that beforehand.
The verdict of the referendum has now become so distorted as to be unrecognisable. In this Bill, we are being asked to support an unelected Prime Minister, with no mandate of her own and pursuing a policy opposite to that in the manifesto on which her party was elected, as she seeks to negotiate the hardest possible interpretation of Brexit for which there is no majority in the country and which will be devastating to the lives of millions of those leave voters on whom the outcome depended. Yet the Government now have the nerve to lecture us about respecting the “will of the people”.
There was an opportunity in the House of Commons for the Labour Party to resist this interpretation. I am proud that many of my colleagues stood up for an alternative way forward, putting growth, jobs and living standards first. However, at the very moment when the country needed our party to act in the national interest and in the interests of the people it was created to defend, our party’s leadership was found badly wanting.
As a result of that vote in the Commons, I have no doubt that the Bill will pass, but I cannot support it. From the outset, the issue of Brexit, from referendum to negotiation, has put narrow political interest before the national interest. The decision to hold the referendum was made purely to keep the Conservative Party together. The Government’s response has been simply about electoral calculation. Now this House has been warned that, if it dares to act in the national interest, it faces abolition.
I have great humility about the outcome of the referendum and about the unelected nature of this House, but if we sincerely believe that the course we are on will do untold damage to our country, we have a duty, whether elected or unelected, to say so, to oppose it and to tell the truth. I believe that working people’s lives will be made worse by this Bill. I believe that those who voted for Brexit in the greatest numbers will suffer most from the outcome. I believe that the very real problems in their lives were not caused by the European Union, and will not be solved by our leaving. I believe we will do them no favours by pretending otherwise.
Those of us who believe that Britain’s national interests are best pursued inside the European Union must listen, learn and understand why our view was rejected, but we should never stop telling the truth. The British people are being sold a lie, and we should say so. When the extent of this betrayal becomes clear, when what has been promised turns out to be undeliverable, there will be a terrible reckoning—maybe not now, maybe not in two years or even in 20, but history will judge us very harshly indeed if we now connive in that betrayal when we believe in a different course.
I want to know that I did the right thing so, with a clear conscience, I feel bound to affirm my opposition to the Bill and to its profoundly damaging effect on our country.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
Yesterday, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, spoke of the vision of what was known as the Common Market. My first vote was in 1975, in the referendum to remain in that Common Market. Although I was born in the 1950s, the war still cast a shadow. I was a young woman, newly married to a junior officer in a very, very much larger Royal Navy—one which could certainly cope east of Suez—and the idea of binding states in trade to avoid conflict appealed to me then, as it still does.
Britain’s withdrawal from the EU comes at a time of great global instability. Russia, resurgent and hostile, flies nuclear sorties through UK airspace, harasses NATO’s eastern flank and claims to be seeking a “post-West world order”. The American President expressed ambivalence towards NATO as recently as last Wednesday. Europe has been wracked by a wave of extremist attacks, and the chaos swirling in the Middle East shows no sign of abating. Against this bleak backdrop, the passage of this Bill will set in motion the greatest upheaval of UK foreign, economic and domestic policy in recent history. I submit that the triggering of Article 50 will also have—and, indeed, has had—a profoundly negative effect on the UK’s defence and security.
As I noted last July in this House, Brexit means losing our place in defence institutions such as Europe’s common security and defence framework. Last July, it was clear to us that the loss of access to these important networks might hold unknown risks to our ability to defend ourselves, but last July Donald Trump was not President and NATO did not seem any more at risk than at any time since the end of the Cold War. In difficult times, we must preserve our global alliances and friendships, and yet this Government have failed to provide assurances that they will work to preserve our key security links with the continent after triggering Article 50.
I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure the House that, in this hard-Brexit world, our defence alliances with mainland Europe have not been overlooked. Defence and security should not be bargaining chips to be pushed back and forth across the negotiating table; they are essential commitments which protect our citizens and those of our allies. We cannot allow our withdrawal from the EU to jeopardise or sour our security alliances, and yet the Government’s approach risks doing just that.
It is not just our European alliances that are at risk. Since the 23 June referendum, the pound has fallen by more than 20% against the dollar. At the end of last year, RUSI predicted that if the decline were sustained, the cost of Britain’s defence imports could increase by around £700 million a year. This means, in effect, a 2% cut in the purchasing power of Britain’s defence budget. Last month, a National Audit Office report on the MoD’s equipment plan found that the MoD had already eaten through the £10.7 billion of headroom built into last year’s budget to provide flexibility. That report found that,
“The affordability of the Plan is now at greater risk than at any time since reporting was introduced”—
an effect of the declining exchange rate.
There is, in short, a significant rising threat to the affordability of the defence of the UK. Despite the commitment to spending 2% of GDP on defence, the continuing capability of the British military to meet strategic objectives is far from guaranteed. Just last week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that, in 2016, Britain failed to meet that spending commitment despite the Government’s 2015 pledge to commit at least 2% of GDP for defence for each and every year of this decade. These rising costs might necessitate a revisiting of the 2015 SDSR or else there will be a reduction in expected UK defence capabilities at a time when the world is becoming markedly less secure.
The Government will need to accept that the effects of Brexit on defence will require either a substantial rise in taxes or cuts to vital domestic services. If the UK Government cannot accept these options, they must admit to British citizens that their borders will be less secure and their security more uncertain; they must acknowledge that they have broken their NATO spending commitments at a time when NATO’s future is already uncertain. It is clear that, in just a few months, Brexit and this Government’s Brexit strategy have made the UK less secure and less well defended.
It is not clear, however, that on 23 June last year voters assumed these risks. Leave campaign leaders promised that Britain would reclaim its place on the global stage, yet Brexit has left UK forces less able to defend key interests and has seen the UK diminished within its network of alliances. Brexiteers promised more secure borders, yet our borders are set to become less secure against those who wish to do us harm. They promised us more money for services such as the NHS, but the Government might now have to slash those services if they are to defend our borders and interests in an increasingly unstable climate.
In short, while 52% of voters cast ballots last June for a departure from the EU, they did not vote for that destination. On matters of defence, that destination seems increasingly bleak. My noble friend Lord Paddick and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, have said that the voters should have a final say.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, I am sure that we all welcome the fact that the Prime Minister was present for part of our proceedings yesterday. Although it is reported that she looked as if she had come to intimidate more than to learn, I hope that she found her appreciation of the issues enriched, for the debate has been every bit as rich as House of Lords debates can be. She might have learned from the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for example, that member states have more scope to influence levels of immigration from other member states than is commonly supposed, or, at any rate, than is commonly made clear.
Like many other noble Lords, I deplore all the sabre-rattling about abolishing the House of Lords if it does not toe the line. At least, I would if the threats were not so empty. For a Government encumbered by the task of extricating the United Kingdom from the European Union, a commitment to abolish the House of Lords is all you need. If you are going to go in for sabre-rattling, you need to have some sabres to rattle.
I was in South Africa all last week. As I travelled back from Heathrow, I thought someone must have been putting something in the water as I picked up on the rather febrile suggestions that by exercising its traditional function of scrutinising legislation and asking the Commons to think again, the House of Lords would be acting unconstitutionally. It might be wrong on a particular issue but the idea that it would be behaving unconstitutionally is preposterous, especially when the Commons has been so pusillanimous in exercising the authority which the Supreme Court has confirmed it has.
By this point, there must be a premium on brevity so I will cut to the chase. We do not normally vote at Second or even Third Reading in this House but if we do, I will vote against the Bill. In the nearest I get to blogging—my Christmas round robin—I said that I was in favour of a second referendum on the terms of withdrawal once negotiated and would take every opportunity to vote against moves to remove us from the European Union, partly because the vote to leave was won on a fraudulent prospectus and partly out of sheer bloody-mindedness. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, put it—for once, in more parliamentary language than mine:
“I will oppose it by any legal and constitutional means”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 110.]
The equation between the referendum and democracy is specious. I looked that word up in the dictionary. It means superficially plausible but actually wrong. As I said in the debate on 6 July last year,
“a snapshot of public opinion on a particular day is a very bad way to determine a question as complex as to whether we should remain a member of the European Union”.—[Official Report, 6/7/16; col. 2075.]
Moreover, the democratic credentials of the referendum are contested. If the vote had gone the other way, you can bet your life that the leavers would be mounting just the same criticism as the remainers.
Yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, whom I normally find a genial and engaging debater, reminded us in an uncharacteristically intemperate speech of a government leaflet which said to the British people:
“The referendum on Thursday, 23rd June is your chance to decide if we should remain in or leave the European Union … This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide”.
In a final taunt, he said:
“What part of that do those on the Liberal Benches not understand?”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 60.]
The Liberal Democrats can speak for themselves but I understand it all right. However, I will make five points which suggest that we should take it with a substantial helping of salt.
First, notwithstanding the Government’s language, there has never been any doubt that the referendum was advisory—and, I submit, the more flawed, the more advisory. Secondly, I do not make my stand on the flawed nature of the referendum. We are where we are. However flawed, there can be no question of setting the referendum aside. Whatever else it did, it certainly gave the Government a licence to open negotiations with the EU about withdrawal. But there is no way that it mandated a hard Brexit and there is no way that I am going to vote for triggering a negotiation designed to achieve a hard Brexit, which is likely to be so damaging for our country in terms of the economic growth essential for prosperity, living standards and the progress of civilisation and opportunities, and so inimical to an outward-looking and internationalist approach.
Thirdly, as others have said, a hard Brexit shows a cavalier disregard of the 48% who voted to remain and an unstatesmanlike indifference to the need to work for unity and reconciliation in our country. Fourthly, I cannot emphasise too strongly that support for a second referendum on the terms is not the same as seeking to refight the referendum campaign, which is what supporters of a second referendum are accused of. As Tim Farron MP said in the other place,
“voting for departure is not the same as voting for the destination”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/2017; col. 290.]
Accordingly, I shall support an amendment designed to provide for a second referendum. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, put it very well in a typically thoughtful and unpolemical speech when he said that he did not believe that the referendum vote should be decided as final, that the real issue is the reaction to the outcome of the negotiations, and that that is where the final judgment and vote should take place.
Finally, I shall support amendments which seek to maximise our access to, or retain our membership of, the single market. The Conservative manifesto for the 2015 general election indicated support for the single market. Especially if, in a bespoke deal, you wish to retain as many of the advantages of remaining in the single market as possible, it makes no sense to signal up front your desire to withdraw from it. If that is the way we are going to conduct the negotiations, we are going to get a very bad deal indeed.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, it is indeed a challenge after some 124 contributions to say anything original at all. We live in a parliamentary democracy and I am absolutely no fan of referendums—neither the first one nor the second that some are calling for. They were described by Clement Attlee as a device of dictators and demagogues—a quote repeated by Margaret Thatcher, so we have both sides of the political divide covered, and indeed by my noble friend Lord Balfe yesterday. However, in 2015 Parliament abrogated its responsibility and devolved the decision on this matter to the British people—and at Third Reading in the House of Commons there were no dissenters. We gave away our authority on this matter. Politicians are much maligned; they are accused of a lack of integrity and a lack of consistency. We need to show both integrity and consistency, or we will be criticised for not keeping our promises and saying different things to different people at different times to curry favour.
I will focus my brief remarks today on those calling for a second referendum. We know what they want, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Low, has just said. They want a different result. Tony Blair said exactly that when he called upon us all to rise up; the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said exactly that yesterday, when he said—and it can be read in Hansard—that he wanted a second referendum to allow people to change their mind. It is perfectly reasonable to change one’s mind, but this is actually about telling people that they got it wrong. I recall the Danish no vote on Maastricht in 1992 and the two Irish referendums, on the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty. On all these occasions the people were told, “Get away, you got it wrong, vote again”. And if the second referendum were to take place, and the same result came out, would there then be calls for a third referendum from those who could not accept the will of the people?
I would like to take the House back to the People’s Budget of 1909, which I do not think has been mentioned before. It was the Liberal Government of Asquith. Lloyd George was Chancellor and Churchill—who was later a successful Conservative—was Home Secretary, so we have all sides covered here. It was the threat of the creation of hundreds of Liberal Peers that led to a similar Budget and the Parliament Act of 1911 being passed. Now that sounds familiar to me today.
I will turn to the inheritance of the Liberal name. On 26 February 2008—at least two noble Lords currently on the Liberal Benches were Members of the House of Commons then—Nick Clegg led a stunt. He led out the Liberal Members of Parliament from the House of Commons because the Speaker had not selected the amendment that he had put down on calling a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. My noble friend Lord Finkelstein pointed out that Nick Clegg then led a campaign. “It is time for a real referendum”, he said. Although there are only two in the Chamber at the moment, in the Commons in 2008 there were 11 Members of Parliament who now sit on your Lordships’ Benches on the Liberal Democrat side. Did they take part in the march out? I have no idea. But what is their consistent intention today?
Also involved in Liberal Democrat politics at the time was the chief executive of the party, the director of communications, the head of the leader’s office, two members of the federal executive and the chairman of the electoral campaign at the time—and they all now sit on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The leader—who is in his place, so I think I may name him—was, I think I am right in saying, chief of staff to Charles Kennedy in 2005, and was then on the Front Bench between 2008 and 2010.
So do those people who then supported the Real Referendum campaign consistently now want to accept the result of the referendum? In 2005, the Liberal Democrat manifesto said of the proposed constitution that,
“ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people”.
The 2010 manifesto—I see that they all remember it—stated:
“Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British Government signs up for fundamental change”.
The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, sadly is not in his place. His comment on the day of the referendum has been much quoted by my right honourable friend Michael Gove and by my noble friend Lord Bridges and yesterday by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. However, it bears repeating. He said:
“I will forgive no-one”—
no one—
“who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken, whether it is a majority of 1% or 20% … It is our duty as those who serve the public to make sure the country does the best it can with the decision they have taken”.
Tim Farron, on 1 February, said:
“Democracy means accepting the will of the people”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/2/17; col. 1047.]
He then called for a second referendum. In 2008, Nick Clegg said:
“Only a real referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU will let the people decide our country's future”.
On 31 January this year he said that,
“the British people gave the Government a mandate to pull the UK out of the EU”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/17; col. 843.]
He then called for a second referendum.
Do my friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches not understand why they were so comprehensively rejected in 2015? The reasons were integrity and consistency. The British people expect us to live up to our statements and our promises, in this House as well as in the elected House down the Corridor. I hope that those calling for a second referendum will eventually show that consistency, respect the decision of our peoples and be on the right side of history.
I will end on an optimistic note, because this has perhaps been a little partisan.
Lord Robathan
Perish the thought.
In 1805, Prime Minister Pitt said:
“England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example”.
The circumstances were very different, but I believe and hope that that may be the case both for us and for Europeans in 2017.
Baroness Quin (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Dixon, whose death the Lord Speaker announced earlier today. Don Dixon was my constituency neighbour for many years. Throughout a long and distinguished parliamentary career in both Houses he was utterly rooted in and devoted to his own constituency.
About six months ago, before the referendum, I was involved in a debate at the Cambridge Union Society on the motion that this house believes that the European project has been a failure. Given that the EU, formerly the EEC, had existed for 60 years, that it had grown from 6 to 28 members, that it had underpinned democracy and economic transformations in many countries, had stood up for employment rights and had stood for better environmental regulations, the question seemed to be a no-brainer. There was no way that it could be considered a failure, particularly given the contrast with the first 50 years of the 20th century when the countries of Europe had twice been torn apart by war. During that debate I said that if the EU did not exist, given the conditions of trade in the modern world and the many international challenges that we face, we would need to invent something like it. To a certain extent, the Government seem to have accepted this logic in their talk of a new partnership with the EU and how close we are going to be to the EU in future, despite not being members.
I welcome talk of partnership but I find the Government’s approach so far unconvincing. Their approach, particularly as seen in the White Paper that they were forced into producing at the last minute, is vacuous. As many people have said, it seems to be a case of the Government wanting to have their cake and eat it, served up with a huge helping of wishful thinking.
I also find the timing of this Bill troubling. At the Conservative Party conference, the Prime Minister announced that Article 50 would be triggered by the end of March. I am not sure why she chose that particular date, and certainly the world has changed considerably in the meantime. I understand—many people made this point in the debate yesterday—that people want to get on with it so that we can conclude the divorce and make progress with the newly negotiated relationship. However, Article 50 states that,
“the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with”,
the state concerned,
“setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”.
That seems to indicate that it is a question not of doing the one thing followed by the other but of these things happening concurrently. However, I am very conscious that in a few minutes there will be a contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, so perhaps I had better not say anything further about Article 50, as the undisputed authority on the subject is present in the Chamber.
There are huge gaps in the information that the Government have given us so far. I am amazed that in the 12 principles outlined in the White Paper there is absolutely no mention of environment policy, even though I and others have questioned the Government on it many times. There is nothing on foreign policy and nothing on defence. On trade, there is little realism about the difficulties involved. The Government talk blithely about creating new trading arrangements, yet the countries with which we want to forge trade deals will doubtless want to know first what our future trading relationship with the EU will be. The trading and investment issues are very important to all of us, and they are particularly important in regions such as mine—the north-east—where 58% of our exports are to the EU and inward investment relating to access to the European market is vital.
I hope that we press the Government hard on better involvement by Parliament in this process. The way in which they have tried to bypass Parliament so far means that their current assurances ring hollow. Such parliamentary involvement will also be important in allowing Members of the House of Commons, in particular, to explain to their constituents what is happening. People out in the country will have a right to some accurate information about the negotiations as they proceed.
The previous speaker said a lot about referendums. I am wrestling with the idea of having another referendum because I have always disliked them for all sorts of reasons. I have never supported any of the EU referendums that my party has proposed—for example, on joining the single currency or on the ill-fated European constitution. However, I can see the logic that, if a vote of the people began this process of withdrawal, there is a case for people having a vote on the final deal. They ought to be able to compare the deal against the promises made by those who advocated to leave during the campaign—particularly the promise on the National Health Service, which I know was very tempting to people in my part of the world. It also strikes me as quite ridiculous that those who were so keen to have a referendum on this issue now seem to be saying that there should never be another. Their view seems to be that the people have spoken but, having spoken once, they should never be allowed to speak again.
Finally, I want to say a word about the role of this House in this process. I respect those who are so keen to trigger Article 50 that they do not want to see amendments tabled debated or passed, but I reject the view that we are not entitled to make amendments or to ask the Government to think again. We have our established revising and questioning role, which we should carry out in relation to this legislation as we do with other legislation
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by making a point about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. I just want to clarify that the Liberal Democrats are not asking for a second referendum; we are asking for a first referendum on the outcome of the Government’s negotiations. I see nothing at odds with democracy in the electorate changing their mind. In my experience, they change their minds every four or five years.
I am a member of one of the EU sub-committees of this House, and week after week we take evidence from major British businesses. When asked what sort of trading arrangements they would like to see in the future, almost without exception they have said, “Something as close to what we have at present if possible, please”. They want, and indeed expect, the Government to honour the promise in their manifesto to remain in the single market.
We must accept the decision of the referendum but I will not accept the Government’s interpretation of that result. It was a clear result but a narrow one. Therefore, the Government’s winner-takes-all approach to the result is completely unacceptable. The 52% should be respected but so should the 48%. The Government are intent on ignoring the views of the 48% so it falls to this House to give them our full attention. The Government’s White Paper was one of the most depressing documents I have read in many years. The view expressed throughout it was that we are the best; that the world owes us a living. The fatal hubris shines from every page.
I speak on transport. Time and again I have heard the Secretary of State for Transport tell gatherings of transport professionals that all will be well because they need us more than we need them. What is not factored in is that there are 27 of them and only one of us—for each individual EU country, trade with us is a relatively small part of their economy. Our EU sub-committee has taken evidence from Ministers too, of course. Depressingly, they speak only in percentages and billions of pounds. They fail to speak of hundreds of jobs or of individual companies. I have no doubt that over time our industries will adapt to the change but individual businesses will go to the wall and there will be casualties along the way. Transport is heavily integrated across the EU. Across the various modes, from aviation to road haulage, transport businesses can operate freely from one EU country to another. We have a huge stake in this. We have, for example, the EU’s largest aviation sector and the Government cite this as a strength. In fact, it is a point of weakness. There is much for the rest of the EU countries to gain if we were to be removed from a fully competitive position. There is no reason why Germany or France, for example, should not mop up our markets if, for example, easyJet could no longer fly easily and freely from one EU country to another or within any individual EU country.
Trade in all industrial sectors stands on the shoulders of the transport industry. We cannot succeed if we cannot transport our goods or personnel. I remind your Lordships’ House that in 1988 it required 88 separate documents to transport goods from London to Rome. It now takes one document. If we go back even a few steps towards 1988 it will cost time and money and increase complexity. There will be a huge impact on our ports, on Eurotunnel and on the individual businesses and industries that create the goods that the lorries and so on are transporting. The Government talk of friends across the other side of the world, with exotic trade deals in China, South America and so on. The large shipping lines and airlines will adapt, but parts of the transport sector cannot adapt. For the bus operator taking tourists down the Rhine valley, for instance, a thriving tourist trade in China is no use at all. Ferries cannot operate on the other side of the world, across long distances. HGV operators can operate only with neighbouring countries, and Eurostar and the Channel Tunnel are pretty immovable. So for these reasons, the transport industry can cope with the single market but not a hard Brexit.
Across the world, countries trade most intensively with their neighbours. The reasons are obvious: distance costs time and money and makes your goods less competitive. Despite the vote on 23 June, we cannot ignore the realities of geography. The EU countries are our neighbours and it would be economic suicide to abandon them. We must remain part of the single market.
The Government need to see the reality of this. They need to recognise the dangers of a hard border in Northern Ireland. They need to recognise the rights of EU citizens living here and they must acknowledge that the referendum gave them the power to negotiate and not to decide our final destination. The voters must decide that.
This journey started with the people and it must end with the people. I will vote in due course for amendments that implement that.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, I leave the great constitutional issues to Edmund Burke and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock—they are very similar thinkers; I am a great fan of both of them. I want to say a word about the White Paper. Others have mentioned that it is a little long on assertion and bravado and a little short on facts. I thought that I would offer four facts.
First, it is a fact that if we leave the European Union, our economic relationship with it will be less advantageous than it is now—that has to be a fact. If we leave the single market and the customs union, if we reject common regulation and common jurisdiction, there will be a price to be paid; there has to be a price to be paid. Secondly, it is a fact that our relationships with the rest of the world will be more difficult economically. We will be less attractive to them. Why should they be so keen to open their markets to us if we are no longer their entry point to a market of 500 million? Thirdly, it is a fact that trade halves as distance doubles. Fourthly, it is a fact that customs controls cause delays that damage modern global supply chains and that building trade barriers hurts both sides, but the bigger economy loses less. Obviously, the Government know all these facts but have decided to put our autarchic sovereignty ahead of economic well-being. It is a sad fact that it will not be those who got us into this fix who will suffer. The Bullingdon boys will be just fine; the country may not.
But the country is still in the dark; it does not know where it is going. We are in this bus heading for Heathrow, with mendacious slogans on the side, and we have no idea what the destination is. We do not know what the Government mean when they say that they may have to change our economic model. They may have to go for a low-regulation, low-tax and low-welfare economy. What do they mean? The White Paper does not tell us. The White Paper does not tell us the future of farming in this country, of environmental law in this country or of social law in this country. It does not tell us how the Belfast agreement can survive if the Irish Government are obliged on the inner Irish frontier to run the customs frontier of the European Union.
It will not do just to refer to the oxymoronic repeal Bill and to tell us that all applicable laws will be temporarily extended while we think about their fate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, spoke authoritatively yesterday on the Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court says that rights resulting from EU membership can be extinguished only by legislation; this Bill extinguishes no such rights. But some rights fall away the moment we leave the European Union and cannot be extended by the oxymoronic Bill. The rights enjoyed in this country by our citizens that are enforceable against other member states go. Rights whose geographical scope extends into other member states go. Rights whose enforcement requires the co-operation of other member states and the EU institutions go. We will need a new legislative rendezvous, and that is nothing to do with the great repeal Bill.
In my view it would make sense to improve the Bill before us to provide for that rendezvous in at least two respects. First, the Government have given us no undertaking that they will come back to Parliament if the negotiations threaten to break down. I rate the chances of breakdown at well over 30%. The White Paper is totally silent on the impending row about money and the bills we will be asked to settle as we leave. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, no deal is much the worst deal. Walking away would mean recourse to law or arbitration, extended uncertainty about any continuing links with our largest and nearest trading partner and no legacy rights in its 50 agreements with third countries—a disaster for business and citizens alike. If the bravado of the White Paper proves hollow, the Government must come back to Parliament before the clock runs out.
Secondly, we need to consolidate in the Bill the Government’s quasi-commitment to give Parliament its say before the die is cast on any emerging settlement. The European Parliament’s similar right is enshrined in the language of Article 50. This Parliament deserves no less. It will not do just to give Parliament Hobson’s choice—to say, “It’s this deal or no deal”. Timing is crucial. Parliament must have the chance to consider at least three other options. Under option one, Westminster could follow the frequent practice of the United States Congress, say that it does not like the emerging deal or some particular aspect of it, and ask the Executive to go back and try harder. As one who has negotiated with two US Administrations, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, who thought that any such possibility would weaken the Government’s negotiating hand, that that is the exact opposite of the truth. Saying “I hear you but Congress would never wear it” is a negotiating weapon our American friends frequently use to great effect. I speak from experience.
As regards the second option, if timing proves tight, Westminster could invoke Article 50(3) and invite the Government to seek an extension of the two-year period. The European Union is a union of democracies. If this Parliament asked for an extension, and our Government conveyed our request, in my judgment it would certainly be given.
Under the third option, Parliament could invite the Government or the country to think again. An Article 50 notification is not irrevocable. The President of the European Council and a gallery of EU legal luminaries have confirmed—of course, the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, is among their number—that a member state may, in accordance with its constitutional requirements, withdraw its notification within the two-year period or its extension. This morning, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, asked about the Government’s motive in conniving in the High Court at the fiction of irreversibility. I cannot answer her but the fact is that Article 50, which first saw the light of day under the heading “voluntary withdrawal” is not an expulsion procedure. We remain full members of the European Union throughout the negotiating period—the two years or its extension. If, having looked into the abyss, we were to change our minds about withdrawal, we certainly could and no one in Brussels could stop us. If it were not so, I would have to oppose the Bill. As it is, all we need do is improve it and make sure that the rendezvous with history, which comes when we know what the Government want for the future of our country and its relationship with our continent, is clear.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, it has been an extraordinary afternoon as Peers have greeted each other in the Corridor, saying, “What number are you?”. I am number 129. While it is tempting to say that I agree with numbers one, five, eight, 16 and 30, that would not be in the fine traditions of the House.
This House is usually thought of as an august, deliberative body. It can indeed impress with its breadth and depth of knowledge and grasp of legislative detail, and, in certain circumstances, it can much improve Bills put before it. But I doubt whether this is one such Bill that will allow us to showcase the best of your Lordships’ skills. Indeed, I fear just the opposite—that we could make ourselves conspicuous by our lack of democratic mandate and overstep the constitutional boundaries which we are all responsible for upholding.
The Bill, as many have said by way of criticism, is short on detail. Indeed it is: that is because its purpose is simple and exclusive—to grant a parliamentary mandate to the Government to trigger Article 50. The other place understood this and voted it through with a significant majority, despite some confusion in the party opposite and disquiet from many in all parties who did not want to be in this position. I ask noble Lords who are still thinking of tacking on amendments to ignore their own personal views on Brexit at this time. We all had our say, along with the rest of Britain, at the ballot box. I ask them not to rerun the argument as to whether they believe it will harm Britain or not. I ask them to focus on whether Brexit, the referendum, the Bill and Article 50 are the will of the people. As democrats, that will requires us to do our duty and carry it out.
We have heard many esteemed figures, not least a former Prime Minister, say that people did not know what they were voting for and, as such, should be given a chance to reconsider, to vote again on an eventual deal, or even to have the referendum question put again, only this time with more detail, such as questions on the single market, on the free movement of people and so on. I fear that this simply will not wash with the British people. It is similar to when we saw EU countries vote down the EU constitution, only to be asked, shamefully, to vote again until they got it right. Put simply, Britons knew what they were voting for and the Bill, unadulterated, is a key enabler to carrying out that popular will.
The 2015 Conservative Party manifesto promised an in/out referendum. The Conservative Party was elected on that manifesto and duly held that referendum, and the people voted to leave. The manifesto, it is worth saying, went on to state that after the referendum the Government would “respect the outcome”. I hope that noble Lords will keep that sentiment at the top of their minds today and respect the tradition of this House of honouring the elected party’s manifesto. It is now said that, having voted to leave, people did not know what they were voting for. This is patently nonsense. We can be certain that leaving the single market was accounted for in the vote, not least because Michael Gove said so specifically during the campaign—many of us heard him say so on the Andrew Marr programme—as did others. Crucially, staying in the single market would mean not having sovereign control of who can come and go. Who can deny this? Sovereignty was an aspiration of the majority of voters.
Having canvassed in a dozen or so extremely marginal seats over a number of elections, most of which Labour subsequently won, it has been very clear to me that people have been very unhappy with the four pillars of freedom of movement and that successive Governments, including ones I supported, have just not listened. Can it be realistically posited that people expected Britain to continue paying into the EU budget after we left, or that our laws would continue to be written in Brussels? No, and that is why the Government’s current strategy—of setting out clearly that we will leave the EU, including the single market and of course the customs union, and seek a bespoke deal for Britain that is in the interests of Britain, of our allies in the EU and, I truly believe, of our other trading partners, particularly developing countries—is the right one. Anything else is simply a defiance of the democratic will.
I call on noble Lords from the Liberal Democrats to reflect on this. It was not so long ago that having a referendum on EU membership was their party’s policy. It is a shame that they have forgotten this. I appreciate that some in opposition parties see this as an opportunity to position their party for an election which they worry may come soon. It is entirely understandable that they should want to do this and draw attention to their views in this way, fuelled in some cases by an indifference as to whether this House remains appointed, or even in existence. However, I simply comment that the British people will see through this. They do not like opportunism and in my opinion the British public always call it right, to the point that I even grudgingly accept that this was the case in 2010, with the creation of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, exhorted us twice to listen to Gladstone and “trust the people”. We will do this by passing the Bill without amendment. This House should support the Bill and then use its undoubted talents, which I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, to shape and make a success of Brexit via the great repeal Bill, the right forum for determining what form Brexit might take. I hope that the Minister will confirm that there will be that opportunity and other junctures to debate the nature of Brexit and the protections which we as a House believe should be sought.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in what I suppose will be described as this great debate. I am particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who, regrettably, is not in his place at the moment. I felt that he raised some fundamental issues yesterday. He posed questions to the Minister; I subsequently had a word with him and said that I hoped that he might table amendments himself. He mentioned that he had friends who might do the same, so I look forward to the possibility that the Cross-Benchers, who can make such a big impact on our deliberations, will come forward with amendments—not a lot of them, but fundamental ones. Can the Minister please give me an assurance that he will give a reply to the questions from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Butler, and—again, she is not in her place—from my noble friend Lady Symons, who raised a particularly pertinent point this morning on the legal position?
I will be broadly supportive of the Government, which might come as a surprise to some and may upset some of my colleagues around me. However, as an old negotiator, I have some fairly simple approaches: know your red lines; keep them to yourself; keep your cards to yourself; and do not give much away in advance before you start the negotiation. We are in a mess, and my role here today, along with others, is to try to pull ourselves together as best we can. We are a divided nation—we are in bits and pieces all over the place—and so I look to be as constructive and helpful as I can rather than spending my time looking backwards. I was a remainer. I regret that we lost but I see no point in saying that today. I am in the moment, and we have to move forward. We should come together in any way we can and in doing that help the Government to protect the majority in the country—not the Brexiteers, not the minorities or anything—and try to get them behind the Government. It will not be easy.
I come back to the point the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made. A price will be paid at the end of this exercise; we will be weaker in security and defence, and so will Europe, and we will be weaker in terms of trade for quite some time. However, if the only alternative, if we pull away, is a deregulated, Singapore-style environment, with no protection for workers, which some people would like, the Government should reflect that life is very much on a knife edge these days, particularly with social media and with the kind of press we have at the moment, and that as recently as 2011, when we were pushing hard cuts—there may be cuts to come—we had riots in London and in cities around the country. They started on the pretext of a dispute with the police, but there were underlying factors behind them. These days people can very quickly communicate, bring great numbers together and create great disturbances, so let us not forget that when we talk about a hard-line Brexit. I do not want that, and I do not believe that any of us want that, so we need to look for an alternative, too, in the event that in fact the negotiations that Mrs May brings back are not satisfactory. Maybe we should look for a halt or a delay or for more time, or perhaps even a different approach entirely, which might involve going back out to the people. We have to be as flexible as we can in trying to deal with what is a quite extraordinary, difficult situation.
So I give a view as an old negotiator, and I back the Government there: get on with it as quickly as you can, and come back as quickly as you can. We should try to encumber them as little as possible. The judgment will then be made when Mrs May returns. It is at that point that I rather sense the House is trying to find some additional mechanism which is needed within Parliament, whether in the Commons or here, or out with the people, whereby a further check can be made on what is being delivered to find out whether it is acceptable to the people.
The other day the Minister persuaded me to be more patient in response to another issue on the industrial strategy. I have listened to his words; I am being patient. I give the Government the chance, but they must listen to all that is being input and answer in particular the searching questions on the legal side and about where we stand on the constitution. Also, they should think about how they themselves can lead the initiative to present the outturn of the negotiations in a way that will find good support in one way or another rather than simply saying that it is “Take it or leave it”.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it remains a remarkable piece of good luck if you are born in our country and a remarkable judgment if you choose to make our country your home, but I am fearful about our union of nations and I am especially fearful for the views that our young people have about their future.
The Leader of the House and I have at least one thing in common: with our birthdays 18 months apart, we have lived all our lives in a country that has been a member of the EU. We are, I understand, two or only three Members taking part in this debate, of 190 speakers, for whom the UK’s membership of the EU is older than we are. The majority of the people of our country of our age and below voted to remain; the Leader of the House is in a minority. Britain’s youngest voters will have an average of 60 years to live with the consequences of the Government’s decisions in the coming two years. Sixteen and 17 year-olds—those with the most at stake—were denied a say, and very many of them are now frustrated that they are denied a voice. If with some good fortune I am now at the halfway point of my life, I fully acknowledge that I may need to come to terms with living in a country that I passionately believe is going on the wrong path. I may have to come to terms with that and we may not be able to turn back.
We use our best judgment in this House on legislation for the future’s interest, but we know that we cannot easily bind our successors. However, with this Bill the Government are explicitly telling us that we are binding our successors, who will be living with the consequences long after most of us are dead. So I refuse to be silenced on having a say if my say is different from that of the Government of the day, and I refuse to be intimidated about having a vote in Parliament on what kind of agreement is in the best interests of the country and its future. Indeed, as this is of such seismic importance, the people of the future—the next generations to come—should have a real say as to what is in their best interests, especially since we are now having to bear down on the reality of the commitments and promises, many of which were known to be mistruths, given to us during the referendum campaign. I am reminded of what Sir Walter Scott said:
“Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest”.
We are now having to pick up the pieces for the next generation.
So far, the Government believe that the future is for them, and them alone, to decide. It was their decision that we should have no formal participation in the common economic market or a free trade area or the customs union or the regulatory bodies. These decisions were based on new Conservative Party policies—made only in months—and there was little mandate for them, not to mention any cross-party consensus. As I say, these were seismic choices made by one party according to what it defined as the will of the people. A Government elected by not even 25% of the electorate made choices based on a referendum won by a narrow majority of those who voted but a minority of the electorate as a whole.
The Government have set extreme parameters which months earlier they argued passionately would be highly damaging to the country. I agreed with them then and still agree with their previous position. The recent White Paper is weak in comparison with its pre-referendum predecessor. The economic facts and realities have not changed. Indeed, the challenges ahead are immense, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that some are perhaps insurmountable. How unkind history would have been if Keynes had been reputed to have said, “When I change my mind, I change the facts. What do you do, sir?”
The Government are approaching this alone, and they should not do it alone. In Scotland after the referendum I saw—as we all knew it would—that a winner-takes-all approach would be wounding and perpetuate a deep division in the country, which is hard to heal and continues to be hard to heal. That is why there was a Scotland Bill as a result of cross-party consensus and a commission, with a radical transfer of fiscal and welfare powers after it. But even with the Scotland Act, many people in Scotland on the losing side of the referendum feel aggrieved. In many respects, the response by the Government to the EU referendum simply confirms the suspicion that we now have a UK Government which is effectively an English Government playing for an English audience. They play the lines of the unionists when it suits the play, but when they retire for the curtain call the real personality of their character as an English-only party comes to the fore. “Party first” will not do now. You respect the result of a referendum not by courtesy but by action.
What has been quite hard to accept in the debate so far has been many on the government side saying that they would not even countenance the people having a say on the deal. I ask myself why the Government have not ruled out a second Scottish referendum. All of the rhetoric in this debate suggests that they would never countenance a referendum after the previous one for Scotland—when the margin was much stronger and the issue much clearer—but the Government do not say this. They say that the people have a right to decide, and in fact, in confidential briefings to the press before Christmas, the Scotland Office floated the idea that it may well consider another referendum, but only after a Brexit deal is arranged. Is this perhaps for political imperatives? We cannot afford political imperatives any more.
People of my age and younger, who will have to live with the consequences of the next two years for the rest of their lives, and perhaps come to terms with this in the context of a whole different world order, will perhaps agree with the American comedian and commentator who came up with the term “truthiness”: the notion that if I feel something to be true, it must be legitimate. This may well be the new Trump doctrine, but surely it cannot be the Brexit mantra. Our next generation will live with the consequences of this. They need to have a say on whether it is in their best interest, and I will refuse to deny them a voice whenever I have an opportunity to vote in this Parliament.
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
My Lords, we are facing change on a scale probably not experienced since World War II. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, spoke very eloquently on the changes we face yesterday. This is a time of massive global economic uncertainty. As Members of this House, we know a little of the complexities of roles, function and status which derive from our current situation as a member of the EU. But I wonder, despite what some noble Lords have said, whether those who voted for Brexit—I was not one of them—really understood the extent to which our economic, social and cultural realities are interwoven with those of our fellow member states in the European Union.
When I started teaching European law, more years ago than I care to remember, freedom of movement was available only to those who could support themselves and satisfy various criteria. That has changed utterly, as have the rules on freedom of movement of goods. There were restrictions, some of which might have seemed eminently sensible had we been looking to reform the European Union today. It needs to change—I think there are very few who would say otherwise—and it would be good had we been able to be part of that change. But that is not going to happen.
When the Supreme Court said that legislation was essential for us to trigger Article 50, it did not say that we had to rubber-stamp the outcome of the referendum. Rather, it said that it was for Parliament to determine what should happen and, as your Lordships know, the House of Commons voted conclusively on that issue. Now we have to decide whether to endorse that view. I will not repeat the contributions of many Members in articulating the reasons why I believe we cannot vote against the Bill or really amend it. My reality is that although, as a citizen of the UK, I believe that our best interests would be served by remaining in the EU, I do not believe that as a Member of your Lordships’ House I should vote against the Bill.
I have read with care the many amendments suggested. The issues with which they deal are very often of fundamental and enormous significance, but I do not think that anything will be achieved by attempting to alter the Bill. It has but one purpose, and that purpose, however regrettable, must be achieved. Other issues must be dealt with during the period of negotiation. The EU committees here—I was a member of the Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection Sub-Committee—have produced several reports on various vital areas of concern. We will have to ensure that all that should be taken into account is taken into account.
I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, talking about the effect of triggering Article 50, but it is possible that any attempt to retract Article 50 would end up in the European Court of Justice, with the delays which would inevitably follow from that. The fourth report from the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House says that Parliament should work on the assumption that if we trigger Article 50, it will not be reversible. I do not know the answer to that and I do not think that any of us knows.
Contributions have been made both in this House and in the other place that have been very disparaging about the White Paper, but the reality is that it goes to the negotiations that will take place and nobody would expect a negotiator to disclose their hand at this stage. We in Northern Ireland know that negotiations always go to the edge, and it is at the very edge that the most important concessions are made by both sides.
Having said that I do not think we can amend the Bill, I will refer to two issues. In Northern Ireland we have an uncertain peace. I have said before in your Lordships’ House that we cannot assume that our peace agreement will stand. I am sure that the election we face in just over a week in Northern Ireland will result in direct rule. I do not believe that our politicians will be able to form a Government, so to my mind direct rule is inevitable. That will create space for malefactors who will then argue that the Good Friday agreement has failed—and, of course, we still have active dissident and loyalist paramilitary groups that manage a large empire of drugs, fuel smuggling, people smuggling and so on. There are still a lot of guns in circulation and we continue to have shootings and bombings, so we cannot be complacent and I do not think we can suggest that there is nothing to worry about. Brexit will recreate the border between the north and the south.
Borders are by their nature divisive, and this border will attract protest, hostility, violence and significant economic delay. Other borders across Europe will also create delays for those who seek to export from the United Kingdom into Europe—but, ironically, the border could be the thing that precipitates the demand for another referendum on a united Ireland, which is provided for in the Good Friday agreement. The Governments are talking glibly of not recreating the problems of past border stops, but that seems inevitable because how else are tax and customs regimes to be managed?
If we leave the customs union and the single market, or if we enter them on different terms, as we must if we leave the EU, we will have to have alternative systems or some form of alternative access to European markets. As other noble Lords have said, it is inevitable that that will come at great cost. We will be one country seeking to deal with 27 separate states who are already in—and it does not take much effort to work out the odds in that situation. So my question for the Government on the subject of borders is: how does the UK intend to manage restrictions on freedom of movement? Is it not inevitable that there will have to be some sort of presence on the one land border that we have in these islands—the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic? Otherwise, people will move into the UK through Ireland, and into Ireland through the UK. That is going to be costly and difficult.
I also find it difficult to imagine how trade and customs tariffs can be managed without some visible form of border. The border between the north and the south of Ireland has many crossing points and was always difficult to police. It was done during the Troubles by destroying crossing points—placing massive concrete bollards in the way and often having a military presence. That generates resentment and no one wants to see a regular visible military presence again. If roads are closed, that will attract direct action to reopen them because they have been open for so long now—and that will lead to violence. I suspect that if electronic forms of surveillance are put in place, they will be blown up after a few days. How are Her Majesty’s Government going to manage that situation? How will we generate some sort of a programme to win over the minds and hearts of people to the division of the island of Ireland that will be necessary to enable both Brexit and the functioning of the EU? These are not idle questions; they are fundamental.
I will make one more point, on security and policing for the protection of the UK. There is an expectation that everyone will understand that it is in everyone’s interest to continue the Europol arrangements we have with Europe. That is the theory. When there is a need for immediate co-operation, as there is when things suddenly go terribly wrong—and they always do go terribly wrong suddenly—you need to have the databases, contacts and everything else in place. It is not enough to start talking about them then. We have seen the failures of the security services in America, France and elsewhere, as well as in Ireland, and we have seen what happens. So I would say that this issue must be one of the Government’s primary targets in terms of focusing on what must be done to enable everything else that will follow in terms of trade.
So there are huge dangers and huge opportunities. I wish the Prime Minister well in the journey that she is embarking on. She has got to do her best for all of us and we have to go with this referendum result, but I would say to the Government that there are far more important issues yet to consider, and noble Lords will have that opportunity.
Lord Sheikh (Con)
My Lords, last year I voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union because I believed we should control our own destiny. First and foremost, we should be able to do business with whomsoever we wish. Exiting the EU means that we can now realise a greater economic potential.
The United Kingdom has a long and rich history as a successful trading nation—long before the concept of the EU was ever envisaged. In the 17th and 18th centuries, we started actively to send merchant ships to different parts of the world. Companies such as the East India Company were established. In fact, the East India Company at one time controlled half the world’s trade. In the 19th century, our manufactured goods dominated world trade. We became the so-called workshop of the world. Our success led to us becoming the world’s first modern industrialised nation. It is in our blood to innovate and to export this innovation globally. Such enterprising spirit is a part of our heritage which can now be released, no longer restrained by outside directives and burdensome regulations.
During the last 18 months, I have visited four overseas countries—Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Sudan. Wherever I go, I find that we are well respected and that there is an appetite for building closer ties with us, both economically and politically. For example, in Kazakhstan, the English language will be used in the Astana international financial centre and, furthermore, English law will apply. With regard to central Asia, I am hosting a conference in March where we will be discussing trade links with Kyrgyzstan. I urge the Government to establish trade ties with Sudan, following the lifting of sanctions previously applied by the USA. I have connections with African countries such as Uganda and I can assure your Lordships that there is appetite in the region to do more business with us. I know a number of ambassadors and high commissioners who also give me the same message. It is liberating to know that we will now be truly free to make policy decisions, relating to all these countries and others, for ourselves.
Trading relationships define friendship and co-operation between countries. They are a part of a nation’s character. It is, therefore, so important that we build them for ourselves, rather than as a component part of the European block. Not least, we should be seeking to revitalise our trading links with other Commonwealth countries. The importance of the Commonwealth in world trade has grown significantly in recent years. During the last 20 years, the combined GDP of Commonwealth countries has doubled. They include a third of the world’s population and two key BRICS emerging markets—India and South Africa.
I believe that our wider ties with the Commonwealth have suffered as a result of the overwhelming imposition of our membership of the European Union. We have been forced to present ourselves primarily as an EU nation. I now look forward to strengthening relationships with countries, based on our deep historic roots, shared values, mutual respect and common language.
We also have a great deal to offer the world in the field of Islamic financial services. The United Kingdom has the largest Islamic finance industry outside the Muslim world, with assets now exceeding $20 billion. We have a vast number of highly skilled accountants and lawyers, including the largest legal services market in Europe. They are ready to promote and supply our Islamic finance expertise and other financial services to the world.
We must be bold and ambitious in seeking new trade agreements. I applaud the formation of the new Department for International Trade and will support it in every way that I can. Aside from new trade opportunities, leaving the EU will allow us to regain full control of our borders. This is an important principle of our national sovereignty and public confidence. If our border policy is seen to have integrity, people may become less hostile to immigration. In addition, there would perhaps be more incentive to integrate following a proper process of migration, rather than having an open border.
I hope that we can also increase our educational links with academic institutions overseas. Much like trade, these relationships help to build bridges between nations, and exchange knowledge and learning without the need for centrally imposed bureaucracy.
I have a long-standing connection with the City of London and can confidently say that the City will flourish after Brexit as long as it develops a global gaze. We must be firm in our plans and invoke Article 50. I feel that we should avoid uncertainty—any hesitation will have adverse consequences. The will of the people must prevail.
Lord Hollick (Lab)
My Lords, the Prime Minister has decided that gaining control of our borders to reduce migration from the EU is to be the central plank of her Brexit strategy. From that decision, much else flows. We are to depart the single market and the customs union and avoid the unwelcome oversight of the European Court of Justice—except, the White Paper goes on to say, in those sectors of our choosing where we do not wish to depart and, indeed, plan to remain in the single market and the customs union. It remains to be seen whether this desire for, shall we say, a relationship on the side on terms of our choosing after the marriage has ended will survive the inevitable turbulence and recrimination of the divorce proceedings or whether it is perhaps the triumph of hope over experience.
The conflicts inherent in this approach speak to the fundamental truth that the UK’s economy is, and will continue to be, inextricably intertwined with the EU, our largest market. Yes, we will over time build stronger relationships with countries outside the EU—we will rediscover the Commonwealth. However, for the foreseeable future, our economy will have to depend upon the continuing strength of our relationship with the EU and, in one important area, our reliance upon the enormous contribution made to our economy and society by migrants from the EU. The Office for National Statistics estimates that 3.3 million EU citizens live in the UK, of whom 2.1 million are in work. Important sectors rely upon their continuing contribution: 30% of the workforce in the food processing industry and 17% in the hospitality industry come from the EU; 170,000 EU citizens work in the NHS and residential care homes; 200,000 work in the construction industry. It is quite shameful that these citizens and their families—a good number of whom have been resident in the UK for many years—should have any shred of doubt whatever about their rights to remain here.
Securing those rights is one of the dozen principles set out in the Brexit White Paper, but it is not too late to give a pre-emptive commitment to those citizens and recognise and match the commitment they have made to our country. That they have been designated the status of negotiating chips is repugnant. If, as a result, they decide to leave, it will damage our economy and our reputation and be a massive own goal. The White Paper acknowledges that we will always want immigration, and it rightly asserts that openness to international talent must remain one of our distinctive assets. At the same time, the White Paper wants to design a migration system to control the number of people coming into the UK according to quotas based on the Government’s assessment of sectoral needs.
Are cumbersome state-planning quotas to help control migration likely to work? The omens are not good. In her five years as Home Secretary, Mrs May failed each year to achieve her net migration target of 100,000. The largest contribution to her failure was not the free movement of people from the EU but the migration from outside the EU, where work permits favour her degree of control. As a former Home Secretary, she knows only too well that information on migrants, including details about their participation in the workforce, is patchy and wholly inadequate to provide the basis for effective management and control. In the absence of better information and improved systems, control of migration risks becoming a blunt and bureaucratic instrument, unresponsive to the many and changing needs of our economy and of society more generally.
Let us be clear: we need not only to retain 3.1 million people from the EU who live here already; we also need to attract new EU migrants to help the UK economy to prosper. For instance, the Housing White Paper targets an increase in home building of 100,000 a year. To reach that level, the construction industry estimates that it will need 500,000 additional construction workers. The Chancellor’s welcome decision to increase infrastructure investment by £23 billion during the life of this Parliament will add further to the demand for skilled and semi-skilled labour.
What is clear is that for the foreseeable future we will need more—not less—immigration, and not only the brightest and the best, who feature heavily in the White Paper, but also those with less glamorous but essential skills to help deliver a growing economy. The Government must be honest about this. At the same time, they must commit and come forward with moves and investment to put more resources into increasing our own national skill base.
The heated and divisive dialogue about migration—which, if anything, has grown more rancorous since the referendum—provides scant reassurance to those from the EU and from countries outside the EU who have made their homes here, and it may deter those living in the EU who might otherwise consider coming to the UK. The best, the brightest and the skilled have choices, and unless our words and our actions speak to the enthusiastic welcome we want to extend to them as fellow citizens, they may choose not to join us. In every respect, we will be the poorer for their absence.
Lord Taverne (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Low, who is not in his place at the moment, I want to talk about democracy. I never thought that, one day, speaker after speaker in a Commons debate, on an issue of immense significance for Britain’s future, would announce that, although they believed that Brexit would gravely damage our national interests, they would nevertheless vote to leave because the will of the people must be obeyed. They did not say, “Of course, we have to take the decision of the people very seriously, but in the end we have to make up our own minds”; they declared, in effect, that they were not in Parliament to exercise their own judgment but were delegates who had to vote the ticket of populist correctness.
Out goes the tradition of parliamentary democracy, with its checks and balances; out go Locke, John Stuart Mill and others, who created liberal democracy, which has been much admired; and out goes Edmund Burke, who argued that MPs were representatives, not delegates. The doctrine of Rousseau now rules in Westminster, that the will of the people must always prevail, a doctrine much admired by autocrats ever since the days of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. With great respect to my noble friend Lord Ashdown, the idea that the will of the people equals democracy or the national interest is a fallacy. Before the Second World War, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin all commanded overwhelming public support and represented the will of the people. That hardly made them democrats or left their countries better off. Today Putin and Erdogan are among the most popular populists. They boast about their majority support. Are they democrats, even though they suppress dissent and trample on the rule of law?
Of course, the view of the majority matters. It is often, in my view, probably generally right but there have been times when the majority has been disastrously wrong. In 1938 Chamberlain came back from Berchtesgaden with a piece of paper, declaring, “peace for our time”. His message was almost universally acclaimed. Only a few dissented against the wish of the people. They were led by Churchill, who was denounced as a warmonger, a pessimist and, no doubt, a moaner. Then Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.
I fear that the vote for Brexit will turn out to be one of those occasions. If we are heading for disaster, we do not lie down and give up but fight to avoid it and point out the dangers of what we are heading for. If after the very short period for negotiations there is no deal or one that leaves us all much poorer, must MPs accept that we must still leave the European Union because the June vote requires them to act as lemmings? Mrs May graciously allowed Parliament a vote on the final deal, if there is one, but even if her deal is a very hard Brexit, Parliament’s only choice will be either to accept or to reject and fall off a cliff—no chance for the people to change their vote if they change their mind or because circumstances have changed.
In fact, circumstances have changed. We now know, as several speakers have pointed out, that curbing immigration is the Government’s first priority, not economic welfare. In addition, Mr Trump was elected President. The United States used to lead the world as the champion of free trade. Now it is “America First”. He threatens a trade war with China. His election, like the Brexit vote, encouraged every protectionist and nationalist in Europe. What price then for the Brexiteers’ promise of a bonanza of free trade? Worse still, having decided to abandon the European Union, Mrs May feels she must cosy up to someone who wants to destabilise the European Union itself, has doubts about the importance of NATO, seeks a new deal with Putin as a strong man he greatly admires, and who declares that torture is an effective weapon against terrorism because torture works.
The forecasts of most independent economists that we are now in the calm before the storm may prove wrong. So far there is no clear evidence of a significant shift in public opinion. If there is none before the end of next year, it is doubtful that Brexit can still be avoided. But if opinion does shift, because the economists are right and the pound falls further, inflation rises, employment suffers, more companies emigrate and living standards decline, or if increased dependence on the good will of Trump repels the public—a future symbolised by Mrs May and Mr Trump walking hand in hand—the June verdict must be open to review. Brexit is not yet a done deal. A new referendum will not be a rerun of June, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, because this time we will know what Brexit means. Its consequences will not be speculation but reality.
It is also said that the June verdict is irreversible. Dictatorships do not allow people to change their mind but in a democracy no decision is ever irreversible and if people feel they have made a mistake, they must be allowed to change their mind.
In her famous Bruges speech, Mrs Thatcher made a profound observation about Europe when she said that,
“on many great issues, the countries of Europe should try to speak with a single voice. I want to see us work more closely on the things we can do better together than alone. Europe is stronger when we do so, whether it be in trade, in defence or in our relations with the rest of the world”.
Is now the time, in the Trump era, for Britain to leave and weaken the European Union, ourselves and our influence in the world?
Lord Owen (Ind SD)
My Lords, yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, talked about the historical freight that this legislation carries. It carries a great deal, but it also carries the historical freight of referendums which have been coming into this country’s democracy for some years. We have barely mentioned 1975, but that was also a time when the country had the chance to leave or to stay, and it chose to stay. Broadly speaking, that decision has lasted until the present. There was an attempt at one time, which was finished by the election of 1983, to come out without a referendum despite a referendum’s having been given eight years earlier. That failed.
I will not say any more about this, but the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not mention the referendum. You cannot face this issue and ignore the decision of the referendum, but equally, you cannot talk about a United Kingdom without being aware that a substantial number of people did not vote for it and, in my view, tragically, we were split in Scotland, though not in my own nation, Wales. We have to take account of those divisions as we approach this next and most crucial stage.
One of the issues of a referendum is that you do not have manifestos about what you are going to do. You have referendums because political parties are split. What you do is charge the Government of the day with negotiating on behalf of the whole country. I believe this Government have tried to do this. It is right that we are having a debate now; it should probably have been conceded straightaway. Nevertheless, it was impossible, given that no preparation whatever had been made for this referendum by the previous Prime Minister, for the present Prime Minister to take time to look carefully at all the detailed issues and be in a position to negotiate. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union wisely said on 2 February that,
“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”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/2/2017; col. 1227.]
It seems to me that that indicates a flexibility we all need. We have to be flexible on many things. We need to come out of the EU as quickly as we can, and I would not wait two years to do this. That is the fundamental decision as I understand it, and which I believe is virtually irrevocable as the result of the referendum.
How we handle the next few years is a very difficult question. It is becoming apparent that negotiating a trading agreement with the EU is going to be very difficult. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said that he thought it was virtually impossible. It will take far longer than it should and far longer than I would want. Therefore, there has been a growing recognition that there has to be a transitional period, but that transition should be after we have gone from the EU and before we have a trading agreement. In that area, there are flexibilities that we should be examining. Of course, we must first talk, as we are bound to do under Article 50, to the 27 EU member states—our friends with whom we will, as Europeans, be working in many, many fields for decades to come.
We should also talk to our other European friends—the non-EU members of the EEA. This House does not seem to understand that there is a huge difference between the single market and the EEA. There are two quite different tracks within the EEA, apart from anything else. It is beholden on us to talk to those members, and it is necessary for us to see whether a transition period could be put in place that would give us time to get what we need, and that is a trading agreement. The Government hope that it can be done by a bespoke agreement, and they have established areas in which they think they might be able to achieve this. I very much doubt whether that will be easily given, and certainly not in a short timescale.
All this time, we face a world in a fragile state, an extremely fragile European economy—look at what is happening to Greece as we talk—a dysfunctional EU that is unable to grapple with the problems of the Eurozone, and a financial situation that could get worse at almost any time over the negotiating period. Therefore, we should stage these negotiations; most negotiations actually are staged. Often, it is best to take the most difficult issues first. That is the one on which we have the clearest mandate: to come out of the EU. As to how we handle the transition period, there are flexible ways of dealing with it: it will be negotiated, but we do not know the details. As the Minister said, if they do propose to withdraw from the EEA, they will come back and tell us.
Why do I stress the EEA? The EEA has nothing to do with ever-closer union: it is an economic arrangement. There are separate surveillance mechanisms that are outside the European Court of Justice. They are also outside foreign trade, fishing and many other different aspects. It is a very different mechanism and it must be looked at, because it might be a mechanism for healing some of the wounds and for gathering a higher percentage of people in support of a policy of coming out of the EU. That must be our objective.
It is certainly not our objective to “rise up”. I hope nobody else goes to Bloomberg to make speeches. The reason we are in this mess is the speech by the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, and now we have another past Prime Minister going to Bloomberg to tell the people to “rise up”. What we need is unity, the maximum unity possible.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, the debate both before and after the referendum has been passionate and, at times, heated. However, I will briefly restate three points. First, the decision to call the referendum to ask the people whether they wished to leave or remain in the European Union was endorsed by both Houses in this Parliament and was based on a manifesto commitment of this Government. Secondly, the referendum decision, on a turnout of more than 72%, was clearly to leave. Thirdly, the overwhelming will of the elected other place—both Her Majesty’s Government and the loyal Opposition—is to accept and respect the outcome of that referendum and to carry out the instructions of the people. It would be undemocratic for this Chamber of appointed Members to do anything other than vote for this Bill. To do otherwise would demonstrate a lofty disdain for the democratic mandate and could cause enormous harm to the status of your Lordships’ House.
There will be many important debates in the months ahead about our future relationship with the European Union. The Prime Minister’s speech in Lancaster House, and the Government’s subsequent White Paper, set out a common-sense plan for the wider relationship between Britain and the European Union. I trust that Brexit will not mean Britain turning in on itself. That is not in our history, not in our culture and not in our nature; nor is it in our short-term or long-term economic interest. Speaking as the daughter of a refugee from communist Czechoslovakia who defected to the liberal West, I believe it is vital that that applies to immigration, where the aim should be control, not arbitrary reduction, and it should certainly apply to global free trade. Post-Brexit Britain must be open, free market and liberal.
The Prime Minister has also, correctly, promised to resolve the status of EU nationals in the UK, calling this “right and fair”. The sooner we can give a guarantee to EU citizens that they are welcome to stay here, the better. The Prime Minister’s noble attempt to fast-track a deal whereby EU workers currently living in the EU are allowed to remain, in exchange for an agreement that would give British expatriates in the European Union similar rights, was rebuffed by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. It is deeply regrettable that European politicians are playing politics with people’s lives to force the Government’s hand. I very much hope that other member states give the Government the guarantees they need to resolve this issue at the earliest moment.
This will not be a winner-takes-it-all process. It is, after all, a negotiation and negotiations require compromise. We need to seek the best deal possible. It is vital not to bind the Government in any way, administratively or legally, because they must have the ability to negotiate flexibly and in the national interest.
The EU institutions and member states have obdurately held to the position that negotiations cannot begin without notification, although the demand from the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, for €60 billion in advance of trade negotiations appears to be at odds with his own declaration that he should be holding his peace.
The Prime Minister must therefore trigger Article 50 before the discussions commence. My appeal to remainers who also support free trade and liberal values is to move on from attempts to frustrate Brexit through clever procedural amendments and to join the debate about what sort of country we want to be and what policies we want to have after Brexit. We must allow the Government to get on with their negotiations. I therefore support the Bill and urge other noble Lords to vote in favour of it.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I want to use my time not to repeat the arguments that have already been well rehearsed in the context of the referendum but to reflect on the significance of the Bill before this House. We are, after all, discussing the simplest of simple Bills—just two clauses—with the simplest of simple objectives, which is to begin the process of carrying out the decision of the British people as expressed in a referendum. It was a referendum based on a Bill that this House passed without opposition and, by the way, it was a referendum held all of eight months ago. Yet here we are with a two-day debate on the Second Reading and 184 speakers. I cannot remember when we ever had a speakers list quite like this, but it is absolutely in line with the phenomenal focus that this House has shown on the referendum and related matters since 23 June last year.
Like, I dare say, one or two other people in this House, I spent a bit of time during the short recess knocking on doors in a by-election, and I have to report to the House that our interest in this subject is not matched by people on the doorstep. Bearing in mind that one of the reasons most frequently advanced for the leave vote being so high is that people feel politicians are out of touch, I simply hope that in the months ahead there is a better match between the subjects that we are discussing in this House and those being discussed by our fellow citizens. The fact is—and the polls demonstrate this—that the public have largely made up their minds about the referendum, its significance and the result. An ICM poll on Saturday showed that 68% of us want the Government to get on with the process of leaving the European Union, and that includes no less than 48% of those who voted to remain.
That brings me to the role of the Lords in relation to this Bill. The first point is something on which I think we all agree—the primacy of the Commons. This, of course, expresses itself in a number of different ways. Very rarely, the Commons has to assert itself through the Parliament Act; much more frequently, the view of the Lords in respect of Commons decisions, and the extent to which they are challenged, is dependent on the clarity of the judgment the Commons has made. Well, the message in respect of this Bill is clearer than any I can remember. The Commons decided by a majority of 384 that this Bill should become law. What is more, the Commons’ verdict is a massive endorsement of the even more important decision made by the people in the referendum. Let us be absolutely clear: there really is no wriggle room. If you enter a contest or competition, especially one in which you have written the rules yourself, as we did in the referendum Bill, then surely you must accept the result.
“Ah,” say some remainers, “but this was only an advisory referendum”. Of course, legally that is true. It is advisory. Parliament could reverse it. There are no substantial constraints on what our Parliament can do, apart of course from the very substantial ones applied by the European Union. But politically, and most of all democratically, the referendum was binding. I very much doubt that if remain had won the argument and the Government had then decided that we were going to leave the European Union anyway, there would have been many remainers saying, “Well, fair enough, it was only advisory”.
If you play the game, you accept the result. When I watch Stoke City at the weekend I accept the rules and the result, though I have to admit there have been many occasions when I would have loved to have been able to say that the goals against us were only advisory. Any amendment proposed during the passage of this Bill that has either the effect of seriously delaying the implementation of the verdict of the British people, or at worst rejecting it, should, in my view, be unceremoniously rejected.
What about the suggestion coming from the Liberal Democrats that it is not one referendum we need but two? No doubt they are hoping that the second one will go the other way. I have to say in passing that, where I come from, that would make it one all and we would need a decider. However, I have to acknowledge, at least, that a second referendum would be in the finest traditions of democracy European Union style. Have a referendum if you must, but if you get it wrong, have a second one to reverse it. The EU has plenty of form on this—ask the people of Denmark and Ireland.
A second referendum would be a betrayal of the record number of people who voted in June last year. The turnout was 6% up on the 2015 general election. In my own region, 60% voted to leave. People were enthused to vote who never normally take part in elections. They were assured they had been given a hugely important, once-in-a-lifetime decision to make.
“Ah”, say some opponents of the Bill, “the people were duped. They were fed false information. The referendum wasn’t fair. The people didn’t know what they were voting for”. I say this with all seriousness—with acute seriousness—that in a democracy we should be extraordinarily careful about using the argument that we know what is good for the people better than they know themselves. I have some authority on this because I have the dubious distinction of having lost more general elections than probably most people in this House. My record is: played eight; won four; lost four. The pattern when you lose is always the same: it is because your opponents made promises they could not possibly keep, you say; it is because they lied; it is because they had the press on their side; it is because they had far more money for their campaign. When you win, of course, it is a triumph for democracy.
On the argument that the public did not know what kind of Brexit they were voting for, the answer is simple—they did not vote for Brexit at all. It was not on the ballot paper. The choice was remain or leave. They voted to leave. Brexit may be ambiguous; leaving is not. If you leave an organisation, you no longer sit on the executive committee, you do not have to pay the subscription and you do not have to obey the rules. That applies whether you are leaving a political party, the snooker club or the European Union.
Those in this House who are seriously thinking about voting against the Third Reading and voting this Bill down should think very carefully about the implications. That would mean a straightforward clash between the Commons and the Lords. It would, in my view, inevitably result in a general election very quickly after such a decision had been made. We can all speculate about the conclusion of that general election. It is now eight months since the people made their decision, and one which the Commons has overwhelmingly endorsed. It is now our job to scrutinise the Bill in the most effective way, as we always do, but as our constitutional practice has made clear, not to thwart, delay or block it, and I am confident that we will do just that.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, from the Prime Minister’s 12 point plan, the clear intention is that the UK should be destined to leave the single market and the EU customs union. It does not require too much scrutiny to work that out. That is in order to pursue bilateral trade agreements with faster growing economies outside the EU. In considering this Bill, it is not therefore unreasonable to consider the impact on the economies of the countries with whom we trade within the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific groups and beyond.
In the Prime Minister’s 12 point plan, point 8 refers to the establishment of free trade into the European market through a free trade agreement, and point 9 is about concluding new agreements with other countries. It is blindingly obvious that this means that the UK will leave the EU customs union and the single market, while assuming it can establish a free trade agreement with the EU that is unlike any existing agreement.
I was fortunate to secure a debate on Africa and the EU economic partnership agreements—the EPAs—on 17 November last year, recorded in Hansard Volume 776. In his response to that debate, the Minister of State commented that UK leadership had secured,
“the world’s most generous package of market opening for developing countries”,
of which, 44 are in Africa, in which I have a special interest.
With Brexit, the Minister stressed that, while the UK remains part of the EU,
“we … remain governed by the EPA arrangements”,
and,
“all rights and obligations will apply, including our commitments to developing countries through the EPAs”.
He said that we enjoy,
“strong trading relationships with many developing countries, and we will look to strengthen those ties in future. That will be part of the negotiation package as we move forward”.
I repeat:
“That will be part of the negotiation package as we move forward”.—[Official Report, 17/11/16; col. 1642-44.]
At the same time, the Government have set as a priority a target of increasing trade and investment with the Commonwealth, estimating that Commonwealth trade will surpass $1 trillion by 2020. However, until Brexit is completed, the UK is bound by EU regulations, which forbid members from negotiating trade agreements with others, including the Commonwealth nations. That is, of course, where the dichotomy lies—between ambition and reality, emphasising clearly why the outcome of these negotiations must be sanctioned by Parliament before any deal is ratified.
In its paper for the Commonwealth secretariat, well-known economists Mohammad Razzaque and Brendan Vickers confirm that,
“Once the UK has formally exited the EU, however, all rights and obligations under these various agreements will cease to apply”.
They also point out that, between 2000 and 2015, sub-Saharan Africa merchandise trade with the UK increased from $6.5 billion to $12 billion. Significantly, the same countries achieved far greater expansion in trade into the rest of the EU over the same period, with their exports far more than doubling—from just over $30 billion to $71 billion over the same period. Despite its relatively low market share of EU trade with Africa overall, the UK remains an important destination for countries such as Botswana—we take 40% of its exports here in the UK—while for Kenya we take 29% and for South Africa 26%. The impact of Brexit is bound to include a decline in exports to the EU from these and other African countries if the EPAs exclude the UK in the future.
Furthermore, any erosion of preferences in the UK market for the many current value-added products could have an adverse impact on the continent’s plans for structural economic transformation, as set out in the African Union’s development plan, Agenda 2063. More than 20 ACP countries face most-favoured-nation- tariff increases on the value of their total exports to the UK, amounting to some $250 million. South Africa would have to pay the largest import duties, of about $80 million, while its neighbours Swaziland and Namibia would face a potential tax bill of 8% of the value of their exports.
As Razzaque and Vickers point out, there are a number of policy options that the Government could pursue for EPA countries. For the least developed countries, or LDCs, the UK could devise its own generalised system of preferences, or GSP, building on and improving arrangements for the world’s poorest countries. The UK could also reduce non-tariff barriers and introduce more relaxed and more generous rules of origin. It could follow the Australian and Canadian models, which require recipient countries to add only 25% to the local value for goods to qualify for duty-free access. A UK offer of trade preferences could extend to services in line with the agreed least developed countries waiver under the World Trade Organization, or WTO.
A key issue is whether the UK can accede separately to existing EPAs or whether it can install replicas for ACP countries that have signed the deals with the EU. The Government will have to consider not only whether the replication of EPAs is possible but whether it is worth pursuing at all.
As we can see, Brexit will have a profound and far-reaching impact on our trade with African countries, in or out of the Commonwealth. I look forward to the Government’s response in terms of negotiating Brexit with the EU prior to further deliberation by Parliament and before asking the people to endorse that decision.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, I was counsel for Mrs Gina Miller in the court case that led to this Bill.
Lord Pannick
I want to pay tribute to Mrs Miller, because her determination in the face in particular of quite outrageous racist and sexist abuse has ensured that we have the opportunity to debate whether—and, if so, on what terms—Article 50 is invoked. The whole House should be very grateful to Mrs Miller.
The Divisional Court and the Supreme Court carried out their constitutional responsibilities by affirming the supremacy of Parliament. It is now for this House to live up to our constitutional responsibility. It is for us to scrutinise a Bill of enormous importance to the future of this country.
I think that the Bill requires amendment, in particular to ensure parliamentary sovereignty as the process of withdrawal occurs over the next two years. Noble Lords know that the Prime Minister has promised that any agreement with the European Union on the terms of our withdrawal and our future relationship with the EU will require the agreement of both Houses of Parliament. She has said that the agreements will so require before any agreement is put to the European Parliament for its consent. That promise should be written into the Bill. A political promise, made by the Prime Minister in good faith, is no substitute for a clause—an obligation—in an Act of Parliament. The reason for that is that political circumstances can change; Prime Ministers can change over the next two years. On a matter of this importance, it is vital to ensure that there is a clear and binding obligation on the Government to return to Parliament at a defined time to seek the agreement of both Houses of Parliament for the terms of any agreement. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, this Parliament must have at least the same powers that the European Parliament has to disagree with the terms of any draft agreement.
In the course of this debate—I have listened to much of it and read the rest of it—I have heard only two arguments for why this political commitment should not be included in the Bill. The first is that we should get on with it—that is, get on with notification. The answer, of course, is that to amend the Bill in this way would not affect the Prime Minister’s deadline of the end of March for notification. The only other argument that has been made by noble Lords is that we must be very careful not to weaken the negotiating power of the Government in Europe. However, the Prime Minister has already promised to seek the consent of both Houses for any agreement that the Government reach with the EU. If there is any weakening of our negotiating position then it is the result of the Prime Minister giving that commitment, not the result of writing it into the Bill. In any event, and again the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made this point, surely it will strengthen the Government’s hand for the Prime Minister to be able to say to the Europeans that she has to get the deal through Parliament. Of course Parliament has previously imposed legally binding duties on Ministers to secure parliamentary approval before a treaty is ratified—for example, Section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 and Section 2 of the European Union Act 2011. The question is: why not in this Bill?
I am also concerned about what happens if there is no draft agreement between the UK and the EU on the terms of our withdrawal. In my opinion, parliamentary sovereignty must also apply in those circumstances. Surely it must be for Parliament to decide whether we prefer no deal or the deal offered by the EU. It is for those reasons that I have added my name to an amendment that would require parliamentary approval for an agreement or for no agreement. The Supreme Court recognised the constitutional requirement for Parliamentary sovereignty. I hope noble Lords will do likewise.
Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)
My Lords, I support the Bill and hope that it goes through unamended. I should say that I joined the Brexit campaign but only after hearing the proposed deal that Mr Cameron came back with.
One of the functions of parliamentary democracy is to provide means of resolving differences that citizens cannot be expected to resolve among themselves. By their very nature, those differences tend to be intractable. People hold very different views on the legitimate reach of government. I happen to believe in small government, not least because whatever Governments do, they do it expensively and often not very well. However, I wonder if the tendency on the part of modern Governments to overreach has not perhaps led indirectly to the divisions that shook the UK last June and which still persist.
I was born in an age when, whoever was in power, we enjoyed a comforting sense that we received governance from one another’s hands. The administration of these islands had a national flavour and, broadly, enjoyed public support. Authority was all around us, and it seemed on the whole to be benign and on our side. Much of that has been lost. In my life and work I feel that authority has come to be seen often as hostile, remote and even menacing. This has produced a public malaise that it strikes me has grown as the influence of the EU has grown.
To make sense of that malaise, we have to look back. As a lifelong member of this party, I was among those who genuinely felt cheated when the deal that we voted for not only turned out to be something quite else but undermined some fundamental freedoms and values, things that my father and grandfather had fought and suffered to defend in two world wars. Of course, for most of my youth Britain was weak and tired and I think it is safe to say that a well-meaning official class took it upon themselves to steer us, not without a degree of stealth, down the road that led to where we stood on the eve of the referendum; that road, as we now know, was labelled “managed decline”. It took no account of the possibility that the decline might be reversed, as in fact happened. This is not the place to say how it happened and at whose hands.
The party opposite’s journey in its approach to the Common Market and its successor entities is very different and completely fascinating. The Labour Party of my youth, as I remember it, believed passionately in the British parliamentary system and was loath to see its participation, won at such cost, assailed and diluted. Then suddenly the orthodoxy changed. Even before the famous Delors speech, I remember reading tracts by socialist authors, saying in effect: “Listen up, brothers; this is a new, global world. Socialism will become an increasingly hard sell with the voters. We must infiltrate the institutions that will give effect to our agenda of redistribution”. All I can say is that I salute them; it has been a triumph for Labour. Shedloads of British taxpayers’ cash is doled out by unaccountable officials without the need for politicians to explain to voters where their hard-earned cash has gone
For the Liberal Democrats, the journey has been different again. There is something counterintuitive to me about seeking political power only to give it away again. It is also insulting to those who entrust power in the first place. Pro-EU politicians seem to be seduced by the superficial attractions of holding office without shouldering the responsibilities that their electors conferred on them. Voters, it now appears, expect more of them. Those I spoke to in Copeland last week certainly understood why, for example, the country had to endure austerity, even if the opposition parties cannot. “That is why we elected them—to make the difficult decisions”, one man said. This Copeland man’s insight suggests to me that many politicians, and probably all Liberal Democrat ones, fundamentally lack the confidence to govern in the modern age—the confidence and the competence. It is hard not to sympathise and agree with them, but the solution does not lie in handing powers that rightly belong to Parliament to a cadre of officials, most of whom have scant understanding of Britain’s needs and aspirations.
It is time, I feel, for those who feel oppressed by the heat in the democratic kitchen to leave it and make way for those prepared to give electors the bad news as well as the good, those who will find solutions to those intractable problems. I have a glorious vision of a new generation of post-Brexit men and women entering public life, valued perhaps as much for their experience outside politics as for their contribution within the Palace of Westminster.
Time allows me to say very little about trade, but once again I remind Ministers that it is the SME sector that is driving UK growth. I declare my interests as an operator in the SME sector, as given in the register. There can be no doubt that regulation impacts on the SME sector disproportionately. It hinders small business by magnitudes more than it does large businesses. The EU has been, and remains, the enemy of small business. It is an enduring stain on EU practice that some 50,000 lobbyists representing large multinationals have been made welcome in Brussels, where in effect they buy regulation to benefit their clients and to damage their smaller competitors. I have always found it odd that EU supporters are so uncritical of this widespread corporate venality.
However, all the defects of the EU pale into insignificance beside the constitutional issue. Anyone with experience of the real world understands that when the discipline of accountability falters, a car crash ensues—not possibly, not probably, but inevitably. In terms of accountability, the European Union is a scandal. Its failures threaten personal freedom. It has contempt for democracy. The ancient settlement under which the citizens of these islands are free to do what they will until Parliament decrees otherwise, and under which government is by consent, this priceless legacy, has been taken apart piece by piece and replaced by forms of governance entirely alien to us.
People may patronise Brexit supporters, characterising them as Mr Blair did over the weekend as having “imperfect knowledge”. Let me tell him what experience should have taught him: the people do understand and a majority spoke last June. Those people I talked to in Copeland understand. They are not rude about immigrants; they are not inward-looking; they are not xenophobic. They want, as I want, our children and grandchildren to walk in freedom under the law. Put simply, they want their country back, and so do I. Let us give a fair wind to the Bill, unamended.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, it is rather difficult to stand out in a debate of 185 speakers, but I am perhaps almost unique in one aspect, in that I really do not have terribly strong views on Europe. I voted no in 1975, rather to the horror of Anthony Crosland, for whom I then worked. Even this time, I hummed and hawed a good bit before voting to remain, partly for fear of the unknown but more because I found the egregious lies told by the leave campaigners even more offensive than the egregious lies told by the remainers. So I am not passionate about Europe, but I am passionate about the British constitution and parliamentary sovereignty, and I am a particular opponent of the concept of binding referendums.
Last year, with the noble Lord, Lord Cooper, I arranged a series of seminars at St Anthony’s College, Oxford about aspects of direct democracy, including referendums. I therefore had to read up on the subject. I now know more than I would like to admit about referendums in Uruguay, which is the referendum capital of the universe as well as one of the most unequal countries on earth. The more I read, the more the concept of referendums seemed to me to be flawed. I was delighted in the last Parliament when I had the opportunity to block the private Member’s Bill providing for the referendum here by proposing the adjournment of the House. But it was a short-lived triumph, and this Government brought it back in.
Let me run through the arguments, not in my words but those of the rather remarkable 2009 book by James Fishkin, When the People Speak. He identified the following defects in referendums. First, the difficulty of motivating citizens to become informed. This is particularly so because each individual knows that his or her voice does not count for much and it is not therefore rational to spend their whole time investing in acquiring great knowledge.
Secondly, citizens hate to admit to being ill informed. A famous piece of American research showed that citizens had very strong views on the public affairs Act. In fact, save for in the minds of the researchers, there was no such Act.
Thirdly, the model of the individual rationally deciding his or her view is a distortion of what really happens in families and groups. For one thing, people have a strong inclination to discuss things with people whom they know agree with them. I do not suppose that many Members of this House know very many leavers, but they are 52% of the population. However, this inclination has got much worse in the age of Facebook and social media, which means that we try very hard—and usually successfully—never to read anything with which we are certain we are going to disagree.
Fourthly, and critically, the process is manipulated by politicians. It is not something that grows on its own—the timing of the initiative lies with the politicians. The decision to hold this referendum, now seen almost universally as a disastrous one, was taken without a thought to the national interest and solely in the partisan interests of the Prime Minister of the day and his party.
Today, we are in a position that defies belief. Four-fifths of the Members of the House of Commons are remainers and believe that this is a disaster for Britain, and yet four-fifths voted for this Bill for exit. It would have been better for Parliament to wait until negotiations were much further advanced and see what the temper of public opinion then was, then either hold a vote in Parliament or—fingers firmly clasped on the nose—hold a second referendum, which is the course being put before this House. However, we are not yet at the end of this tale. Negotiations will take place and they could be prolonged. There are scenes, indeed whole acts, to come before the fat lady sings. Will Brexit mean Brexit? We shall have to see.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak about some of the issues that have been raised by people and organisations in my own city of Bristol. The first thing to say is that the moralistic argument that “the people have spoken” has a rather hollow ring in my city, where a large majority voted to remain in the EU. They have spoken too and they feel that no one in government is listening to them.
Bristol is a highly successful city with an economy driven by an innovative business community which is based on strong links with the EU, particularly aviation and its supply chains throughout the south-west. Through the partnership of its two world-class universities, it is also a test bed for technological and environmental development and a trailblazer in the creative, media, digital and microelectronic industries. It is Britain’s leading smart city and was the European Green Capital in 2015. Bristol is a city of small companies. Having read some of the case studies in a local chamber of commerce survey, I do not recognise the description that I heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish. The small firms in Bristol very much value working with the EU. Due to the skills shortages in this country many of them are dependent on recruitment from the EU and EU workers’ freedom of movement. They feel that the constraints that may be put in their way may well lead some of them to consider operating from Europe, where access to skills and freedom of movement fit much more with the kind of businesses they run.
Bristol is a city of young people. Many noble Lords have mentioned that the remain vote was much stronger among young people. There is a very strong tradition of internationalism in Bristol, which has a young people’s culture. It has one of the highest graduate retention rates in the country and is part of a very innovative, international culture, in partnership with EU countries and colleges. One thing that I have not heard mentioned today is the importance of those shared cultural heritages.
As an international port, Bristol welcomes people from other countries. It has many diverse communities and is not a homogenous city. We need to acknowledge that many cities, particularly in this country, are in the same position. When talking about divided communities, we need to think about the difference between our cities, which are sometimes defined as the economic powerhouse of our country, and other areas. Bristol is a city that welcomes people from outside the UK, and the distressing plight of the EU nationals there is a matter of great concern. The barriers that have been put in their way as they have tried to apply for residence are legendary. I had a group of them here yesterday. They told me that the form they have to fill in consists of some 85 pages. It is the longest of any EU country. For these people, many of whom have lived here for 40 years, worked here and paid their taxes, surely this is a most distressing state of affairs. Not only have barriers been put in their way, they have been subject to hate crime. Many of them tell me that they have lived here for 40 years. They came to this country because they valued its qualities of fairness, justice and constancy and a culture where they feel at home and where people from other countries feel welcome. Their experience since the vote has been quite the contrary. I spoke to people yesterday who told me that they are not sleeping; they are depressed, and their families are suffering as a result. All they want is reassurance—to know that they are welcome and will have the rights they have had over the last 40 years. I will most certainly support an amendment to the Bill that will give them those rights.
To come back to the argument that “the people have spoken”, when I talk to young people, more and more of them tell me that they are quite shocked to find that the only political party they have to support them is the Liberal Democrats. They have spoken to other parties and they are not—
Baroness Janke
That is borne out by the increasing numbers of people who are joining the Liberal Democrats for that very reason. If you read their reasons, you will understand why.
There was also a challenge to the point that somehow the punters are not interested. They are very interested in my city, and they were very interested in Richmond Park, where that was a key issue in the by-election. Maybe some people are not interested, but many are.
The outcome of the referendum was a huge shock and disappointment to people who have devoted their lives to co-operation and peace, internationalism, shared common values and beliefs. These will not be dismantled so easily. Despite this, we respect the right of others to differ. We do not say, “They got it wrong”; I know it is a jolly good phrase that gets passed around, just like “The people have spoken” and “Brexit is Brexit”, but we do not say that at all. None of us in this Chamber or in this country can know what the outcome of the negotiations will be. We also know that things will change. How many people on 23 June would have believed that Donald Trump would be elected? We know that circumstances can change, which is why we in this party are absolutely committed to the idea that people should vote and should have the final say on any deal that emerges. Two years is a long time—even a week is a long time in politics—and so much can change. As others have said, this started with the people, and so it must finish with the people.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, my involvement in the Bill stems from a deep concern about the Government’s approach to EU withdrawal. Their excessive optimism is accompanied by a reluctance to accept Parliamentary scrutiny of the EU withdrawal process. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said yesterday and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said today, it is constitutionally clear that it is for Parliament, not the Government, to authorise and give legal effect to the changes in domestic law and existing legal rights that follow from the negotiations after Article 50 is invoked.
It is of course impossible for Parliament to discharge that responsibility until it knows the terms of any proposed changes to the rights of British citizens and businesses and of EU citizens lawfully here. It also needs information and sufficient time to consider whether the proposed changes are in the country’s best interests. Neither the Government’s actions since June nor the Bill show proper recognition or acceptance of this fundamental constitutional position and its consequences.
I suggest that the Government started on the wrong foot with their oft-repeated claim that on 23 June the British people clearly voted to leave the EU. It is a fact that only 17.4 million people of the 46.5 million eligible to vote actually voted to leave the EU—some 38% of the electorate. The other 62% either expressed no opinion by not voting or voted to remain. The Government are claiming a mandate that is based on a voting threshold that did not reach the 40% required for most public sector strikes under their own Trade Union Act 2016.
Since June the Government have tried to use the royal prerogative to exclude Parliament from starting the withdrawal process. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, this was stopped only by a courageous citizen and the Supreme Court saying that Parliament must authorise the triggering of Article 50. The Government have continued to resist parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiating process and have promised to give Parliament only a take it or leave it choice on a final deal, without scope for amendment.
The Government’s negotiating strategy has been less than reassuring so far. They have ruled out membership of the single market and the customs union. They take an extremely optimistic view of the UK economy’s ability to cope when it no longer has guaranteed tariff-free access to the single market—our nearest neighbours. They have an inflated sense of the strength of their negotiating hand and the weakness of the EU’s, and have shown a touching belief that the rest of the world is just gagging to do better trade deals with us once we have left the EU.
Another flagship claim by the Government is that people voted to control our borders and that that can be done only by leaving the EU. The realities are somewhat different. Only about half the annual net increase of over 300,000 immigrants to the UK actually comes from the EU. Most of these people are needed to cope with staff shortages in many key sectors such as the NHS and care and hospitality, and many of our high-value research and technology sectors. Many others are students who help to keep our universities financially afloat. The Government are also ignoring the fact that the UK needs continuing inward migration because our own workforce will not be able to handle the growth of the UK’s non-working population over the next two decades.
As the start of the Article 50 negotiations approaches, there are myriad other complex and important issues to be resolved for this country, as many noble Lords have said. Not least of them is a classic parliamentary issue: the taxpayer funding an EU exit charge. At present there seems little government willingness to involve Parliament until a deal is done or the negotiations collapse amid massive recriminations. This is both unrealistic and not in the best interests of the country or even the Government. Instead, we are expected to be satisfied with the Government’s rather Panglossian White Paper and to nod through the Bill unamended. I think not. There is a wide range of amendments to be considered that will strengthen parliamentary scrutiny and involvement in our withdrawal from the EU. We should not be deterred from debating and passing some of these, whatever bloodcurdling noises are heard from inside or outside this House.
It is time for the Government to move on to a more mature approach to EU withdrawal and, if I may say so, to look a little less—here I will introduce a little poetry—like Edward Lear’s Jumblies:
“They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
The water it soon came in, it did,
The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin”.
I do not think we should end up like the Jumblies. I think we should amend the Bill to best meet the needs of the British people.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con)
My Lords, speaking at number 145 in this debate, it was inevitable, and I expected, that some previous speakers would have eaten my lunch. But I did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would have eaten my lunch, plate, knife and fork and even the table—and more amusingly, perhaps, than I can. As Russia has been mentioned at least once, I must first declare an interest, which is in the register, as an executive for a Russian shipping company.
The Bill, carried overwhelmingly and unamended in the House of Commons, simply gives effect, as the Government have said, to the referendum result. What did the referendum show? It was something very simple: a wish by the majority that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK. This was totally understood by some young Ukrainian friends of mine with whom I was discussing this subject several months ago. Having been brought up in the Soviet Union, they understood the result of our referendum very clearly. As a proud descendant of Sir Thomas Fairfax—some noble Lords may be aware that he was the commander of the parliamentary army in the English civil war—I understand about standing up for the rights of the people against an oppressive and undemocratic ruler.
As others have said, this is not about rerunning the referendum arguments, but I will make two short points. The first is about democracy and the role of this House; the second is about the negotiations, which some noble Lords have touched on. Here in this unelected place there may be a large EU-phile majority, but that view is out of line with the UK as a whole. I need not refer to the ICM poll as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has already done so. I understand that this may be very painful to many here, including to some members of the EU nomenklatura, as their condescending disdain for the majority view often shows. This includes many Liberal Democrat Members of this House who, as my noble friend Lord Robathan showed, campaign for a referendum one minute and then reject it when the result is not to their taste. The country is watching and will judge them by their behaviour.
I will say a few words about the negotiations. As anyone with any experience of business or the world knows, negotiating with one hand tied behind your back—all the more so if your counterparty knows that—severely reduces your chances of achieving a successful outcome. This being so—and as my noble friend Lord Hill commented—amending the Bill is not conducive to the best outcome. It is against our national interest to do so. I have heard the contrary argument, made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, 10 minutes ago, that having an element of uncertainty when negotiating enables you to say to your counterparty, “I cannot agree that because I must go back”. But in reality that would not be the case here, because the Government would know that, particularly in this place, their authority is questionable and may even, as we will discover soon, be subject to defeat. Therefore, that argument does not hold weight.
In closing, I applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the Leader of the Opposition, for some extremely realistic and constructive remarks in her speech yesterday—if I understood them correctly. As many speakers have said, everyone is entitled to express their views.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron
But there should be no rerunning of the referendum, despite the EU’s form in that regard. Let us pass the Bill without delay and unamended, as the elected House of Commons has done. The majority of the country is expecting nothing less.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
My Lords, we voted to leave on 23 June and the consequence is leave we must. No thresholds were in the referendum Act: it was in or out and we voted out. The public would not have it any other way. Some are frustrated that we have not already left, while others think that we have already left. We voted to leave after years of Tory public dissatisfaction with the EU. It does not matter how I voted; we are to leave the EU.
A family anecdote shows in microcosm what was going on, relating to what my noble friend Lady Armstrong said yesterday about the disconnect between the EU and those who can benefit from it. I will try to conceal their identities, but it involves a young, twentysomething snowboard instructor, living and working in France, speaking to his grandfather. It went like this: “Did you vote in that referendum, Grandad?” “Yes, I did. I voted to leave”. “Why?” “It was those Albanians”. “Where are they?” “They’re in Albania”. “What’s the problem?” “They’re going to come over here”. “How do you know?” “It was in the paper yesterday, so I voted to leave the EU”. People do not see the connections between the EU and their or their families’ lives.
This House seems to be full of emotion. Some have described a grieving process taking place and seem to have reached the anger stage, while others are in reflective remembrance of things past. But exiting the EU must be a calm, considered and orderly process, as the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, advised us yesterday. We are asking a huge amount of those whose job it will be to negotiate on our behalf over the next two years and to get us as close as they can to the Government’s 12-point wish list. Is it doable? I doubt it, but we will see. If it is not achieved, an interim future beckons. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, reminded us, the debate would not be taking place but for the bravery of two citizens who took on the Government and won in the Supreme Court. He and they deserve our thanks.
The Government started this process without a plan. The former Prime Minister was gone, the emperor’s clothes were reassigned and the present Prime Minister bought time to get her house in order by declaring, “Brexit means Brexit”. But what did it mean? The Government came to the strategic conclusion that controlling immigration trumped everything else and from that conclusion everything else would follow: no running commentary, no White Paper, no need for parliamentary approval and no need for a vote in Parliament to approve or reject an agreement. All of that has been overturned. Our role now is to scrutinise and make the Government accountable for what will happen. It is not enough to say that Parliament will get a vote at the end of the process. That must be on the face of the Bill.
What about the EU and EEA nationals living here? What about the promised vote at the end of two years being in the Bill? What will our relationship be with Euratom and myriad other agencies working in the EU? What will be the impact of withdrawal on the economy of the north-east? What about environmental safeguards and equality? Where are the impact assessments for those? What about open borders in Ireland? These issues are to be debated next week and must show the House of Lords doing its job.
This is a procedural, not a substantive Bill. It gives the Government the right to begin the process of negotiating our withdrawal from the EU. That they will get. I fully accept the primacy of the elected over the appointed Chamber, but it is our responsibility to ask the Government questions and to reconsider when we feel that it is necessary for them to do so. The amendments will show that, where things require to be reconsidered, we should send them back asking for change through probing and seeking clarity. That is what we do.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, when we are told that the people have spoken, we are referring to the one-third of the electorate who supported the leave campaign. I would say that the people have not spoken. They were taken on a ride in a bus built in Poland by a German company. On its side it said, “When we are out of the EU, we will have £350 million a week to spend on the NHS”. That was the promise, yet in Arron Banks’s recently published book, The Bad Boys of Brexit, he says that from the beginning they knew that it was a blatant lie. One of the biggest donors, giving £5 million to the leave campaign, has said that they knew from the beginning that it was a blatant lie.
If it was a lie, is it not possible that the result of the referendum was because of a lie on the side of a bus? In all probability, by the leave campaign’s own admission, the referendum was won on a blatant lie. If that was so, we have every right to ask the people to consider it again when the time comes. It will determine the future of every one of us—our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This House can either go along with a lie or it can decide that we are going to stop this here.
People say that we can rely on the Government. I have heard it argued that we can sort out the minutiae of this. I hope that the Government’s promise to do this is firmer than their promise to bring 20,000 Syrian refugees to the UK and to provide a home for 3,000 unaccompanied children. I do not trust this Government to keep their promises.
The difference between 23 June and today is that we have a different Administration in the United States. When people voted, Obama was President of the United States. Today we have a very different presidency —a Trump presidency. Every day we recoil in disbelief at the news from the US, the daily edicts of an Administration who are totally unpredictable. We only have to go the other way—to Russia—and, again, we have questions.
I am not going to speak at great length but, at this time of tremendous instability in the US, in Russia and perhaps in other states in Europe, I suggest that this is the very worst time for us to weaken the European Union. We are the basis for stability. We have our faults. We know that the European Union has its faults, but our own UK Parliament and Government also have their faults. What could be worse than for us to withdraw from Europe? It could be the beginning of the unravelling of the European Union at a time when we need it more than ever before. I would urge this House, at every opportunity, to secure not only our own future but the future of other countries in the world by voting to stay, strongly committed, at the heart of the European Union.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)
My Lords, in the referendum on 23 June, I voted to remain. I took the view that the economic prosperity of the UK was likely to be better looked after if we stayed in the EU than if we left. I thought that, for all its failings, the EU was an integral part of the international system created after two catastrophic world wars originating in Europe. It was intended to enable intra-European disputes and differences to be resolved by peaceful means and to give the countries of Europe, acting together in a world increasingly dominated by superpowers, an influence that none could exert on its own. Our history shows that, when there are differences and disputes in Europe, we are inevitably—and to protect our own interests—drawn into them. We should be taking a full part in Europe, not standing aloof from it.
I welcome the way in which the Prime Minister is seeking to restore and strengthen the relationship with our United States allies. Of course, this is very important, but there are limits to the extent to which we should allow ourselves to become too dependent on it. President Trump’s priorities are crystal clear—America first. We are a stronger and safer ally for the United States as part of the EU than we would be on our own.
So I regretted the outcome of the referendum but, whatever one may think about the quality of the campaign, the result was what it was. We have to respect that and pass this Bill. The result was not a legally effective decision; it was, in effect, a political mandate. It was an instruction to the Government and to Parliament to enter into negotiations with the EU for a treaty and to introduce legislation that would give effect to that instruction. The Bill that we are now debating is, in effect, a process Bill. It does not set out the terms for our leaving the EU; it simply authorises the Government to enter into negotiations with the EU for a treaty that would take us out of it. The elected House has approved the Bill by a substantial majority, and the unelected House should not seek to reverse that decision—or, indeed, to amend it.
The negotiations for our joining the EEC, when there were only six member states, were complex enough. The negotiations for getting us out of the EU by unstitching more than 40 years of membership, when there are 27 other member states, are likely to be much more complex. It is very likely that we shall need to invoke the part of Article 50 that allows the period of negotiation to be extended beyond two years.
I cannot see the outcome of the negotiations; the fog is too dense. It may be possible to negotiate an agreement which gives us a reasonably open and comprehensive trading relationship with Europe; which preserves our participation in European scientific, technological and academic organisations—it benefits them as much as us—which allows the continuance of the flow of migrant and immigrant European workers, on which large parts of British economic and social activity have come to depend; which deals with the problems of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; and which preserves the rights of British citizens who have chosen to live in Europe and of European citizens who have chosen to live in this country. That is a consummation devoutly to be wished for. But there are so many uncertainties and variables that we cannot be sure of it. The EU is under strain for other reasons than Brexit, not least the strains created by the introduction of the euro. There are electoral uncertainties in a number of European countries that could have profound consequences for the European Union.
At the other extreme is the risk of coming out of the negotiations with a deal that is clearly not in British interests. We have been told that we could be faced with a choice between coming out with a bad deal or coming out with no deal at all. That, to me, has an air of political unreality. Surely the Government who presented such an outcome for parliamentary approval would have utterly failed the nation and would have to pay the price for such a failure. There would be a major political crisis at home, as well as a major crisis in our relationship with the EU.
Because the outcome is so uncertain, it is very important that Parliament should be given an opportunity to consider and vote on it when the time comes. I welcome the Government’s commitment to seek parliamentary approval when the probable contents of an agreement are clear, and before any final decisions are taken. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the judgment of the Supreme Court the other day means that whatever parliamentary approval is sought will have to be given by legislation, not by a Motion or a resolution.
By the time the outcome of the negotiations is known, it will be nearly three years, if not more, since the referendum. If a week is a long time in politics, three years are an eternity. When the time comes, the Government will have complied with the political instruction of the referendum, and it will be the responsibility—indeed, the duty—of the Government and of Parliament to look not just backwards at the referendum but forwards to what, in the situation then prevailing, is going to be in the best interests of Britain and the welfare of British citizens, whatever that solution may be, and to set their course accordingly.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster. He gives wise counsel, as ever. I have respected and valued his judgment ever since 30 years ago he gave me a box 1 marking when he did my annual appraisal at the Cabinet Office. I draw attention to my interests as recorded in the register, particularly in relation to Low Associates, which has contracts for event management and other services with the European Commission.
I was a member of David Cameron’s Cabinet when he first promised a referendum on our membership of the EU. I campaigned to remain. I regret that we lost but I respect the result. I therefore support the Bill and I will not back any amendments to it. The Bill is specific in empowering the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50—no more and no less. Any amendment to the Bill is seeking either to fetter that power or to anticipate issues that should properly form part of the discussions on future legislation to implement withdrawal or to establish our future relationship. That legislation should be debated; indeed, probably a year from now we will be debating the so-called great repeal Bill. That will happen while negotiations are still under way.
The Government did not want this Bill but, rightly, were required to bring it forward. I pay tribute, as have others, to those who initiated the case before the Supreme Court. The Government’s mandate to leave is of course in the referendum, but their authority to do so, and the authority for the future agreements with the European Union, will derive from this Parliament. We must exercise that authority at the right time—that is, before the die is cast. Of course, the Government promise a vote on the final deal, but that is not good enough. Parliament must be fully engaged with, and party to, the potential outcomes before that happens. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was quite right to illustrate how Parliament could be engaged properly in that negotiation, and about the potential value to the Government of Parliament being engaged in that negotiation.
One of the most alarming statements among many being made recently about Brexit is that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, about that statement. “No deal” is a bad deal; it is potentially the worst deal. It would be a disorderly exit. It is a cliff edge, if not so much for trade in goods then certainly for services and reciprocal arrangements for health, benefits, accrued rights, research and scientific collaboration—and issues such as policing and justice, as the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, reminded us. I therefore do not share the inference of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, that a good deal for us is a bad one for the EU and vice versa. There are many areas, such as health, science, the environment, policing and security, where continued close collaboration is of mutual benefit. Even in relation to trade and migration, it remains true that open markets deliver growth for both parties.
Open markets, like competition, are a tide that lifts every boat. If we are true to our championing of free trade, our approach to the future relationship with the European Union must be built on the expectation of continuing freedoms to trade and for investment, freedom of capital movement and indeed freedom of movement for skills. There is ample evidence that the British people understand and accept this. I am reminded that my former boss, my noble friend Lord Tebbit, quite often said, “We voted for a Common Market and we’d like to have one”. We still want one.
As the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, said, Britain has long advocated the economic benefits of European Union membership, including Conservative advocacy of the single market, but our enthusiasm has been progressively eclipsed by the political drive for ever-closer union, which this country has never accepted for itself. There are many across Europe who, recognising our increasingly semi-detached nature as a consequence of our EU membership ever since Maastricht, concede that a new relationship, with a comprehensive economic free trade agreement and continued collaboration on that wide range of potentially beneficial issues, could enable the variable geometry of Europe to be realised in a way that EU membership could not accommodate.
I am being optimistic. There are many obstacles, although the worst are not in the enormity of the technical issues but in the politics. European politicians accept that we are leaving but want us to pay a price, including a budgetary price. They want to deter any future secessionist tendencies. They deeply resented the anti-EU rhetoric and perceived misrepresentations of the leave campaign, and they see too much of it being replicated in the Government’s approach prior to the negotiations. They will not accept a have-your-cake-and-eat-it outcome.
So tough decisions are ahead. I sympathise with my noble friends Lady Altmann and Lady Wheatcroft in their anger at what is potentially being done to the future prospects of this country, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay: this is not what I, my children or indeed my former constituents—who voted 62% to remain—wanted. The response, however, should not be to deny democracy but to use our parliamentary democracy to build a new settlement. To achieve this, our starting point must be to reject anti-EU rhetoric and to respect the decisions of other member states and their commitment to a European ideal as much as we are committed to our own path. Our offer should be to be the closest friends and partners of our European neighbours, to see working together as a natural approach and to be prepared for compromise, including through transitional provisions, regulated co-operation and the orderly unwinding of the budgetary settlement.
Shortly after the referendum, an Austrian friend of our family emailed us a picture of his children, with the accompanying text, “Whatever happens, our children will still be friends”. That is how it must be.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, one of the seldom-discussed reasons why Britain voted for Brexit is that we do not speak foreign languages. Our ignorance of continental languages, people, customs, habits and especially markets has made us carelessly complacent. We idly rely on speaking English fortissimo in brokering trade deals. The result? Our shameful balance of trade deficits. The supreme irony is that, when we leave the EU, English will remain the lingua franca binding the EU 27 as they circle the wagons against existential threats. There is slim hope that we will expand our linguistic capabilities as we become buccaneers trading those wider world markets. Does the Minister agree that our ropey language skills have weakened us when it comes to competing within the single market, and will do so again outside of it?
Our domestic failure to ready ourselves for the challenge of the modern world persists: look at the habitual, stumbling response to our poor productivity rates, where we lag behind the rest of the G7. Brexit is not a tailored response to our self-inflicted shortcomings, and that brings me to some practical concerns. Do we have sufficient skilled and experienced civil servants to conduct trade negotiations now and in the future? Have we hired Jonathan Faull, the former right-hand man of Michel Barnier, who will be conducting these conversations?
I know that in my own field of financial services, the Government are begging, borrowing and stealing financial experts from the City of London, at goodness knows what cost, while our civil servants’ negotiating skills in the art of trade have lain dormant for years. How are we to make up this shortfall in trade experts and at what cost? Indeed, what preparations are HMG undertaking to broaden and deepen those trading skills as we look to new markets round the world? Will the Minister say how much we have paid in hiring those financial and trade experts? Why could we not have done all this beforehand? As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, when we were in the single market, why did we not make the effort to make it a proper, working single market?
For some years, I was your Lordships’ representative at the parliamentary conference of the World Trade Organization. Pascal Lamy was its fine director, but even his agile mind could not resolve the contradictions inherent in the bilateral, the plurilateral, or the multilateral paths of advancing world trade. However, the vagaries of WTO trading rules are the very pit into which we will slip if we fail to secure a deal with the remaining 27. Is that what we want? Is that what we really, really want? The WTO rules are a disgrace and a disaster. Parliament must have the final say on securing a deal if we are to be pitched into the WTO rules.
Here is the essence of what I want to say: what decisive advantage do HMG discern in embarking on this hard Brexit for the UK? I ask the Government to please spell it out. The White Paper is shifty, while the three Brexiteers retire daily from the fake advantages they hailed in the run-up to the referendum. The weekly £350 million for the NHS was the most evanescent of the will-o’-the-wisps cited by the leavers. We are buying a pig in a poke.
Financial services is, as they say, my bag. Perhaps the Government might ponder the thoughts of your Lordships’ EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee, which I had the honour to chair from 2010 to 2015. In its recent Brexit report, it saw the City of London under threat from New York as well as the continental contenders such as Frankfurt and Paris, to which it was reported this morning that 1,000 employees of HSBC will repair. Why on earth are we imperilling the City of London’s pre-eminence as Europe’s global financial centre? Moreover, what will be the consequence to our domestic services industry of losing the London-based European Banking Authority, chaired by the excellent Andrea Enria? The consequence will be the loss of jobs and influence, but what is the gain?
So I will indeed do my patriotic duty and oppose this reckless, ill-thought-out plunge into the murky waters of illusory UK independence in a world of ever-increasing interdependence, the trading world. I was sent to the Lords to use my block, not to be part of the block vote of blind Brexiteers. I was sent here to think through and test Governments of all persuasions to think about their errors, missteps and policy stumbles, as were we all. Perhaps the Minister can explain how his many companions here and in the other place suddenly found themselves born-again leavers, no longer remainers. Are we not a representative democracy, where MPs think for themselves, as they have done on assisted dying and the bring-back-hanging debate? Referendums are reserved for Prime Ministers to wriggle out of their given responsibility to act in the best interests of the country.
Note, too, the Brexiteers’ lazy assertion that the Anglophone world will embrace us with open arms if we leave, but the Commonwealth is a small corner shop compared to the vibrant shopping mall of the EU single market. Holding hands with a rudderless President Trump will not make up for our wilful self-exclusion from the world’s biggest single market.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, I have no interest to declare, save that I have waited for 25 years for this moment. The decisions about Brexit did not start last summer. There are a number of reasons why this House will not bring credit upon itself by obstructing the Article 50 process. The first is the continuing failure to appreciate that people knew what they were voting for. The disdain shown for leave voters is unprecedented. They do not want to be patronised. Many voted to leave precisely because they were being treated as ignorant.
Over the years, leavers have seen, sadly, that tolerance, the rule of law, judicial integrity and freedom of the press have all failed in various countries of the EU; that it is dysfunctional; that a number of EU states are low in the league table of world corruption; that some eastern European states are sliding backwards, with leaders who espouse the same attitudes as President Trump to barriers and to rejecting migrants on religious grounds. The UK has been unable to stop this happening. This country should not be part of a union, let alone have laws determined by it, if it has such failings.
Leavers have seen the damage that the institution has wrought through, for example, state aid rules and the imposition of the euro; the lack of effective foreign policy and accountability; the failures to deal with migrants and the rise of the extreme right wing; and even diesel. The economic benefits that membership may bring are outweighed in my mind by the EU’s weaknesses over principles of rights and proper governance which are far more vital to us in the long run. I am not prepared to compromise my values on an altar of tariffs and I am optimistic that things will work out. Another reason is that a significant number of noble Lords have close ties to the EU: the perception will be that this affects their judgment.
It is for the House to determine the question of relevance, but in ordinary parlance the amendments do not seem to me to be within the scope of the Bill, which is about giving notice to withdraw under Article 50. There is no scope within Article 50 itself for embellishments. The negotiations and agreements come later. In considering our negotiation aims, where is the equivalent of our White Paper from the 27 other members, setting out their position and their goals? All we have heard from the EU since the referendum is a desire for punishment and self-protection. There has been no rallying call, no conciliation and no plans for a better future—only fear and a desire for revenge and money, rather like a bad divorce where mediation has failed. I would not want to be a member of a club that will not let me leave even though I am disliked.
The time for seeking agreements—for example, about the residence rights of EU nationals living here and UK citizens living abroad—is later, but in relation to residence rights the UK is now, and will stay for the foreseeable future, a party to the European Convention on Human Rights. The call for immediate guarantees on residence is, in fact, a red herring: it is impossible to imagine that any EU national living here could suffer an arbitrary reduction in benefits or threats to family life, let alone mass expulsion, without recourse to the Human Rights Act, with every prospect of success. To embed rights for residents now is to force Her Majesty’s Government into a position without the real need to do so and to hamper the Government in their negotiations.
So far as a second referendum is hypothetically concerned, why would it be any more binding than the first? Losing it would be as unacceptable to the losing side as the June referendum was. Would there have to be a third referendum—the best of three? It would plunge negotiations into chaos at the moment of conclusion and leave us in limbo. Clauses that might be added to the Bill now could, of course, be repealed by the Government, like the provisions of any other Act. One can envisage the Government coming back in two years and saying, “We have to repeal this addition because it does not fit in our negotiations”. If they have a majority, that is what they will achieve. Only after the two-year process is over does Parliament get its sovereignty back.
The House of Lords, although it may disagree, always concedes to the Commons that which is promised in the manifesto of the party that won the election. I quote:
“We will let you decide whether to stay in or leave the EU … We will honour the result of the referendum, whatever the outcome”.
Some 65% of the electorate did not vote to remain. There has been a strong undemocratic attack on the referendum result, and some of these amendments are plainly designed to undermine Brexit or to make it meaningless. It is impossible to imagine that had a political party with a radical manifesto won a general election by 2% or 3% the losing side would chip away at and more or less refuse to accept the result in a way reminiscent of those tin-pot dictators in some parts of the world who refuse to accept defeat. The nature of the push-back is summed up by the mission of the former Prime Minister whose judgment on another international situation led directly to the Chilcot inquiry. As for voting with one’s conscience, even if one believes that Brexit would turn out badly, that prerogative belongs to the Cross-Bench Peers. Every day in this House, Peers belonging to political parties troop into the lobby to vote in a particular way as mandated by their party—because democracy in our system is tied to party discipline—and so it should be today. The duty of the House is to give this Bill a fair wind as it stands.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. This Bill is simple: its only purpose is to give Her Majesty’s Government the authority to begin the process of leaving the European Union, as voted for by the British public. I remind your Lordships that this House is bound by the Salisbury convention, which states that where a Government have made an election promise which was included in their manifesto, and voted on by the electorate, that promise will not be rejected by this House. How much more should this respect for voters’ wishes bind this House when the issue has been directly voted on by the electorate in a national referendum?
The proposed amendments for Committee stage are distractions designed to impede the process and avoid carrying out what the people of this country have voted for. The amendments should be rejected; this Bill is only about firing the starting gun. This House has no alternative but to agree this Bill, which directly reflects the will of the people, and give it a swift passage.
Comment has been made that the majority in favour of leaving was not large enough for such a momentous decision and therefore lacks legitimacy. That is not so. It was a clear majority and was achieved in the face of the most appalling bias, starting with more than £9 million of taxpayers’ money being spent on a leaflet containing inaccuracies. An embarrassing and truly shaming amount of pressure was then put on organisations of all types and sizes to say publicly what a disaster Brexit would be, even to the extent of the previous Prime Minister trying to get the editor of the Daily Mail sacked. Well done the proprietor for resisting this and well done Paul Dacre, the editor, for standing up for the newspaper’s integrity and not being corrupted by the antics of the fear campaigners!
The fundamental argument is this: should Great Britain be governed from Westminster by a democratically elected and accountable Government or should it be governed by unelected bureaucrats in another country? It is a simple argument. Personally, I do not want to surrender my country to another power. The sovereignty argument is overwhelming but for those who have concerns about the economics of leaving the European Union, I point out that we have a trade deficit some £70 billion a year with the EU from which it benefits. This makes the EU the supplicant and puts it in the weaker bargaining position. The European Union needs us more than we need it. This economic imperative will push towards a solution agreeable to all, in spite of some of the pessimistic noises made during this debate. With large corporations such as Google, Nissan and Apple making commitments in Great Britain, there is increasing evidence for optimism. European politicians—notably Germany’s Finance Minister—have also started commenting on how essential Great Britain is to the European economy.
The only real impediment to a satisfactory conclusion to Great Britain leaving the European Union would be to fetter the British negotiators with amendments at the Committee stage of this Bill. This would damage the negotiating position by taking away flexibility and room to manoeuvre. Frankly, some of the amendments put down show only that those proposing the amendments are doing so with ill intent or lack experience of the real world.
The British people were asked what they wanted—to stay or to leave. They chose to leave and it is not the place of this House to get in their way.
Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)
My Lords, batting at number 153 as I am, I do not seek to make a balanced and complete argument as many have done. I am here, however, to speak on two points where I have specific real-life, worldly experience. I voted to remain but I am also among the 48% of us who want to find out as quickly as we can how our lives, families and jobs will actually be affected.
I am particularly concerned about the economic effects. We are a small island, unable to feed ourselves, and we live by trading, as we always have. I share the concerns of my noble friend Lord Harrison about our abilities to do all this. This sounds like history now but I started my Civil Service career in the Board of Trade—even before we joined the European Union—and I was concerned with the annual negotiations on how much butter, bacon and lamb the Australians, New Zealanders and Danes were to be allowed to sell in the UK. This took weeks every year and burnt up senior time. It would be as nothing to the negotiations we will have to undertake, sector by sector with the European Union or severally with the USA or Canada, on the full range of goods.
Nor can we have any confidence that negotiations will succeed. Our fellow members of the European Union are naturally disposed to seek to negotiate away our perceived advantages, most obviously in the financial services sector. Here I remind the House that I was a director of the London Stock Exchange Group for 12 years until 2013. The recent merger between LSEG and Deutsche Boerse is an example. The deal—I voted for it as a shareholder—provides that the headquarters of the joint group shall be in London and subject to UK regulation. The deal is under attack already from German politicians who now see the possibility opened by Brexit of getting the headquarters in Frankfurt, hoping that jobs and business will follow. The French are trying much the same. All that will happen if they are successful is probably that the jobs will go to New York because that is where financial services will move. A prominent Brexiteer in the other place sought to persuade me that clever investment bankers will adjust. Yes, they will. They will do the business where they can, move people where they need to, and it will not be here but most probably in New York.
In other sectors we will also lose business and jobs, particularly in the short to medium term, while we struggle to get our trading positions and prospects back to where we are now. Nor should we put much reliance on even the most potentially willing of our allies, namely the United States. However much President Trump wants to help us, he is also committed to keeping business and jobs in the USA, and in any conflict between the interests of an ally and the interests of his own core voters there can be no doubt which way he must go. Similarly, Australia and New Zealand would very much like to trade with us again but, since they are both knowingly exporters of agricultural products, what they mean is that they would like to sell us things, which will not necessarily be very productive for our balance of payments.
I suggest that in an even more serious consequence, again in an area where I have experience because I was an adviser in the Ministry of Defence from 1998 to 2005, as well as being a non-executive director. We, and everyone else in Europe, have been sheltered by the American umbrella since the Second World War. The Americans have expected, and largely got in return for this a united Europe, a united defence against their perceived enemies. I wonder whether they will feel the same about us if we become yet again a small island, no longer attached to the European name.
I believe that we must all—remainers and leavers—be allowed to oversee and understand that the majority wish to resile; indeed, it is a course of action on which we are embarked. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, reminded us, we can do all that within the Article 50 process. We do not have to hurry and it is not for ever.
There is another point on which I have specific knowledge and on which I want to speak. My eldest son has lived in Germany for the last 20 years and my brother is married and lives in France. Despite this, I think it is a matter of honour that we should here and now announce that immigrants from Europe now in the United Kingdom must legally be guaranteed the right to stay. We must take this step because it is a moral duty. I also believe that it is an important step to keep the immigrants who are actually here and working in our most critical industries feeling reassured and welcome in a climate where they are suffering, quite unjustly. I also believe that it would be an important reassurance to our European partners that we are not hostile to them and prepared to treat their people decently, and that this would improve what is at the moment a very sour negotiating climate in which difficult negotiations will take place.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, the Telegraph reports today that the EU Bill for a Brexit divorce is €60 billion. It is made up of existing annual budget commitments until 2019, pension obligations and other longer-term liabilities. The European Commission concedes that the United Kingdom should be allowed to offset against that Bill its share of the assets of the EU, perhaps between €15 and €20 billion, so we are left with a net hefty €40 billion or so to stump up as the price of divorce.
What does the Government’s White Paper say about this prospective liability? Absolutely nothing. Do the Government agree we have a price to pay? If so, how much? We do not know. This is not a poker game, and this is just one card in a whole stack of cards. The Government’s argument is that to disclose our negotiating position on any issue would harm our national interest. I do not believe for a moment that that is the reason for their reticence. If you do not disclose your hand, and keep your cards close to your chest, there is no measure by which the public can judge whether your negotiations are a success or failure. Whatever deal can be dragged out of the negotiations can then be termed victory. That is exactly what David Cameron did a year ago. The Government cannot be seen to fail. Where they create a desert, they call it peace.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem pointed out yesterday that if the deal goes pear-shaped, as we believe it will, the members of the public who voted for leave will look the other way, and everybody will blame the politicians. Yet Brexiteers heap scorn on our suggestion that the people of this country should be given ownership of the deal that is negotiated by ratifying it in a referendum. Let them own it. No, the Government say, “You gave us the mandate to start the process, so you must accept the result”. Well, fair enough. Press the Article 50 button and let the Conservative Party take the consequences. This is where I enjoyed the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, yesterday—I regret to say that he has just deserted his post. Like a good general, as Jo Grimond once reminded us, he marched his troops towards the sound of gunfire. There is no longer any point in attacking Her Majesty’s Opposition. It is rather like the fall of France in June 1941, when the leadership had deserted and left behind strong pockets of courageous resistance; the Free French have become Free Labour.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, spends his six minutes attacking the Liberal Democrats. He is a latter-day Earl of Cardigan, leading the charge of the Brexit brigade. He bellows at our Benches: “Yours not to make reply, yours not to reason why, yours but to do and die”. The Russian gunners thought the Light Brigade charged the guns at Balaclava because they were drunk. I think the Brexiteers are, for the moment, intoxicated, but merely by the success of their campaign. Unfortunately, it is we in Wales who will share the depths of their hangover.
Wales is a net beneficiary of European funding to the tune of £680 million annually. Importantly, EU funding is based on need, not on a calculation of population share, like the Barnett formula. For example, Welsh farmers receive £274 million each year in direct subsidies under the CAP. These are significantly above the Barnett share of UK receipts. It reflects the marginal nature and low incomes of much Welsh farming. Are the farmers going to receive this support after 2020? Will they face the destruction of their industry by cheap imports or by a trade deal with New Zealand, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, spoke of a moment ago?
Take the support for the poorer parts of Wales. The European Social Fund is due to invest £800 million in Wales in tackling poverty, supporting people into work and increasing skills among young people and the most disadvantaged. Will the Government commit to replacing this funding after 2020? Take economic development. The current ESIF programmes are investing more than £1.1 billion in research and innovation, business, renewable energy and urban development in Wales. We have spent years creating a single market, removing barriers to trade, standardising our regulations and creating a level playing field for us all to serve a market of 400 million people. It is not good business to abandon it all. Progressives believe that it will lead to the impoverishment of the people of this country.
The noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Robathan, who indulged in some light skirmishing earlier today, are both right. We are the enemy—to Brexiteers, to Trump’s vision of America and to populist politics everywhere. We are progressives. We stand instinctively for co-operation, not conflict, in Europe; for universal human rights; for social welfare and the health service; for the solution of environmental issues across borders; and for a common standard of justice throughout Europe. We have been led along these paths by Lloyd George, Keynes, Beveridge, Attlee, Nye Bevan, Roy Jenkins and many others. The wheel will turn again.
Thirty-six years after Balaclava, Rudyard Kipling reflected on the aftermath of the famous charge in his poem “The Last of the Light Brigade”:
“O thirty million English that babble of England’s might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children’s children are lisping to ‘honour the charge they made—’
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!”
Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, we must organise, not agonise—this is not the time for your Lordships’ House to agonise but to organise a smooth journey for the Bill to allow the Government to invoke Article 50. Speculation is not legislation. The reality is that until the Bill is passed into law, all that has happened since the Brexit vote remains uneasy speculation. The Bill must become law in order to implement the people’s referendum result and respect the judgment of the Supreme Court.
Brexit is a process, not an event. The passing of the Bill is an essential part of this process. We are privileged to be engaged in the most important season in British history since World War II. But as the Prime Minister, Theresa May, said on 17 January:
“We are leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe”.
For example, after Brexit we will remain an influential permanent member of the UN Security Council, the second-largest contributor to NATO after America, and a leading member of the G7, the G20 and the Commonwealth. However, we are now seeking partnerships no longer dictated by Europe. This is the opportunity to become a truly global Great Britain.
My wife, who is here today, is American and between us we have at least seven nationalities in our family. Lady Taylor is Swedish, Cherokee and Texan. My side is Caribbean, Irish, Indian and, of course, Birmingham. Recently Lady Taylor and I were guests of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington DC at a dinner addressed by the Vice-President, Michael Pence. There was also an invitation to President Trump’s National Prayer Breakfast. At this landmark event, the only people allowed were the President of the United States of America and me—and about 2,000 other guests. I had the privilege to be interviewed by Fox News and other American media. It was striking from these experiences that as a result of the referendum our biggest single trading partner—America—clearly now sees Britain very much at the front of the trading queue. The Americans and other huge trading partners such as China and India are watching very closely to see whether we seize the opportunity that Brexit gives us. This is not the time to delay or draw back.
For your Lordships’ House not to pass the Bill would be missing an amazing open goal. Being a long-suffering supporter of Aston Villa, missing open goals is an activity I am used to watching. In fact, there was a rumour that Aston Villa would be applying for a European trademark on missing open goals. But unlike in football, we cannot rely on extra time or a replay. In order to win for global Britain we have to stride forward and score the greater goal now.
The prizes ahead for winning are clear. They include, first and foremost, control of our own laws, with the end of the European Court of Justice overruling British courts. Brexit will strengthen the union between the four nations of this United Kingdom by returning power to Westminster and the devolved Administrations. We will be able to control immigration to attract the brightest and the best to work or study here. There will be a free trade agreement with the European Union. We will no longer be shackled by the EU’s single market or burdened with paying huge sums to the EU budget. Britain will become a truly global trading nation, making trade agreements around the world, including with the 52 nations of the Commonwealth, free from the constraints of EU customs union membership. The result will be not only a stronger Great Britain but a stronger Europe and a stronger world.
I am from a diverse racial background and I greatly admire the contrasting cultures and languages within the European Union, but the EU has 24 official languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. Then there are the classified, semi-official languages, including Basque and Catalan. Let us not forget the main immigrant languages, including Russian, Berber, Turkish and Kurdish. Each language brings with it a different identity and understanding. I am a great supporter of diversity, but the EU has become a bureaucratic tower of Babel where complexity and confusion increasingly frustrate co-operation. Compare this with the 52 nations of the Commonwealth family who possess the spirit of Great Britain. They are one-third of the world’s population. The Commonwealth nations share an immensely rich and enduring history and culture, with English as a common language, and the same sovereign—Her Majesty the Queen. The timing of this Bill is excellent, since Britain is due to host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting—CHOGM—in 2018.
This Bill is not a leap into the dark. When fear knocks at our door, we must answer it with faith. In doing so, we have the assurance of Proverbs 16:9 that people make their plans but God directs our steps. It was Sir Winston Churchill who said:
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it”.
Brexit has for ever rewritten British history. Now, through this Bill, we can make Great Britain an even greater Britain.
Lord Giddens (Lab)
My Lords, bananas. I am just trying to get the attention of noble Lords at this point in the proceedings. “Bananas” was the response given by a member of the audience on the BBC’s “Question Time” to explain why she had voted to leave the EU. The essence of her point was that there are too many rules and regulations—it comes to something when the EU decides what shape of banana we can buy in the shops. The bendy banana is, of course, a favourite of the anti-EU media as well. Pressed on the issue, she added, on a more positive note, that “there are opportunities out there that we ought to seize as a country”. She immediately became a Twitter star and showed herself to be an articulate, feisty person.
There are indeed opportunities out there, but they will not take the form of a leap to freedom from burdensome regulation. The banana trade is a huge business and heavily contested, as anyone who is familiar with the banana wars will know. Outside the EU, Britain will be faced with the same need for detailed regulations concerning how that particular fruit and a multiplicity of other goods are to be defined and traded. It will not be magically released to determine these regulations, which are fought over and decided both bilaterally and within the WTO. The wrangling often goes on for years. Britain has much more chance of influencing the outcome as a member of the EU than it has acting in isolation, because the bargaining power of the Union is far stronger than that of an individual nation. So the case of the bendy banana actually shows the opposite of what is often claimed.
The situation is no different in the case of migration. There is no magical la-la land waiting for the UK outside of the EU here, either. Any significant bilateral trade deals made after leaving the Union will almost certainly mean us making concessions on freedom of movement. We can all agree that the anxieties felt about migration, especially in poorer communities, must be responded to. The causes of the resentment involved are complex and the policy responses must be as well.
The Government have declared that Britain will leave the single market and will try to negotiate a pick-and-mix agreement with the rest of the EU. The obstacles, both political and economic, standing in the way are huge. The phrase “global Britain” is trotted out as a mantra, but it is dangerously misleading. It is absolutely not the case that distance has become irrelevant to trade. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, touched on this point in his magisterial speech, but he did not develop it. Trade is strongly influenced by proximity and by effective regulation, especially in the case of services, which make up the bulk of Britain’s exports. It is a mistake to suppose that the advances in global communications have altered all that.
The results of a recent study carried out by a non-partisan body, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, on this issue are both revealing and disconcerting. The author calculates that quitting the single market will reduce UK total trade in the long term by 22%, even if Britain manages to set up a free trade agreement with the rest of the EU, an outcome that is itself far from certain. She estimates that trade gains from the much-touted possible free trade deals with the BRICS would amount to no more than 2%. Those set up with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would be only fractionally larger, at under 3%. The single market has been very successful at reducing non-tariff barriers, so important for trade in services, but crucially she concludes that free trade deals reached with non-EU nations are by contrast almost wholly ineffective in reducing such barriers. Services free trade agreements tend to be limited in scope, especially as regards financial services, and fall far short of the passporting rights of the single market. These are troubling conclusions indeed for the British economy, given that services make up the bulk of our exports.
A total of 16.1 million people voted for Britain to stay in the EU, versus 17.4 million to leave. We do not know what proportion of those who voted to leave wanted to abandon the single market, since the leave option was left empty of content, or made deliberately ambiguous. There was no forward plan at all. If even 10% of leavers were attracted by the Norway or Switzerland models, there was no majority for hard Brexit. I echo what other noble Lords have said about the assertion that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain. No deal would be a very bad deal indeed, not least for what remains of this country’s manufacturing industry and for all smaller farmers too. I shall therefore support amendments which keep open the chance of the UK staying in the single market, and I hope that many other noble Lords will do the same.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest. For 37 years we have had a much-loved home in Italy, which today lies broken by the recent earthquakes and falls of snow. But we will rebuild it, and do so with confidence in the future as committed Europeans.
Naturally, I wish it had been clarified that EU citizens resident here and UK citizens in the EU will stay—but this was refused by others. One hopes that they will soon come to their senses, for the idea that in my small comune in Italy, where live British, Germans, Romanians, Dutch, Albanians, Belgians, Macedonians and Russians, there would ever be a rastrellamento to drive out the British, while letting others stay, is quite preposterous. Let the blockers of this deal relent—and until they do, we do not need a divisive campaign to pin blame for this uncertainty on our Government, who want the matter cleared.
I will vote against that and all amendments to this Bill, for each and every amendment is, in my judgment, an attempt to bind the will of the people in coils of silk. That includes the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to give, as I heard it, an effective veto on the details of the UK settlement with Europe to an unelected House that largely supported remain.
The British people decided by a majority of 1,269,501—a figure which is not so very small, being more than the populations of Sheffield, Manchester and Leicester combined—that Britain should leave the European Union. We must therefore leave, for better and for worse—and there will be both—and this Bill is the first step in that process. This House should not stand, at any stage, against delivery of the clear will of the people, supported by the elected House.
Nor, I submit, should this House now send a message to the British people that your Lordships so little respect their decision that we already want a second referendum. That would be seen as exemplifying the stubborn refusal to listen to the people that has brought political establishments and the EU itself into growing disfavour.
I also plead for an end to the political rhetoric that sets generation against generation. Young people are just older people in waiting, and older people, if they are wise, hold close to the idealism of youth. We are made of the same stuff. No class, age or place voted monolithically in the referendum. No one betrayed anyone. No one failed to think of the future. The great British people came together in numbers never seen before and issued a collective wisdom that we should all respect.
I voted in 1975 to stay in the EEC. I saw the free trade side of the coin and missed the protectionism. I saw the co-operation and missed the drive for harmonisation. I respect those who still cherish that idealism. But, as a child of the Sixties who marched for freedom, I must say that I would not march with enthusiasm today to stay under what an unreformed Brussels has sadly become—remote, sclerotic, undemocratic and the slowest creator of prosperity in the developed world: the landline in the digital age.
When we hear, as we did from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, that the future is uncertain, and when we hear time and again that the future will be bleak outside the EU, I have to say that for millions, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, said so compellingly, the grass is not greener on the inside. The catastrophic euro project is grinding southern Europe and squeezing life out of the small businesses that are Italy’s lifeblood. Italian GDP has shrunk since 2011 and living standards are no higher than they were when Italy joined the euro in the first place. Those, too, are facts. That is the real “lost generation”. It is not what may be to come post Brexit but what is in the book—what has been done.
Youth unemployment has more than doubled in 10 years in Italy to over 40% and Greece’s condition is worse, yet the establishment clings to its euro project, sacrificing a young generation on the altar of a flawed currency ideology. They call it “internal devaluation”; I call it profoundly immoral. The EU has shown itself utterly incapable of dealing with the challenge of half a million illegal immigrants who have been landed in Italy in the last three years, drawn by the prospect of winning asylum under the aegis of the ECHR.
At all this the average Italian looks on with a sense of impotence and despair. Once, with no loyalty to a malfunctioning state and with a self-seeking and unaccountable political caste, Italians were the most enthusiastic in Europe in looking to the European Union as a guarantor of legality and stability. Far fewer feel that way now. The great majority still wish to stay, but it has not taken the earthquakes to make many people feel that years of sacrifice under the burning sun have been in vain and that they are drifting back to the poverty of the past. Increasingly, voices are raised against Brussels—and Berlin. An Italian small businessman said to me, “Europe was fine when we all sat at a round table. Now we sit at a very long, very bare table, with Germany at its head”.
Not only is coming out uncertain: staying in is uncertain, too, and we should remember that balance in this debate. As one who is no less European now than I was last June, I say with reluctance that, as the EU has now become unwilling or unable to reform—as David Cameron found to his cost—the British people were right. They took the correct decision and I support the Bill.
Lord Truscott (Ind Lab)
My Lords, as a former Member of the European Parliament, I have always believed that the British people are European, geographically, politically and culturally. We are not some pop-up island in the mid-Atlantic; we have ties to the European continent that stretch back centuries, millennia even. However, as we have just learned from the Brexit vote, that does not mean that British people are necessarily wedded to any set of European institutions. Unfortunately, and as I witnessed at first hand, the EU’s leaders overreached themselves and failed to take their people with them; nowhere was that more true than in the UK. The EU increasingly became perceived as a self-serving edifice, a huge ideological and political project, run by an elite remote from the daily concerns of Europe’s citizens. The euro always had a political rather than an economic rationale, designed to bring about the ever-closer union to which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred earlier. Greece should never have been allowed to join the euro in the first place.
In Britain, for over 30 years the European Union was pilloried by our press and much of the Conservative Party as costly, undemocratic, overly bureaucratic and slightly ridiculous. I remember well the straight banana saga referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. I was an MEP at the time and had the pleasure of receiving a rotten banana through the post. We should hardly be surprised that the British people, conditioned to be anti-EU for so many years, voted for Brexit. When David Cameron came back from Brussels with his non-deal, his fate was sealed, and so was our country’s. I remember Mikhail Gorbachev suffered the same fate in 1991. Asked for financial support, Europe’s leaders refused. A Russian coup followed shortly, and within months the USSR had ceased to exist, after 70-odd years as the Soviet Union. The EU’s leaders’ myopia led to Brexit. Some 60 years after the treaty of Rome, Europe is in crisis and it is an open question whether the EU will survive to its 70th birthday.
We should not rail against the British people for voting in favour of Brexit, no matter how small the margin was. Those who voted did so with their eyes open because they were concerned about mass immigration, loss of national identity, sovereignty, globalisation and marginalisation. That they did so reflects badly not on them, but on a comfortable liberal elite too smug and complacent by far. Brexit, as shown by the election of Donald Trump, was not a purely British or even European phenomenon but one with global implications. Protectionism, largely eradicated in the beggar-thy-neighbour 1930s, is back on the agenda.
I do not believe in government by referenda; I believe in government through a representative democracy, with Parliament at its heart. However, if you ask the people a question, you cannot ignore the answer simply because you do not like the result, as has been said many times in your Lordships’ House over the last couple of days. When people vote for a Government, they live with that choice, often for four years or more with no opportunity to change it. With a referendum, you cannot ask people to keep voting until they come up with the right decision. That is not only contemptuous of democracy, but treats the electorate as stupid. That would be a very dangerous concept to embrace, and would undermine the very principle of democracy that has sustained this island nation since the middle ages.
There is another factor that your Lordships must take into account in this debate. On 23 June last year we heard the verdict of the people. We may not like it, but it was clear. More recently, the other place has spoken, with a Third Reading majority of 372 in favour of triggering Article 50. I agree with the arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and others on this point. To my mind, it is inconceivable that this unelected House should try to hobble the elected one or the will of the people on a clear issue of principle: that the Government notify the EU of an intention to withdraw and thereby start trade negotiations. Triggering Article 50 is the only logical and democratic response to the referendum held on 23 June. If the elected other place has decided not to approve amendments, then it is not our place to do so on an issue of fundamental principle.
Your Lordships are not being asked to amend or revise some common or garden piece of legislation. In response to the question asked earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, when he said that he had not received a convincing argument as to why your Lordships should not amend the Bill, the issue at stake here is the primacy of the House of Commons. That is the fundamental principle of our unwritten constitution. As a historian, I think it would be totally unacceptable for this unelected House to flout the will of the House of Commons and of the people. That is the difference between this piece of legislation and other pieces of legislation. This was a political decision made by the people and taken by the people. As the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, said, it was a political mandate—a clear mandate by the people to their elected representatives and to Parliament as whole. As many noble Lords have said, your Lordships’ House should not put itself on a collision course with the elected Chamber in a battle that it cannot, and should not, win.
I welcome the fact that the Government have promised a final vote on the deal they will bring back from Brussels, and no doubt there will be further discussion and debate on that. I am sure that the Prime Minister will not make the same mistake as her predecessor in trying to sell a hopeless deal to Parliament and the British people.
As for the EU itself, it has some challenging days ahead. Brexit already means that it will have to adapt to survive. Politically, the thunderstorms in Europe are gathering. Whatever lies ahead, this country will survive. It is the task of Parliament and Government to ensure that it prospers.
Lord Watson of Richmond (LD)
My Lords, I declare a historic interest and note that I have no contemporary interest. I worked with the late—and great—Lord Jenkins in the European Commission for just over four years, at the end of which period I decided to come home. It was an interesting revelatory moment with regard to working within the European Commission, because when I attempted to resign, the head of personnel, who as it happens was an Englishman, said, “You can’t possibly do that—you are a fonctionnaire permanente!”. He meant every word. However, I persisted, and came home. I took my pension agreement with me at that point and I no longer have one from the European Commission. I make that clear.
On 15 June, a number of days before the referendum, we had a debate in this House on the referendum itself. By then, it was already clear that the referendum was in many ways dangerous, certainly divisive, and likely to be damaging. But for me, the most important thing about it was its folly. It was an unnecessary referendum, a miscalculation, and a high price has been paid. However, for the time being, as many noble Lords have said, this is water under the bridge. Cruel events over the next two years may well change the electorate’s perspective, but meanwhile, what can be done? I find three imperatives compelling and possibly hopeful.
First, over the next two years, we have the opportunity —and the obligation—to change the narrative on Europe. I remind the House that the White Paper’s title is The United Kingdom’s Exit from and New Partnership with the European Union. We should take that title seriously. There is a positive experience—a number of them—on which to base a more positive narrative. First, it is factually correct that on the overall economic balance, membership has been good for the United Kingdom. Look, for example, at the role of the City, which has enormously benefited in its standing and prowess, and in particular its transactions related to the euro. Look at what a Minister called recently the “beacons of success” in manufacturing; namely, the car industry. Why are we the recipients of this huge flow of inward investment? From South Korea, India and Japan, the cars that are being manufactured make Britain numerically one of the greatest car manufacturers and exporters in the world, and that is because we have this access to the single market. Look at research and development and at our universities. I say, as a Cambridge man, how interesting it is that Oxford is to make the first move in terms of situating itself in part on the continent.
Our membership has also been very good for the European Union. Reference has been made to the role of English, so let me share something with noble Lords. One of the things that I am proud of during my four years in the European Commission was a certain battle for the English language. I well remember going to a meeting, having had it explained to me beforehand by a Frenchman in the Groupe du Porte-Parole that if I submitted a paper on Mondays for a decision on Wednesdays in English, it would not appear for three weeks. If I submitted it in French, it would be dealt with that week. An Italian was in the chair at the meeting—it was a Council meeting but I was there for the Commission—and everyone began to speak in French. The contributions were being made in alphabetical order and Watson is at the end of the alphabet. As it came near to my turn I thought, “What on earth am I going to do? Well, I can speak German”. But then I thought to myself, “How stupid. English is a European language”. So I went into English and the Irishman who was sitting next to me said, “Oh begorra”—I should not say “sweet Jesus” in this House—“thank you for doing that”. He too immediately went into English and from that moment on everyone else did. So that was quite gratifying.
The second imperative is that when we trigger Article 50, which we will, we will also trigger the so-called new partnership. On 10 October last year I put down a Question for Written Answer asking what the Government were going to do to respect and take fully into account the votes of the millions who voted for remain. I received this reply:
“Our guiding approach is to … deliver the … best deal for the British people … working constructively with our EU partners going forward”.
I would therefore like to ask the Minister what plans Her Majesty’s Government have for going forward constructively with our new partners in Europe. We have heard all about the opposite, but let us hear a bit on this side. I also think that this House has a key role to play and Parliament clearly so in terms of scrutiny and above all in ensuring that this new relationship is, in the end, voted on by both Houses of Parliament, and that the vote is important and decisive so that there is no legitimacy to this outcome unless that vote takes place.
Thirdly, I want to refer to a contribution made yesterday to the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, is in her place. In her speech she used a wonderful analogy. She said that when marriages break up, there is usually a messy divorce and the only people to benefit are the lawyers. I have a horrible feeling that that is exactly what we are going to replicate over the next two years. But she went on to say that quite often after a divorce has happened, there is a reconciliation and an amazingly large number of partners remarry. Is that la-la land? One thing I can say is that it is a much better prospect than its alternative of division, disaster and maybe catastrophe.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Watson, particularly in his reference to language because I can remember being told by a department of state in London when I was a Member of Parliament that it could of course produce a document in Welsh, but it would take two or three weeks to translate it if it was to give any attention to it. These things happen, I fear, all around the world.
I believe that the advice given by the voters in June’s referendum represents a disastrous course for the UK and one which in time people will come to bitterly regret. My party, Plaid Cymru, wants to see Wales and Britain remain in the EU, and if that is now impossible, to secure as open a settlement as is possible with our EU partners. Plaid’s three MPs voted against the Bill because of the Government’s stance in backing the hardest of hard Brexits. Had a single market or customs union linkage been accepted by the Government, we would not have opposed the Bill, but the Government rejected such amendments.
Let us never forget why European countries came together after World War 2: to make it impossible to go to war against each other ever again. Since 1945, we have enjoyed over 70 years of peace, the longest unbroken period of peace in 400 years. I trust that this House will not be rushed into taking decisions against its better judgment on the basis of an arbitrary timetable imposed by a Prime Minister who seems to be running scared of scrutiny.
Let us remember that lack of scrutiny was evident in the funding claims made by the Brexiteers. People were told downright lies about the funding consequences that would arise by leaving the EU. In Wales, we are £245 million a year net beneficiaries from the EU. The gross figure is some £650 million, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, mentioned earlier. EU structural funds have underpinned dozens of local economic projects. People in the old industrial areas of Wales voted out because they were told that every penny of EU funding would be replaced by the Treasury, but amendments to that end were rejected by the Government.
Last June, people voted out for many reasons. We were repeatedly told by Brexiteers that we could continue to co-operate with EU countries on key issues, including security and migration, and maintain close trading links with Europe. Half a dozen models were advocated by various parts of the rag, tag and bobtail amalgam which constituted the Brexit campaign. Individuals knew what they were voting against: farmers voted against Brussels bureaucracy; fishing communities against overfishing by continental vessels; small business owners voted against overregulation; and some objected to the European courts. Only a minority of such people were motivated by immigration issues and I cannot accept that 90% of those who voted out did so to block immigration.
If I am right, then the mandate to leave the EU is not a mandate to halt the free movement of people and thereby block UK citizens from working, studying or retiring in other EU countries. Nor is it a mandate to block EU citizens from coming to work or study in Britain. Yes, let us negotiate controls to prevent abuse of our health service or social security provisions, but let us remember that UK citizens also move to France to benefit from French healthcare provisions. Present uncertainties are undermining 1 million UK citizens living in other EU countries or who have bought continental property ready for their retirement. The threat felt by EU citizens working in Britain—in the NHS, university research, tourism and food processing—is an appalling by-product of the Brexit campaign which, at its worst, has stimulated odious racist campaigns. This has to stop and stop now. The Government have to flag up that absolute control over EU citizens working in Britain is not fundamental to their negotiating position.
From a Welsh perspective, two-thirds of our manufacturing exports go to EU countries. Companies such as Ford, Airbus, Siemens and Toyota will be hard hit by tariff barriers. Two hundred American and 50 Japanese companies are located in Wales in order to sell to EU markets. That strategic element of government industrial policy in Wales will be undermined by a hard Brexit. Our agricultural sector faces similar challenges. Over 90% of beef and sheep-meat exports go to EU markets. Any tariff barriers would be a kiss of death to rural Wales.
Wales needs unfettered access to the single market. That is the basis of the excellent White Paper produced by the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru, in co-operation and with Liberal Democrat support, entitled Securing Wales’ Future, which calls for full single market participation. I know from earlier comments by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, that the Minister is seriously considering the approach taken by Carwyn Jones and Leanne Wood, and I urge the Government to accept amendments to that end and to work closely with the devolved Administrations. This constructive approach might also offer a formula relevant to both Scotland and Ireland. The challenge we face in relation to Ireland has within it the seeds of not only destroying the Good Friday agreement but potentially dismantling the United Kingdom.
How any final negotiated agreement will be ratified is a basic question. It is the perceived will of the people which is driving us towards the cliff edge now, and so it is the people who should be allowed to ratify the Government’s negotiated outcome. Do the Government accept the recent legal opinion, of which I have a copy, by Sir David Edward QC and others that, if there is no agreement with our EU partners, then Article 50 paragraph 3 would not automatically bring to an end the UK’s membership of the EU?
I appeal to the Government to be more flexible and to step back from the mindless threats against this Chamber. As a revising Chamber, our role is to propose those changes which, in all conscience, we deem necessary. If we cannot change a dot or a comma in such a major Bill, we can justly ask what the point is of having such an impotent Chamber. Much more important than the future of this Chamber is the future of the nations of these islands and of Europe itself. It is for that reason that I cannot support this Bill in its present form.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)
My Lords, I think that I am right in saying that I am the only Conservative still alive who voted against joining the EU in the first place. My Whip was a very young man by the name of Kenneth Clarke. I was probably the start of his campaign of dealing with difficult women and I can assure your Lordships’ House that I made it as difficult as possible and I voted against joining. I have never regretted that for one moment since.
It is not only the petty things, but goodness knows they have been annoying enough—loads and loads of regulations, ill-thought-up, imposed on British consumers without any recourse to deal with them or to change them, because every time negotiations started they stopped half way through because they were not getting anywhere.
I have not heard any noble Lord mention—I apologise if they have—that membership of the original Community that we joined has changed immensely. Members that we probably would never have thought of accepting are now firmly in the Community and are often causing a lot of heartburn and trouble, not only within those countries but for the Community in dealing or helping to deal with those problems.
I feel that this has been a fantastic opportunity that I never dreamed would come our way in my lifetime. I am deeply grateful that it has and that one has the opportunity, if that is what the country wants, at least to change our position and, I hope, our membership. I have the greatest admiration for our team that has negotiated so far. It has got ready quickly to start the difficult and important negotiations that will undoubtedly have to go on for some time. I wish it well.
On this occasion I would like, unusually, to mention another Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. He was and still is a great admirer of Brexit. He was very much looking forward to speaking tonight but unfortunately has been taken ill and is unable to do so. I have spoken to him on the phone. He is doing well and his message is: “I am just delighted about Brexit. Please tell everybody from me”. On his behalf, it is a great pleasure to do so.
Finally, I will not detain the House, but I hope that when our team has completed these proceedings, those involved will be able to continue to negotiate as well as they have in the difficult circumstances that they have faced from the very beginning. If it happens and if all goes well, I will have a small tear in one eye at the thought that the day may dawn when I will see us leaving Europe.
Lord Hoyle (Lab)
My Lords, it has been a very interesting and informative debate. In fact, I welcome to the House people who I have not known before who have joined in the debate. I hope they will come back and join in other debates in the future—I should certainly welcome that.
Looking at the issue, I see that it would be totally wrong for this, an unelected House, to try to overturn what the British people and the elected House have decided. We must accept the decision. Nearly all the speeches in this Chamber have mentioned how dependent we are on the European market. I will say one or two things about how the European market benefits from the UK market as well. For instance, there is a £50 billion surplus on trade between Europe and ourselves—that is not something to be thrown away lightly. Also, we are one of the biggest importers of German cars; at one time, it was running at some 30%. Germany has a £25 billion surplus in relation to trade with this country. I then go on to Italy. I think all of us enjoy Italian wine and goods, and it has a £3.45 billion trading surplus with us. No one enjoys French wine more than those of us here, and France has a £5.2 billion trade surplus with us. I put it before noble Lords that when we go into the negotiations, we should bear in mind that they also have quite a lot to lose in relation to the British market.
I move on to Gibraltar, which has been mentioned by several people on this side. We must not forget the people of Gibraltar when we are negotiating, either now or in the future when we are dealing with trade. Gibraltar must be included because, in 2002, 98% of people there voted to remain with the UK, and in 2016, 96% voted to remain in the EU. Gibraltar is a haven for financial services, and they do extremely well there. However, more than 90% of that trade is with us. Again, when we are looking at the issues, we must not forget the service Gibraltar has given us. All these issues are important as we go forward.
Several speeches have been made decrying what the British people have decided. I remind noble Lords to consider that although some of the British people were not well informed and did not know, you must always trust the electorate and the people of this country. You may not like what they do—many times, as a politician, I have certainly not liked the Government they have returned—but they take that decision. It is wrong for this unelected House then to discuss overturning what has been decided.
What will happen in the future? I remind noble Lords what was said when we went into this referendum. I agree that the arguments made by the Prime Minister were not the best. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that the arguments he has made today are far more important than the economic arguments. The First World War and the Second World War were caused by disputes between European countries, but the fact of Europe coming together means it is unthinkable today that that would happen. I give that to the EU.
However, I say that there is a bright future for this country in going forward and deciding where we want to go on our own, not forgetting that we have responsibilities to countries such as Gibraltar, which have shown that they want to stay with us. I think we can secure agreements not only with Europe but with the rest of the world as well. We are still a very important trading nation, but I come back to where I started: the British people have decided and we should respect the decision that they made.
I hope there is no longer any talk of an unelected House trying to overturn the decision of the British people and the decision of the elected House. It is not for this House to do that. By all means let us be constructive in what we say and the way we look at the issue, but our future lies in the direction that we have been told by the electorate in this country. We should go forward and look not with pessimism but with optimism at the future that we can generate for the people of this country.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I wish to start with a few quotes from some excellent speeches. We have heard a wealth of expert and apparently reliable information that flatly contradicts itself. We have been told that if we cannot compete inside the EU we cannot compete outside, and the advantages of our being within it seem compelling. We have heard that we are turning our back on many of our friends and on what is in our own interest. Equally, we have heard from some who have spoken of a slow and difficult acceptance that an era has come to an end. We have been warned of the danger of flying in the face of public opinion, albeit a minority. It has been argued that the Government have taken the policy of pushing the Bill through the other place, will undoubtedly do the same thing here and, in the circumstances, cannot do anything else. They cannot admit even small amendments because that would upset the whole timetable. A headline in a national newspaper has boldly stated that this Bill is, “The mandate that never was”.
All those arguments came from our debates in this House in 1971 and 1972. Nothing has changed except the actors and the fact that people on one side are using the arguments that the other side used at that time but with slightly different words. The only major difference from that time is that our speeches are, thankfully, limited to six minutes. I am the only Peer taking part in this debate who listened to those debates. As I did so, sitting then on the Cross Benches, I became increasingly convinced that the UK was right to join the EEC. As I have listened over the last two days, however, I have become increasingly concerned. In the 1970s, the minority accepted the will of the majority. The great difference now is that the minority do not. They are fighting on, banging the war drums and threatening disruption to the Bill. The more that that minority continue their strident tone, which becomes ever more shrill, the more I fear for the future as it will be so much harder to get the unity that we need, and the narrative right, for the oncoming negotiations.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, said in a powerful speech that we need to know what the Government want for the future of the country and its relationship with our continent. I believe the Government have done so as it is very clear in the Bill. It is not the Government who have suddenly sprung the Bill upon us; what has happened is that enough of the British people have changed their minds on the benefits of staying in the EU since the 1970s. The Government are merely reflecting that, and we must respect it too, however difficult it is and however many hazards lie ahead.
The EU is in a mess. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, called it dysfunctional. Although Brexit is our top priority, it is certainly not that in the EU. That was clear in the negotiations that Mr Cameron had with the EU, and it will become clear for our Ministers shortly, when their negotiations start. That will add to the EU’s difficulties.
My noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford, in another powerful speech, said that we should listen to what our friends said, so at the weekend, I spoke to friends of mine in France. They likened the EU to a colossus with feet of iron and clay. We know what happens to such a colossus. My friends also suggested to me that it was essential for the UK to leave the EU for the EU to change to save itself from becoming ashes. Our leaving is the electric shock that is needed and, when it reforms, it will again benefit from the UK rejoining. They are right that the EU as we know it has to change for Europe’s sake and for ours. For a start, it will have to address its budget contributions now that one of the few milch cows is leaving.
None of the extreme predictions of the 1970s came to pass, and neither will the worst fears of the extremists today be fulfilled. It will be difficult. There will have to be changes and yes, I firmly believe that people’s minds will change. However, now is the time to accept the results of the referendum, whether we like it or not—and I did not like it. My daughter, who is much younger than anybody taking part today and works in the City, was firmly in favour of us leaving.
We must allow the Government to trigger Article 50, do the best negotiation they can and come back to Parliament as promised. It is only at that stage that we will know what is and what is not on offer.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, there is a very strong argument that the constitution belongs to the people and that we and our friends in the other place are practitioners within that constitution. We have one of the biggest decisions to have faced Parliament for many years, and the challenge to get on with our responsibility as practitioners is a heavy one. We in this House have become very good at scrutiny. Our job will be to take scrutiny seriously, to look at the implications and consequences of what is proposed and contribute our findings to the public debate.
Looking at the situation in the other place, I must say that I am one of those who is disappointed, because the strength of British democracy has very much relied on its representative nature, individual responsibility and the role of the individual conscience of Members of Parliament. I find it extraordinary that there has been a sort of herd action in the other place which seems to have said that our conscience—what we know to be right—must be put on one side because we must bow to the will of the people. It is not that we are not bowing to the will of the people; it is enabling the people to understand, as the practitioners we are, the real implications of what is happening. We must take that seriously.
There has been a good deal of talk in this debate about taking the 48% seriously, but there is another statistic that we must never discount. Only 37% of the electorate actually voted for Brexit. That is hardly an indication of the overwhelming popular will; it is an indication that some highly motivated people mobilised their case well and effectively.
Of course the consequences of coming out of the single market will be far reaching across so much of our lives, and it will be unthinkable for Parliament not to establish how the Government propose to deal with the consequences. It is an abandonment of responsibility; this is what Parliament is here to do—to find out what the Government are proposing and how far they will look to the well-being and interests of the people.
On Ireland, we are playing with fire, almost literally. We must know from the Government how they are going to meet the new challenges of potentially a border between Northern Ireland and the European Union in Ireland, and what the consequences politically and in any other dramatic ways might be.
My noble friend Lord Grocott, who is an old friend, said that the people feel we have lost touch. That is because we have allowed ourselves as a political community to become elitist and inclusive, and have failed to communicate with the public as we should by explaining to them why issues matter and why legislation is being introduced in response to what matters.
The issue will not go away. We are in a highly interdependent world. We need ways in which to co-operate with others to meet almost every challenge that faces us, our children and grandchildren. That is true of climate change and the environment. There is no way in which to protect the environment or respond to climate change on our own. It is also true of security and terrorism, as we have heard clearly in this debate. It is true also in the operation of justice and legal co-operation. I serve on the European Justice Sub-Committee and it has been striking to hear distinguished lawyers explain how so much law now crosses borders and how useful practice is being implemented all the time, enabling lawyers to meet their responsibilities to their clients. That is strong in, for example, the sphere of children, when there are broken families and so on, and making sure that children can be properly protected. That is getting better year by year, and we are in danger of throwing that away. How are we going to meet that situation? Interdependence is also there in the case of learning and knowledge, as we have seen with universities. We can have effective universities only if they are part of international communities that in every sense of their operation reflect the challenges of the world and the way in which we must work together.
I am sure that when we have done our work in Parliament, which we must take seriously, it would be unthinkable not to have put before the British people again the outcomes of what we have discovered and are finding. We owe it to them. What on earth are we talking about when we refer to democracy and responsibility if we do all this work, and then make a decision in the inclusive club of Parliament that we do not put to the people?
Lord Strasburger (LD)
My Lords, we find ourselves in a situation that most of us would not have thought possible a year ago. Our Prime Minister seeks not only to invoke Article 50 but also to needlessly destroy our country’s tariff-free and frictionless access to the largest market in the world, thereby doing serious damage to our economy. Stranger still, this is not some dystopian, Corbynista nightmare—it is a Conservative Prime Minister choosing, at a stroke, to destroy for ever her party’s reputation for economic prudence. She is putting at risk the prosperity that our country has enjoyed since we joined what was then the Common Market. She will also be undoing the success of the coalition in pulling our economy back from the brink after the 2008 crash. She and her party will not be forgiven for their collective madness when everything goes pear-shaped—as it surely must.
What is this lunacy for? It is for a small reduction in immigration, which in itself will damage our economy. Can it be that Mrs May is so scarred by her failure to meet the impossible target of cutting immigration to below 100,000 in her six years at the Home Office that she is hell-bent on having another go through the most extreme and damaging of Brexits?
Or is there a more sinister explanation? There is a loony-right clique of well-organised Brexit zealots in her party, known innocuously as the European reform group. Have they pushed Mrs May into gambling that she can somehow mitigate part of the damage she is doing by making trade deals with people such as Donald Trump? Trump can spot desperation a mile off. Being a property man, he knows exactly how to fleece someone who has been stupid enough to sell their house before they have one to move into. By rashly throwing away the single market card before the negotiations even begin, Mrs May has put us in precisely that situation. All the talk of global Britain and fantastic trade deals is just that: talk, pie in the sky, whistling in the dark. One thing is sure: our prosperity, investment and jobs will suffer. The only question is by how much.
Many noble Lords on the Benches opposite are, like me, businessmen. If the chief executive of a company that you were chairing came to you saying that he was going to withdraw from the company’s biggest market immediately, with no certainty that he could rescind the decision, and that he would try to fill the vacuum with clients that the company was only just getting to know, I think that your first call—like mine—would be to a headhunter to find a new chief executive.
Mrs May asserts that we voted to leave the single market. This is a total fabrication on her part. The question on the ballot paper made no reference to the single market, indeed both Vote Leave and the Conservative manifesto of 2015 said that we would stay in the single market. Likewise we did not vote to leave the customs union or vote for WTO rules. Moreover, we did not vote to destroy our currency, to lose sterling’s reserve status or our triple-A rating. We certainly did not vote to become an offshore tax haven and see our employment rights destroyed. We did not vote to have our public services starved of funds and to witness the consequent destruction of the NHS. We did not vote to put the integrity of the United Kingdom into play, to put the Good Friday agreement at risk or to have our safety and security endangered. Nor did we vote for EU citizens living in Britain to be used as bargaining chips and to be subject to racist abuse. We did not vote for our Government to cosy up to dictators and demagogues in a desperate search for something—anything—to make up in a small way for the folly of leaving the single market. We did not vote to see our environmental protections whittled away.
Many people fear that the West is drifting towards fascism. Experts are being denounced. Judges who uphold the law are called enemies of the people, just as happened in Germany in the 1930s. Liberals are disparaged as unpatriotic. Foreigners are scapegoated. Muslims are being vilified in America. Anyone who opposes the Government is viciously attacked. With a delusional egomaniac in the White House, we should be huddling closer together with our European neighbours, not pushing them away.
Should we not be asking ourselves: why are the Government in such a hurry? Why are they so intransigent and intolerant of meaningful scrutiny of the deal they hope to bring back from the negotiations? The explanation must be that deep down they realise that they cannot possibly secure a deal anywhere near as good as the one we have right now. Whatever they get will not stand up to close comparison with membership of the single market and the customs union.
Our patriotic duty is to scrutinise and amend the Bill. We must protect Parliament’s sovereignty and give it a chance to accept or reject the deal, with the status quo as one of the alternatives, rather than automatically going over the WTO cliff. We must protect the rights of EU nationals already in the UK and we must give the people a say in the final decision. That way, if the best deal the Government can get is not good enough, Parliament and the people will have a final chance to stop the self-destruct button being pressed.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, I will confine my remarks to the effect that leaving the European Union will have on Welsh devolution, in particular on the Welsh devolution settlement contained in the Wales Act 2017.
Wales achieved a reserved-powers constitution in that Act. As the House will appreciate, there are two main patterns of devolution. One is a reserved-powers constitution where there is notionally a transfer of the totality of powers and then a reservation of certain specific exceptions. The other is a piecemeal system—what is called conferred devolution—and that is what Wales had from 1964 onwards, when it achieved its Secretary of State, and indeed there have been hundreds if not thousands of what one might call confetti-like situations of conferring individual powers.
Central to the concept of a reserved constitution is the idea that the mother parliament has on the table, as it were, the totality of powers that are available and relevant in the situation, and that the mother parliament looks upon those powers and says, “This is all that we have. This is where we draw the dividing line between the totality that is transferred and that small remnant that is retained and reserved”. If indeed for some reason the mother parliament did not have the totality of powers at the time, it goes to the very heart, kernel and essence of a reserved constitution. I make the case that that is exactly what happened.
From 1972 onwards—indeed, from 1 January 1973 when we entered the Common Market—it meant that the European Communities Act ruled with regard to a very considerable swathe of legal authority. Exactly what percentage that represents of the laws affecting us I would not like to calculate but it is very substantial. It may be 25%, it may be 30% or 35%, or even higher. What it means for Wales, and it affects Scotland in exactly the same way, is that some 5,000 elements of law affect those devolved countries and yet the authority was not on the table of the mother parliament. That seems to me to go to the very heart, core and kernel of the idea of a reserved settlement.
What can one do? We can look at three situations: one is the Sewel convention, a convention that is now contained in the Scotland Act and the Wales Act of last year. That convention says that it is accepted that the mother parliament, being the supreme authority, can do what it wishes in relation to a devolved Administration. It can change the situation overnight if it wishes, but it will not do so, and would not think of doing so, unless asked by that sub-parliament or unless there were some very exceptional circumstances. That, as I said, has been written into the law by way of the Scotland Act and the Wales Act.
It is a convention. The Supreme Court said it was a convention and nothing more. It does not have the power of law. That obviously must be the situation technically. However, the Supreme Court went on in its judgment, in paragraph 151, to say that, nevertheless, a convention is important. It is binding morally and politically. It goes on to say that such conventions are of immense significance and have to be respected to bring about the harmonious situation and amity between the mother parliament and the devolved parliaments.
Although you might say that Europe was a reserved matter altogether, that is not so. Paragraph 8 of the schedule says that, although European relations are reserved, the question of the administration and oversight of the operation of European relations is not reserved. Clearly, that is covered by the convention.
Secondly, there is the question of the Joint Ministerial Committee, where, in utter confidence, matters are disclosed between one party and another. It has a very considerable future: it is possible to build a mutuality of trust that can be more important for the future of the United Kingdom than anything else.
Thirdly, there is the question of protocols. When the legislation was going through in relation to Scotland and Wales in late 1990s, it was said that on matters that were not devolved, there would have to be protocols. In fact, however, it was a dead letter. I would like to see the breath of life breathed into the cold clay and dry bones of such institutions, which I think have a very considerable future.
As for the situation now, when these powers are repatriated, they will be repatriated, of course, not to Wales, nor to Scotland nor, indeed, to Westminster. A joint body should be set up between Westminster and Scotland and between Westminster and Wales to see exactly how one can bring about a settlement that is fair, just and lasting.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Tugendhat, who spoke almost 60 places before me on the list, I regard this as a rather sad and sobering day. I do so because I remember, in particular, a very happy day in 2004 when I was with a group of parliamentarians at the University of Tallinn in Estonia. There, a group of us from the All-Party Parliamentary Arts and Heritage Group—not a freebie, I hasten to say—with our spouses were greeted by the rector of the university, who said that they were only recently accustomed to freedom and how thrilled and proud they were that their nation was now a member of the European Union and a member of NATO. I remember looking at my dear friend, the late, great Tam Dalyell, and both of us nodding enthusiastically in agreement.
This is coming to an end. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, reminded us of two crucial words on the cover of the new White Paper—“new partnership”. If there is to be any real hope in the future, there has to be a new partnership with our friends and allies in Europe. We have to continue to regard them with affection and respect, which we hope will be reciprocated. My noble friend Lady Hooper talked yesterday about divorce. Well, we may have filed for divorce but I hope that, following the White Paper, we will build a true civil partnership in every sense of those words.
I feel that we have had two sobering days of debate. They have illustrated, very eloquently in many cases, that the divide is still there and that the wounds are still deep. We have a collective duty, on whichever side of the argument we were on 23 June last year, to work together in the national interest. It is not going to be all that easy. These two long days of debate are but the beginning of endless days of debate. This subject will dominate our agenda, not just this year or next year but far into the future. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who reminded us that it is not necessarily what people are talking about in the Dog and Duck, but the future of our country is in our hands and it is absolutely vital that we recognise that.
Those of us on the losing side—the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, yesterday, and the noble Lords, Lord Darling and Lord Triesman, today—say to those on the winning side, “Please do not think that we can discard our beliefs any more than we can discard our beliefs after a general election if the other side has won”. As a Member of Parliament for 40 years in Staffordshire, I had to work—as I did, happily and co-operatively—with a Labour county council for almost the whole of that period. We could do that only if we respected each other’s differences. We have to come together through a mutual respect in the years ahead.
Another theme that has run though this debate has been how complex the situation is. I was sitting next to a colleague at the long table just a few weeks ago. He was a Brexiter. I asked, “Did you really realise it was going to be quite as complex as this?”. The answer was an honest, “No, but we’ve got to make it work, and I believe it will work very well”. I know that he meant that. The fact is that it will be far more complex than many of us thought.
My heart is very much with my noble friends Lady Wheatcroft and Lady Altmann, and I feel similarly to them. My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, in her powerful speech last night, talked of Kenneth Clarke in the other place, a colleague of mine for 40 years. We entered the House of Commons on the very same day. Had I been in the House of Commons, I might well have gone in with him, but I was not. When I was in the House of Commons, I had an electorate to whom I was responsible and answerable every four or five years. Although my heart is with them, my head is with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who made an extremely compelling speech. If this House is to fulfil its constitutional duty properly, it must always recognise that supremacy lies at the other end of the Corridor, with the elected House. We have a duty to examine and scrutinise. It may well be that on one or two issues we ask the Commons to think again when we come to our Committee and Report stage deliberations, but we must not push that too far. If they refuse to think again and they send it back, we have to accept that, however sadly. It would be quite wrong for this House to frustrate the will of the elected one and hold up this process.
I say to noble friends such as my noble friend Lady Altmann, “Please, please think very carefully. Perhaps exercise a vote on an amendment once or twice, but don’t push it, because this House must not jeopardise its important constitutional position”. I make that plea to all noble Lords who are intending to vote on one or more of the amendments. I have particular sympathy with the amendment on EU nationals. I have spoken on the issue several times in your Lordships’ House and I was delighted to hear the UKIP Member, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, say that he wanted that to be resolved as quickly as possible.
There will be difficult days ahead. We have had a splendid debate, but I hope very much that we can keep a sense of perspective as we go into uncharted waters or perhaps, to use another metaphor, into the quicksands and the fog.
Lord Monks (Lab)
My Lords, as general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation for eight years, I was keenly aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the EU. I will pick out a number of quick points. It has been a very successful institution in spreading peace, freedom and democracy in the south and east of our continent after the collapse of the dictatorships in those countries—remember them? We could not do very much for Poland, for which we went to war, in 1939 or in 1945, but since 2004 we have been able to do a lot to help the development of that country and others in eastern Europe. The EU has also built some common labour standards to complement the single market. I am particularly proud of the role of the European trade unions and the TUC in achieving that. It was not always an easy task, given the attitude of British Governments.
However, I readily acknowledge that it has not all been a success. It was swept by a tide of neoliberalism around the turn of the 21st century and it has not recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. Austerity policy has made things worse, here as well as there. I am not starry-eyed about the EU but I am deeply concerned about the terms of our impending divorce from it. I still regard the EU as a noble project, despite its flaws. However, the Bill is not simply about triggering the divorce and those who keep saying it is should think a bit more widely. It is also a de facto endorsement of the Government’s post-Brexit plan: the White Paper and the plan set out in it. If the Bill passes Parliament without amendment, we are giving the Government a mandate for a very clear but very hard Brexit, with the UK outside the best trade deal we are ever likely to get. The risk for jobs, rights and prosperity are enormous. These risks are recognised, not just by me and other remainers, but by some of the leading campaigners of the leave side in the referendum such as Boris Johnson—“I would vote to stay in the single market”—Owen Paterson, Daniel Hannan and Arron Banks. At the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto said:
“We say: yes to the Single Market”.
The White Paper says no to the single market, yet it could be possible for the UK to honour the result of the referendum and stay in the single market, and so reduce the risks of Brexit to our economy. Of course, other EU members might not let us do this. Why not put the onus on them to negotiate us out? Let us not give up, even before talks are under way.
Clearly, the Government have in mind the requirement of the single market to accept free movement of labour. We all recognise that migration was a factor in the referendum result. We could apply new conditions to migration ourselves. In particular, a migrant must have a job to come to. Jobs should be advertised locally and not just in eastern Europe. Migrants should get the rate for the job, not just the minimum wage. Other EU countries do these things; why not us?
The Prime Minister has said that we cannot accept the European Court of Justice continuing to have jurisdiction in our country. Let us be clear. Any comprehensive trade agreement will need an adjudicating body. There will remain a need for our exporters to adopt EU rules and regulations—regulatory equivalence, as I note it has now been called by Ministers in the last few days. This will be a major factor in any new deal.
To stay in the single market we would have to pay but, as we are about to find out, the cost of Brexit will be enormous. It is not just the hefty divorce payment, but all the staffing of the different organisations that we will need, such as more customs staff, more negotiators and more diplomats. There will be new institutes for which we will have to take responsibility, as the work is currently done at EU level. Being only in the single market means that we would have no seat at the top table of the EU when decisions are taken—decisions that would apply to us. This is very uncomfortable. I find it implausible that our interests would or could be trampled on by the EU and its democratic members. It would not be in anyone’s interest for this to happen. So, next week, I will be one of those calling for the UK to remain in the single market and so avoid a colossal act of self-harm.
Finally, being in the single market would help ease the dangerous border issue in Ireland. It would also remove at least one reason for another referendum in Scotland. It would protect supply chains, avoid tariffs and all the consequent delays that would take place in ports. It would be making the best of a bad job. It is the patriotic duty of this House to put the option back on the table and ask the Government to consider it. I do not think that is a constitutional outrage.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a beneficiary of the common agricultural policy.
The British people have decided to leave the European Union. The Commons has passed this Bill unamended. We, in this House, pride ourselves on scrutinising and revising Bills, but what is there to scrutinise? What is there to revise? This is a two-clause Bill. It is not our job, as my noble friend Lord Lang said yesterday, to adorn legislation. If we amended this Bill, we would be adding to it. This is just about all there is to say on the matter.
However, listening to all the doom and gloom in this debate, I am reminded of what Woody Allen once said,
“mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction”.
We must, he said, make the wise choice.
That, all too often, is how we have been talking about the future. Being a rational optimist, let me take just a few minutes of your Lordships’ time—less than six, I promise—to strike a note of hope. You might call it “project cheer”. I will start with why I, for one, am surer now than I was on 24 June that the British people have done the right thing. Voting to leave the EU last June has had precisely the opposite effect to what project fear told us would happen. Instead of an emergency Budget and an immediate and profound shock to the economy, a loss of confidence, a drying up of inward investment and a collapse in the stock market—all of which were promised if we voted leave—we have seen an acceleration of growth, now the fastest in the G7. There have been record highs on the stock market, votes of confidence from Apple, Google, Siemens, Nissan, Snapchat, McDonalds, IBM and many other companies. There has been a manufacturing revival, a narrowing of the trade deficit as exports pick up, thanks to a welcome devaluation of the pound, and the humiliation of economic forecasters at the IMF, the Bank of England, the Treasury, the European Commission and elsewhere.
I know that it is early days but to those who say that we face disaster when we actually leave, I say: project fear having failed last year, such warnings cut even less ice with the British public now. Besides, we are rarely ambitious and positive enough about our future. Leaving the exchange rate mechanism in 1992 proved a turning point, not a catastrophe. Staying out of the euro turned out to be a triumph, not a trauma. Moreover, it is becoming clearer by the day why the European Union is stagnating while the rest of the world grows and why so many EU countries have had a lost decade, while some African and Asian countries have doubled the size of their economies. The centralised, top-down dirigisme of Brussels is stifling innovation at the behest of big companies, big bureaucracies and big pressure groups. The Brussels system is hamstrung by an overzealous version of the precautionary principle that is too pessimistic about future possibilities, too complacent about present systems and too convinced that bureaucrats know better.
From the Reformation to Napoleon’s continental system and after, this country has throughout its history done better when it looked outward to the world more than inward to the continent. We are an island, not a peninsula. Perhaps in the 1960s, it was just about understandable that we should try to retreat inside a tariff fortress to get access to a single regulatory zone. But today in the age of container shipping, budget airlines and the internet we have a global language, we are a science superstar, we have immense soft power, we have championed free trade for generations, and we have lent the world our systems of law and finance, of medicine and technology, of ideas and discovery.
Finally, in Theresa May we have a Prime Minister who intends Brexit to be a global, outward advance not an isolationist, defensive retreat. Now I know there are those on the other side of the referendum divide who say that we globalists won the referendum only because we were supported by people with a darker agenda who wanted to pull up the drawbridge, go back to the 1950s and stop all immigration, not just control it. We are told: “What have you unleashed? Are you sure you know how to ride the tiger of populism?”. I say to those who take this view: look at what the Government say and what they do. It is run by the globalists, not the isolationists. If you want to strengthen their hand—our hand—and make sure the globalists get their way and not the protectionists, then come on over and join us. Bring as many of the 48% as you can and we will bring as many of the 52%. To echo what my noble friend Lord Cormack just said, together we can build an unassailable majority for an outward, confident and ambitious country, trading and thriving, inventing and discovering, leading and enlightening the world as never before. This is a great country with a great history, but we have hardly started.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, may be a rational optimist but I am afraid that I am a realistic sceptic. I should declare interests as outlined in the register as chairman, president or vice-president of a range of national and international environmental NGOs.
I want to focus on two linked issues. Leaving the European Union is probably the most significant change experienced by this country in living memory, so I believe firmly that Parliament must be able to provide proper scrutiny on a regular basis, and effectively monitor and actively contribute to the negotiation. I began to get a bit unhinged round about September last year and that lasted through almost to today. It felt as if there was a period over the autumn and winter when democracy had gone into a kind of limbo. The Government were saying absolutely nothing about any emerging thinking on the detail of Brexit. Indeed, they were making a virtue of their silence by saying that to do otherwise would risk revealing their negotiating hand.
The result was that the normal and hugely valuable checks and balances in our democratic process, with commentary on and the influencing of government proposals by NGOs, the media and expert bodies—and indeed by Parliament—simply stopped, as there was absolutely no substance to comment on. That, I believe, was hugely dangerous. The Government cannot hatch up solutions in isolation and in the dark to the myriad complex challenges that face us in the post-Brexit settlement. If we are to get halfway sensible solutions on the fine grain of the new arrangements, it needs everybody—civil society, academia, industry, the media, expert bodies, the public and indeed Parliament—to have transparency of the proposed arrangements and to be able to comment on them and influence them. That is part of how we will develop a consensus and a buy-in to the arrangements that are to follow. It is imperative that Parliament, among others, is able to scrutinise proposals regularly, to effectively monitor and to actively contribute to the negotiations. That provision is so important that I believe it needs to be in this Bill.
The second point I want to make is about what happens after this Bill. Again, it is an issue of transparency and an understanding of what the Government’s intentions are. Environmental standards have been a huge benefit coming from Europe. About a quarter of all EU legislation that applies to the UK is about the environment, and that legislation has done a really good job in raising environmental standards. But the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said that up to a third of that EU environmental law may not be able to be transposed through the great repeal Bill. We need urgently to understand how the Government will fill the gaps left by the transposition process with the new regulations, to ensure that at least as good standards as the EU legislation laid down are continued. The Government need to guarantee that they will not water down the rights, the duties and the remedies without full parliamentary debate and scrutiny. I very much share the concerns outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, in his contribution to this debate from his experience and expertise. The statutory instrument process will work only if it is a transparent maintenance of the standards, not a reduction of them. A first step would be to publish the list of environmental legislation and regulations that cannot be directly transposed. Will the Minister undertake to do that? If we cannot even have the transparency of a list of things that will need a statutory instrument or even primary legislation to bring them over successfully, we are not getting the degree of transparency that we should.
In the White Paper, the Prime Minister said that the EU acquis will be transferred into UK law. As well as directives and regulations, the acquis includes principles of European law that are set out in treaties, including, in the case of the environment, the precautionary principle, the principle of sustainable development, dealing with damage at source, the principle that the polluter pays, and various access-to-justice measures. These principles need to be transposed, too.
All this environmental standards stuff is not just nice to have. It is not just about birds and otters, or even about clean air and water for human health. British business—and, indeed, British agriculture—needs to know what environmental standards it should be committing to meet in planning and developing its goods and services for the next five to 10 years., and British business tells us—I was a regulator for the environment for many years—very firmly that it likes to have clear environmental regulation that does not flip-flop around and that allows them to plan for the medium and longer term with some degree of certainty. We need the Government to say, in much more detail than the general platitudes outlined in the Brexit White Paper, how they are going to give business that security for the 30% of environmental legislation that cannot be transposed.
I suppose where I am at the moment—with a very heavy heart and less joie de vivre than the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley—is that I voted to remain in the EU. I believe that the Government are playing a very unpredictable and hazardous game of poker, with their cards too close to their chest for the sake of democracy in this country. I will support this Bill only if it can be significantly amended to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny and an assurance from the Government about greater openness in the future, so that we can fulfil our proper purpose of holding the Government to account in the interests of the people.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, I wish to declare an interest. Noble Lords may be rather surprised that on a Bill of this length one could declare an interest, but it is the following: my father, Con O’Neill, negotiated the UK’s entry into the Common Market. I do not, of course, know how he would have judged all the later developments of the European project, but I think that some aspects of his experience may be relevant to the negotiations that will have to be entered into if and when the UK invokes Article 50.
The Bill we are discussing is, of course, minimal—incredibly minimal—but it is also quite opaque and obscure. Clause 1 simply confers on the Prime Minister the power to notify under Article 50(2) the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU. That much seems clear enough; it is only a matter of notifying the EU of an intention. The rub comes later, after notification has been given and the UK seeks to act on this intention and negotiate withdrawal. This may be where my father’s experience might be in some ways relevant.
It is obvious that in negotiations one does not always get the deal one wants. Folk memory in the UK has it that the UK got a harder deal on entry than it might have done otherwise because of the action or attitude of the French and, in particular, of General de Gaulle. My father had a more complex view. While he thought that the negotiations had achieved less than might have been achieved if we had got serious about entering the EU earlier, in his view the difficulties were not solely or wholly to be attributed to de Gaulle or to France.
I do not think that we have reason to think that negotiations to exit the EU and form a new relationship with the 27 after Article 50 is invoked will inevitably go more smoothly or that they will deliver everything that is desired, or everything that would be in the interests of the UK, any more than in the past. We often hear enthusiasts for Brexit pointing out how many EU states and EU companies have strong interests in specific sorts of engagement and trading relationships with the UK. That is surely true. However, such interests are often dispersed and are not shared by all member states or by all companies. Indeed, some member states and some companies will have considerable interests in securing the exclusion of the UK or of UK companies with which they would have to compete. They may seek to obstruct that solution. In short, there is likely to be the most enormous co-ordination problem in these negotiations because so many interests will not be widely enough shared to make agreement simple or obvious. As the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, said, we are now dealing with 27 not six other parties.
The negotiations may not go smoothly despite the fact that many have an interest in reaching an agreement and it would irresponsible of us not to be clear about that reality from the start, so I wonder whether the Minister could take time in winding up to state what happens in the event that negotiations lead to no deal or that the only deal on offer is unacceptable or very harmful to the UK. What happens in the event of no deal and what happens in the event of a bad deal? I do not think that we know, but it is something that has to be understood when invoking Article 50.
Two different possibilities are mentioned. By one account, if there is no deal, nothing has changed and we are still a member of the EU. By another account, though, we will have left the EU with no agreement in place. That is one pair of views on the matter. If the latter, then on some views we would be able to trade on WTO terms, but on other views WTO terms are not an automatic default, since our membership of the WTO hinges on our relationship with the EU and a failed negotiation would not deliver WTO terms. Again, this needs to be clear not merely to Members of your Lordships’ House but to our fellow citizens. It is important, before the Bill passes, to understand the situation in the event of either no deal or an evidently bad one. That is why I hope that the Minister will set out the Government’s present understanding of the situations in the event of no deal or a conspicuously bad deal.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, here is the paradox. I happen to believe that it is the historic rapprochement between France and Germany in the 1950s that has led to the Bill before us today. The establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community and the Common Market itself could not have happened without the brilliant leadership of Jean Monnet and the founding fathers. There had been three devastating wars between France and Germany in less than a hundred years so political leadership was required to bring the two countries together, and it was brilliant leadership.
It was top-down leadership, though—it had to be. That is how the Common Market, and later the European Union, began its life, and that is how it continued. That is why there has been a growing democratic deficit. You have only to look at the reaction of European leaders when the peoples of Ireland and Denmark voted in their referendums the wrong way; they were made to vote again because the leaders thought they knew better than the people. Look at how the euro, the single currency, was steamrollered through, with its devastating effects on young people in southern Europe whose lives have been blighted by it. Once again, the European leaders claimed to know best.
Surely if Europe is about anything, it is about democracy, the coming together of democratic countries by popular consent. Top-down leadership may have been necessary in the 1950s but today people want their say, and last June the British people had it. The Bill before the House today has one purpose only: to give effect to the decision of the British people in that referendum to leave the EU. That is what was on the ballot paper—one question, remain or leave, nothing else. The ballot paper did not have on it any questions about EU nationals, the single market, the customs union or immigration. It asked one question only, so the Bill rightly confines itself to that one question. Anyone who has ever canvassed on the doorstep, as many noble Lords know, knows that people vote for this party or that party for all sorts of reasons, often unpredictable and indeed bizarre. We do not and cannot know why people voted the way they did. The only evidence we have before us is the ballot paper.
Surely one of the things in which we in this House take great pride is basing policy decisions on hard evidence, not speculation or hearsay. The ballot was a one-issue ballot so this is a one-issue Bill, and so it should remain.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, in my 40-odd years in political life, I have voted six times in referenda. I was on the winning side three times and I was on the losing side, including this one, three times. On all those occasions, I had to accept that, whatever my personal views, I would accept the views of the people in that referendum, and I willingly and happily—perhaps not happily but willingly—accept the views of the British people in this one. But that does not mean that there is no role for Parliament or for the House of Lords to consider the issues affected so dramatically by the single decision of coming out of the European Union.
The political landscape of the United Kingdom in the past 20 years has changed dramatically. Despite the decision of the Supreme Court not to allow the devolved Administrations their wish in this matter, politically Parliament and this House of Lords cannot ignore the issue of the devolved Administrations and what might happen in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I was never a Scottish Minister, but I was Secretary of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland, and I want to address a couple of issues with regard to those countries and how the Bill and subsequent legislation will affect them. In his winding-up speech, I hope that the Minister will be able to address these points. Next week, amendments will be tabled and debated with regard to the devolved Administrations.
Wales voted to leave. That does not mean that there are not issues in Wales that need to be addressed. Seventy per cent of Welsh exports are to member states of the European Union. The great Airbus factory in north Wales is heavily dependent on European business. Tens of thousands of Welsh farmers rely on European money and are wondering what will happen when it runs out. Hundreds, indeed thousands, of organisations and communities in Wales depend on European Union funding too, and they are concerned about what will happen. Our Welsh universities and colleges depend on European students, but also on a great deal of resource for research. I hope that the Government will take these matters seriously and discuss them with Carwyn Jones, the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly.
I turn to Northern Ireland. There, the situation is different. The people of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union. The people of the Republic of Ireland are strongly in favour of their membership of the European Union. Yet that country, Ireland, will be affected more than any other European country as a result of our decision to leave the European Union. Billions of pounds every year are spent in trade between Ireland and the United Kingdom. The European Union Committee issued a great report on the issue which I hope we will be able to debate in the months to come. What about Northern Ireland? There, the issue of the border looms. There has been no border, other than at the time of the Troubles, separating North and South in Ireland. The fact that the Troubles disappeared and that the border went with them was a huge issue in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Government are, with the Irish Government, looking extremely carefully at how to deal with the situation in practical terms.
There is more. I chaired many of the talks that led to the Good Friday agreement 20 years ago. It was based on the common membership of the two Governments —the two countries, Ireland and the United Kingdom—of the European Union. That common membership permeated every strand—1, 2 and 3—of those negotiations. Strand 2 concerned relations between the North and the South. Most of the bodies that have been set up between Ireland and Northern Ireland are based on Europe. Therefore, if we leave the European Union, that essential element of the Good Friday agreement is jeopardised.
Money came too, of course—not just Objective 1 money, important though it was to Northern Ireland, but peace money too. The distribution of that peace money from Europe to Northern Ireland meant that nationalists and unionists, Catholics and Protestants, worked together in distributing those funds in Northern Ireland in itself helping to bring about peace. The people of Northern Ireland in a referendum in 1998 voted for the Good Friday agreement. At the same time the public of the Republic of Ireland overwhelmingly voted for that agreement. The people of Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union and yet the people of the United Kingdom decided to come out. If that is not a huge dilemma for the Government, I do not know what is.
I will finish by simply quoting the preamble to the Good Friday or Belfast agreement of 1998. It says that the two Governments wish,
“to develop still further the unique relationship between their peoples and the close co-operation between their countries as friendly neighbours and as partners in the European Union”.
The European Union has been vital to the Northern Ireland peace process. It must not be jeopardised by the Brexit process.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, given how many noble Lords have already spoken in this debate I aim to be as succinct as the Bill itself. However, some additional comments have crept into my notes in response to the quality of debate I have heard from noble Lords’ earlier contributions. For example, I noticed how frequently Members on all Benches disclosed their own reactions to the outcome of last June’s referendum. To bring some balance, I will mention my own reaction. Frankly, I was chuffed that the people of this country wrested back the ability, in the words of our Prime Minister already quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy,
“to hold their governments to account”.
Collectively we rejected the strong supranational institutions created by the European Union which, as she said,
“sit very uneasily in relation to our political history and way of life”.
My first point is simply that we have already, and unusually, been given the opportunity to vote on this issue. Unlike in parliamentary elections, members of this House were included in the plebiscite that decided to leave the European Union. We have already had our say; hence we should do nothing to resist the majority decision reached through that process which is implemented by the Bill before us.
Secondly, however vital our scrutinising role, the many amendments that have been tabled seem to me to be at odds with the scope and purpose of the Bill, which is simply to notify withdrawal, not to set any kind of terms. As my noble friend Lord Blencathra said with his customary forthrightness:
“There is nothing in this tiny little Bill to scrutinise … The amendments are nothing to do with scrutiny. They are an attempt to build in conditions and tie the Prime Minister’s hands”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 116.]
Moreover, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was right to criticise government by referenda. It risks an even more short-term approach to politics than the one already criticised by so many. Cabinet Ministers testify that the progress of government business was grievously hindered almost from the outset of 2016 with a good six months still to go to the referendum.
In relation to the concern many share about amendments, my third point is that venturing into certain territory such as proposals to guarantee EU citizens’ rights to remain flouts the basic rules of trading, of which I have some relevant experience, albeit not always of the successful kind. Stating from the outset that these rights will be granted without obtaining the same rights for our own citizens in the EU breaches the elementary principle that you do not give anything away in advance that will weaken your position if you do not need to, and certainly not in order to communicate what kind of a country we aspire to be.
This is very costly virtue-signalling. Looking good does not belong in hard bargaining. We have already learned this to our cost. It would repeat the same undemocratic error that the Blair Government made when we, unlike most of the old EU 15 countries such as France and Germany, opened the door to citizens of the 10 new accession countries, including Poland and another seven eastern European states, without transitional arrangements. We did this because we wanted to say, “This is the kind of country we are”. Events have shown that the kind of country that the electorate want us to be is pragmatic about the level of population that our services can sustain, not idealistic about opening our arms to all. It is an inescapable fact that we are a small, overcrowded island; research published yesterday reveals that our roads are the most congested in western Europe. Delays cost £31 billion per year, a little under £1,000 per driver. In terms of quality of life, those who drive in peak periods are stationary in traffic jams for about four working days per year.
The public want us to get the best deal for the UK and for UK citizens abroad. To echo a former Chancellor and noble and learned friend in this House, Lord Howe, they do not want our negotiators to go in with broken cricket bats that they would be equipped with if we downgraded the importance of our own interests so unnecessarily from the outset. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral deployed a similar metaphor: we have to keep this simple—it is not just the patience of the elected Government that we will be testing if we do otherwise; it is also the good will of the electorate itself.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, this Bill has come to us, as it should, with a White Paper. The White Paper has been dealt with quite frequently this evening and yesterday in the debate, and a number of things have been said about it. It has been described as “hubristic”. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, described it as Panglossian, I think, and I accept both of those epithets. But what struck me most about it was how very uninformative—almost insultingly uninformative—it was. Nothing precise was said at all about the benefits of Brexit and nothing whatever was said about the costs.
I looked in vain for even the words “cost” or “risk” in the whole document. If you put out something like that in the private sector as a circular to shareholders or a prospectus for a public offering, you would be faced with a criminal prosecution. Is it because the Government do not think that there are any costs to Brexit, or do they think that public attention should not be drawn to the costs and, if possible, people should be kept ignorant of them? Either of those explanations—and there are no logical third or fourth possible explanations—is deeply disquieting.
The fact is that the Government know perfectly well about some of the major costs of Brexit. Only a few days ago a Minister, Greg Clark, went over to Paris to offer Peugeot SA a large financial package wrapped up as grants for training or innovation or something of that kind—rather along the lines of the similar offer made to Nissan—to bribe PSA into agreeing to keep open their Vauxhall plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton if they go ahead with the takeover of Vauxhall in this country. There is no doubt at all that every other multinational automotive manufacturer in this country will want the same kind of treatment and will have to get it. So the British taxpayer is faced with having to pay out a lot of money for this purpose to reward the shareholders of these international companies, and have no idea what the cost is; the Government refuse to answer questions on that subject, on the spurious ground that it is commercially confidential. Of course, it is not: those payments will appear in the accounts of the UK subsidiaries in due time but, if the payments are not made until after Brexit, and the accounts concerned are not produced for a year or so afterwards, it will happen safely after the next election. That is just an example not merely of the costs but of how the Government are trying to conceal them from the British public, which is deeply disturbing.
The British public are at the very beginning of learning about some of the costs, particularly those of the Brexit devaluation and the inflation that we have had since. Real wages will fall this year, which will put most people in a very uncomfortable position—but it will be particularly bad for the poor and for those who are just getting by, the group that Mrs May says that she is so concerned to help.
A lot has been said this evening about many areas where there will be some real costs, and I will pass over important ones—such as universities, for example, which have been dealt with, and Euratom, which has been dealt with. I will just say in passing that it is an extraordinary idea, when there is such a shortage of nuclear scientists, to decide to duplicate a regulator of that kind. In January, there was an article in Nature, a very well-respected scientific journal, stating that this would almost certainly lead to increased costs and delays in the delivery of our own nuclear programme.
No one has said very much about the European Medicines Agency. What happens if we withdraw from that and set up our own regulatory registration of new pharmaceutical products agency? The answer, of course, is that you will duplicate the costs of registration to pharmaceutical companies. We have heard for years from those in the pharmaceutical industry that a major cost for them, and a major disincentive to put new products into the registration pipeline, is the cost of registration. Fewer drugs will be registered, unless the costs can be successfully passed on to the customer, in which case the NHS budget will be under further strain, as if it were not under enough strain already. Why is that? Why would any sane person do such a thing? I think it has something to do with trying to avoid any contact with the ECJ.
We had a series of very good debates on these subjects here in the House, the most recent one being about the justice and home affairs aspects of the whole question—the membership of Europol, the common arrest warrant, the Prüm exchange and information system, and so forth. It was an extraordinary debate because, very unusually in parliamentary circumstances, there was complete unanimity. Everybody who spoke on both sides of the House, and indeed the members of the sub-committee and its report, were absolutely agreed. They agreed on three things. The first was that these measures are vital for the protection of the British public against terrorism and other forms of serious international organised crime. Secondly, any other arrangement than the one we currently have with full membership of these institutions would be very problematic, difficult and time consuming to negotiate. Thirdly, no alternative arrangement would be anything like as good as the status quo. Everybody said that. So why are the Government doing such a thing? I realised during the course of the debate why it was, although the Government never admitted it. It is because they do not want any contact with the ECJ. This extraordinary decision against the national interest is driven entirely by ideology.
We have heard even worse problems in the last few days. We have heard that the Government propose to malversate money in the international aid budget to give it to east Europeans as a bribe to vote in favour of good terms for Brexit. We have had the most extraordinary suggestion by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister directly that if we do not get what we want in these negotiations we will start a kind of corporation tax war with the rest of the EU, cutting corporation tax and trying to undercut them. As I said in a letter some colleagues may have seen in the Times, we are actually the least well-placed Government in any EU country to undertake a war of that kind as we have the highest fiscal deficit already. So what is going to happen? Will we have a higher fiscal deficit? Will we take the money out of public services when public services are already underfunded—the National Health Service, social services and defence are dramatically underfunded—or will we increase other areas of taxation, put the burden on income tax or on consumption taxes? We have not, of course, been told.
The Government have gone far away—right over the hills and out of sight and beyond—from the referendum in coming up with these policies. They are taking the referendum as a mandate to undertake a series of steps that would have absolutely horrified the British electorate if there had been any mention of them last summer during the referendum campaign. Nobody dared to speak of such things at the time. We should not be in any way inhibited by the referendum in opposing them and we need to have the robust kinds of amendments that have been tabled in this House on this Bill to make sure that the Government do their job and to keep them under some kind of control, answerability and responsibility to the public and to Parliament.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has given me a wonderful introduction to what I was going to say in any case. Leaving the European Union is strongly against the long-term interests of the United Kingdom and it will hit hardest those citizens who rely most heavily on public services for the well-being of themselves and their families, and for whom economic prosperity is crucial for their job, the roof over their head and the money to pay for the services on which they depend. Several noble Lords have urged us to surrender the best interests of those hard-pressed citizens without a fight, misusing words like “democracy” and “accountability” to do so. But it is not anti-democratic to speak up for the views and interests of the 16 million people on the remain side of the debate, and it would be anti-democratic to leave their voices unheard in Parliament.
However, I also note a paradox. The same noble Lords who complain so bitterly about those of us in the House who have the temerity to speak up and say that Brexit will leave Britain weaker and poorer, diminished abroad and shrivelled at home, are also, almost without exception, against this House actually being representative of public opinion. While my noble friends have consistently advocated and fought for the democratic accountability of this place, our critics in this debate have argued over the years that a representative and accountable second House is the last thing they want to see.
The paradox is that those calling for our surrender to populism today do not believe that this House should represent the public, and have often set out their view that the Lords’ role is best understood as moderating the headstrong impulses of the mob with a strong dose of rationality and expertise. Indeed, just a few moments ago the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, said that we are famous for our evidence-based approach to issues that come before us. That is exactly what I and my colleagues are doing and will continue to do throughout this whole damaging and self-harming process.
That is why I will use the remainder of my limited time to focus on one very important but so far ignored sector: the construction industry. I remind the House that the Conservative Government are committed to delivering, among other things: 1 million new homes by 2020; large-scale school expansion and prison-rebuilding programmes; the three Hs of Hinkley Point, Heathrow 3 and High Speed 2; the northern powerhouse and a massive rail electrification programme; and, of course, a boom in exports across the world, needing new factories, workshops, laboratories, roads and ports.
Last November, the Exiting the EU Select Committee in the other place took evidence from the Brexit Infrastructure Group, led by Sir John Armitt, the past president of the Institution of Civil Engineers that to deliver all those things in a timely fashion, the construction industry needs to expand its capacity by 35% over the next decade. To deliver the Government’s investment programme, the construction industry has to grow by 35%. But to deliver the Government’s hard Brexit policy, cutting all access to EU 27 workers, would cause it to shrink by 9%.
Construction is bigger than aerospace and vehicle manufacture combined, contributing around 8% of UK GDP, but of course enabling far more. According to the ONS it employed 200,000 EU 27 workers in 2016—9% of its labour force. In London, EU 27 workers form 54% of the construction workforce, at every level, from top engineers and designers to site labourers. Just to maintain current construction output, EU 27 labour is essential, and the first step must therefore be to safeguard the position of those already here if output is not to decline steeply. To deliver the Government’s infrastructure and housing targets will require more migrant workers, not fewer.
However, that is not all. UK construction projects benefit from the tariff-free flow of goods from the EU 27, with one-third of all materials and construction products, including 90% of timber, imported from them. Therefore the mutual recognition of standards and qualifications, and a zero tariff, should be taken as givens in maintaining frictionless trade with the EU, and as essential if the construction sector is to grow in capacity and deliver the Government’s investment programme. A hard Brexit will certainly not be frictionless for the construction industry.
The Government’s response to this so far has been to downgrade construction in their negotiating strategy. In a list of 50 industrial sectors—where the grades are essential, important and low priority—construction appears as low priority, while the Government’s industrial strategy White Paper is silent on how to recruit and skill up the UK workforce needed to replace the 70,000 construction workers who retire each year, let alone how to plug the 200,000 gap when the EU 27 workers leave—and the 35% increase in capacity to deliver the Government’s infrastructure and housing objectives comes on top of that. A hard Brexit will cripple the construction industry and will leave the UK diminished and hamstrung. This Bill should go no further.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I shall focus my remarks on a single piece of EU legislation. The EU General Data Protection Regulation, expected to become UK law in May 2018, imposes new responsibilities on controllers and processors of personal data. It affects every single one of us as it provides an essential arrangement with vast numbers of organisations and businesses, most notably the global companies of Silicon Valley, that is the very basis upon which our personal data are gathered, stored and sold. It is an arrangement that no individual nation state has achieved.
At the heart of the GDPR is the demand that the terms and conditions that sweep up all rights, all privacy and all ownership of our every move and transaction be transparent, secure and fair. It is immensely powerful information, fundamental to every transaction we make, which can be used to work out what brand of sneakers we like but can also assess our suitability for employment, our propensity to addiction, our sexuality, our mental and physical health and our political leanings. It can affect our finances, careers, reputations, arrangements for our health, insurance and so on.
The GDPR introduces the requirement of informed consent, provides more stringent definitions and standards of security, sharing and transporting of personal data and preserves some of the rights we currently give away when we habitually tick the “agree” box without reading. It seems to me a significant disaster not to be alongside the bull-headed bureaucrats at the EU as they put checks and balances on the world’s most powerful companies, who are, after all, based nowhere.
While the GDPR is only one of an unfathomable number of agreements that will need attending to, it provides a metaphor. By being asked to trigger Article 50 we are being asked to sign up blindly to terms and conditions we have no idea about. This is not informed consent. Just as the GDPR insists that it is undemocratic and immoral to be denied the right to understand what we are giving away, triggering Article 50 without provision to opt out of the actual terms of Brexit, which will determine every aspect of our future, seems equally immoral and undemocratic. Informed consent is a concept that we use in many arrangements and all areas of life, and it is now considered that consent which is not informed consent is no consent at all—it is coercion. Just as the global corporations of Silicon Valley need to be checked, so too do the Government.
The result of the plebiscite is clear on one binary question only: there is no detail on the face of the Bill. The priorities stipulated in the White Paper manage simultaneously to be too broad and to fail to cover whole sectors. There is nothing about cost and risk, and it includes a fantasy assessment of how the UK fits into the global landscape. Most importantly, the White Paper offers no impediment to accepting a lousy deal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, said earlier in her excellent speech, this document would fail the “treating customers fairly” test. You could not sell someone a washing machine, let alone a pension on this basis.
It is not patronising to say that the electorate did not know what they were voting for: none of us do. It is not yet decided. In this House, we have one power only: to ask the Government to think again. So I ask the Government to think again and make certain that they have the informed consent of UK citizens on the exact terms and conditions of exit from the EU, even if that means a second referendum is a necessity.
Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)
My Lords, although it is now many hours since my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal opened this Second Reading debate with her excellent speech, it has been a remarkable two days and a privilege to take part. Both my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, whose speech I also enjoyed, paid fulsome tribute to the work undertaken by our EU Committee and sub-committees. I had the pleasure and honour of chairing, for a short time until ill health forced me to stand down, the sub-committee on foreign affairs, aid and defence and I, too, praise the exceptional hard work of these committees, their officers and special advisers, whose role will be crucial in the two years ahead.
Over the years I have been critical of and vocal about plans to join the euro and in the early 1990s caused grief to senior members of my party, many of whom are now my very good noble friends and sitting on the privy counsellors’ Bench, by being somewhat less than enthusiastic about our membership of the ERM. But I voted in June 1975 to stay in the Common Market and on 23 June 2016 I voted to remain in the European Union. While in 1975 I voted for economic reasons, that was not the case last June. Like my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham, I thought both sides of the referendum argument made valid points about the effects on our economy of a vote to leave, and I certainly did not feel qualified to know where the greater truth resided. I just suspected what I suppose was glaringly obvious: that there were advantages and disadvantages to both and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, said—in what was a brave speech from the noble Baroness’s Benches—there is an inherent risk in any decision about the future.
As one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys I have reason to be confident that British companies will adapt to life outside the EU and thrive, although I do not pretend that it will always be easy. What ultimately caused me and I suspect a lot of other people to vote remain was the uncertain state of the world. For all its shortcomings and the visible cracks in its structure, I still felt that in a number of complex areas the EU offered relative stability and I was concerned about rocking that stability. So for me and countless others, it is the kind of relationship we build with our European friends and neighbours that will be the test of a good Brexit. Over the past eight months I have been greatly reassured and encouraged by the language and tone of the Prime Minister and her Ministers in seeking to form that new partnership with Europe.
Like many noble Lords I, too, hope that one of the first issues to be resolved once Article 50 has been triggered will be the status of EU nationals working and living in the UK and UK citizens living and working throughout Europe. It is a concern that has been raised across your Lordships’ House and is of equal importance to those who voted leave as to those who voted remain, although no one expressed it quite so well as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, who blushed rather charmingly and modestly when she sat down to applause from the Gallery. All this and more will be the topic of intense debate and difficult negotiation for months to come. That is where I hope that the knowledge and experience of noble Lords who have expressed their deep concerns in this debate will be brought to bear, because the concerns of noble Lords and the ambitions of the Government cannot be properly debated and settled until Article 50 has been triggered. The Bill simply starts that process.
Although I very much heed the sage words of my noble friend Lord Lothian that we must think carefully how we deploy our feelings as we move forward, this House has a right to debate fully the Bill before it and it is an important part of our scrutiny to seek clarification, raise issues and put comments on the record. However, good scrutiny of a Bill does not necessarily mean amendment of it and I hope we send this one, unamended, back to the Commons, from where it came to us, with a thumping majority in order to allow Ministers the greatest possible flexibility to negotiate on our behalf.
I was struck by the powerful speech of my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford, who pointed out that this is not just about us. There are 27 other countries affected by the referendum result last June and they too want and deserve clarity and certainty as soon as possible. At the risk of being labelled an incurable optimist—or maybe I am just one of my noble friend Lord Ridley’s rational optimists—the negotiations might not be as bad as some fear. There seems to be a marked difference in attitude between officials of the European institutions and the politicians of the 27 countries with which we have to reach an agreement. The former feel they have to treat us harshly in order to stop anyone else getting any ideas, but there is more realism in the corridors of power of the individual countries. As reported in the papers a couple of days ago, the German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said at a security conference in Munich that:
“We should resist the temptation to treat Britain overly harshly, not out of pity, but in our own interest”.
He went on to say that:
“We need Britain, for example, as a partner in security policy, and I am also convinced that Britain needs us”.
Last week, at a lunch in Abu Dhabi, I had the pleasure of a brief chat with the Finance Minister of Luxembourg. He is on record as saying that:
“I think everybody should remain calm and make sure that we can do this in an orderly way … the British population has given its verdict. It is now up to the British Government to trigger Article 50”.
I hope we are in a position to do that soon, so that we can start the important task of building the post-Brexit Britain, so eloquently wished for by my noble friend Lady Finn, as a Britain which is open, free-market and liberal.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Lab)
My Lords, as a remain voter my first reaction was to consider opposing the Bill and voting against it if the opportunity arose. However, given the view expressed in the elected House, that is not an option. In some respects, I am here to abstain in person at this stage. What has concerned me since the vote is not so much why we did not get these issues brought out and addressed in the debate but more the exposure of unintended consequences. We seem to be encountering difficulties that nobody thought about before.
For example, the European sub-committee for policing and security, on which I serve, discovered that the European arrest warrant would be one of the casualties of our departure. This is an eminently sensible means of avoiding lengthy extradition processes and it brings prisoners speedily to justice. If we go further, UK involvement in police collaboration through Europol will have to end. Neither of these involves great financial cost, so the health service is not going to benefit. They are largely irrelevant to the free movement of people, apart from accelerating the process of moving accused from one country to another. The fact is that the withdrawal of the UK’s participation in both schemes will make our country less safe and our criminal class more comfortable, to the contradiction of all the hopes about defending our shores and having the ability to pass our own laws.
This was evidenced when the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, in opening the debate, spoke about another of these “Oops” issues, as it were, that we did not really anticipate were going to happen. She devoted a paragraph of her speech—in the context of the length of the speech, this was quite a generous contribution to the debate—to the Euratom treaty. We joined Euratom at the same time as we joined the Common Market. The two are now inextricably linked as they have been integrated into EU institutions, so we find that Article 50 requires us to leave not only the EU but Euratom.
The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal was less than fulsome in the assurances that she sought to give us. She said:
“Our nuclear industry remains of strategic importance and leaving Euratom does not affect our aim of maintaining effective arrangements for civil nuclear co-operation, safeguards, safety and trade with Europe and our international partners”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 13.]
One of the consequences of leaving Euratom will be the termination of British participation in the fusion projects at Culham. This is a scientific project of enormous significance, one in which Britain has historically played a significant role. It will to an extent be overtaken by the establishment of the ITER programme in France in the next two or three years, but our contribution and the significance of British involvement in this will be of massive importance. I will not trouble the House by reading out the White Paper in its entirety. Suffice it only to give the title of paragraph 10:
“Ensuring the United Kingdom remains the best place for science and innovation”.
The pious wishful thinking is there for all to see.
The point is that as far as the nuclear industry is concerned, there is far more involved than simple power generation. We enjoy a significant presence in a number of these areas. Once we are outwith Euratom, though, our ability to co-operate will be very limited. As I say, this is only one example of how our negotiators are likely to be encumbered by these—as I call them—“Oops” issues, the issues that we forgot all about. If we need any argument for the accessibility of Ministers coming to this House and providing us with clear indications of what the emergent problems are, the examples I have shown are crystal clear.
I am not arguing about arrest warrants or Euratom. I am making the point that this is an issue of process. That is what the legislation is about: improving the process whereby we can make the Government of the country—our negotiators—more accountable, clearer and more disciplined in the manner in which they go about it. Rather depressingly in this debate, from the introductory speech onwards—I have quoted the example of Euratom—we have had a thoroughly misleading approach to this whole issue. If that is the way the House is going to go and that we are going to be treated then we need to amend the legislation, and as quickly as possible.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure—humbling, in fact—to follow that fine speech by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, and indeed so many others during these two days. It has been a great debate for the reputation of this House, and we need it.
It is a funny old world. When I stood up in this House three years ago and introduced the Private Member’s Bill, the European Union (Referendum) Bill, I expected it—dare I be honest?—to be a “snowball in hell” moment, and I was not disappointed. I remember that, during a crucial Division, one noble Lord climbed on to the leather Bench, pointed to the Not-Content Lobby and cried, “This way to kill the Bill!”. I thought that was a rather strange thing for a Liberal Democrat to do, given the party’s previous, passionate commitment to a referendum, but consistency, I suppose, is no more than the sign of a closed mind.
Yet there has been consistency of a sort. Let us put our EU referendum in the context of others: for instance, the earlier referendums on the proposed EU constitution. Noble Lords will remember that voters in France, then voters in Holland, rejected that proposal with huge majorities. But the EU did not simply throw in the towel. It “rose up”. It ignored those referendums. It just carried on and brought the constitution back, with every clause, every comma, and called it the Lisbon treaty. That treaty, too, was rejected by the voters in Ireland. So they were cajoled and threatened and forced to hold another referendum until eventually they gave the right answer.
There has, indeed, been a consistency in approach, and that has been repeatedly, over many years, to ignore the people in the name of some higher ideal—like preventing German domination in Europe. Well, that worked well. Now our own little referendum has got out of hand and delivered the wrong result. The response is precisely the same: change it, delay it, get rid of it, hold another one in the hope that they will change their minds. In the other place, 293 amendments were proposed, and already the amendments are piling up here like a snowdrift. Some, of course, are entirely genuine, but for too many of them, I am reminded of the words of that noble, if nameless, Lord: “This way to kill the Bill!”.
This is a time of considerable passions. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, was passionate yesterday, and last week, when he said that we have to amend this Bill because—I hope I am quoting him accurately—“We don’t trust Theresa May”. Well, that is a point of view. But it is possible that the noble Lord has forgotten that, according to every opinion poll, Theresa May is trusted by many, many more people than either Mr Corbyn or Mr—I almost said Mr Farage, but he is the well-known one—Mr Farron. But let us be fair. Personally, I find it uplifting that those who wanted to abolish this unelected House in the name of the people now want to use this unelected House to defy the people. That takes courage.
This House has a right—more than a right, a duty —to examine every Bill. But alongside that right stands our overwhelming responsibility, which is to the people. I am not suggesting we should wash our hands of the details of withdrawal, but the appropriate vehicle for that serious and maybe searing examination, described so eloquently this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, will be the great repeal Bill and other associated Bills. I might even join in. Brexit may be a simple word, but it ain’t going to be a simple process.
I hope that the next two years of debate and discussion will mark a renaissance in the reputation of this House. We are parliamentary worms, but we may yet become glow-worms. But if we amend this Bill—today’s Bill—we know that it will come straight back. We will have achieved nothing but delay, and we will, I fear, have undermined our credibility at a time when almost everything we do is being mocked in the media.
We are a constitutional anomaly. We have no rights other than those that are tolerated by the people. It is not our role to second-guess the people, to wish that they were wiser, to treat them as children or to refer to them as a mob, as I thought I heard suggested earlier. Least of all, it is not our role to insist that we know better than they do. That is just the sort of arrogance that dragged us into the tragedy of Iraq. We have been given that awesome but utterly unambiguous instruction to start the process of withdrawal in the name of the people, by the will of the people. It is our responsibility to respect their instruction to allow that process to begin, and to do so without delay.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, even while I disagree with so much of what he said. It is also a great privilege to have the last Back-Bench speech of the evening in such an historic debate, one in which the issues have been so well argued and so passionately felt. One of the reasons why I am very pleased to have the opportunity, even at this hour, is to keep faith with so many people who feel, as I do, that the country has embarked on a major gamble with the future of this country, a gamble that could isolate and impoverish the next generation, which has no voice now other than the one that they will find in this House.
Most do not expect us to try to stop this Bill—they are wiser than that—but they do expect us to try to mitigate the damage and to be clear about the huge risks that we are now wilfully taking. They expect us to inject some principle into the negotiating process. I hope that we can do that, because so many people already doubt the parliamentary and political process so far, which has led to an even further loss of trust. I understand why this has happened, but I am not reconciled to it. There has already been, to my mind, a massive failure of political leadership at every stage of this process. The referendum was conducted in the half-light. It was conducted on the basis of half-truths. In so many ways, it was a vote against the past, a past which had failed many people. It was not a confident vote for the future.
The Prime Minister’s objectives are largely declaratory but we do know that, out of weakness rather than conviction, we will be leaving the single market and the customs union to cut back immigration. We are, in short, prioritising a political goal which may in fact be unattainable, but which is likely to inflict further damage on our country and its public services. It is very hard to imagine a more perverse outcome. Likewise, the White Paper has no answers as to how the Government will manage the hugely complex task of reconstructing our new relationships, whether that is a new customs union, the future of Euratom or the future of Erasmus. There is nothing about the impacts, the costs, the consequences or the choices that already have been made. There is little clarity, and there is less certainty.
Of course we respect the decision of the referendum, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that the real challenge is to take the next step and trust the people with what, on best evidence, we know to be the likely consequences of the referendum as they are now emerging and how we can remove avoidable risks. Many of the amendments proposed to this Bill are about facing that reality. In fact, they will enable Parliament and the people to take back control throughout the process ahead. To those who try—and will no doubt go on trying—to bully this House out of its duty of scrutiny, I simply say that in this respect, your Lordships’ House has never been more solidly or more visibly on the side of the people of this country and their right to know what all this is going to cost us in every sense.
Of course the European Union needed reform. We should have been in there leading that process, being part of it, advocating for it. I have always believed that belonging to the European Union expressed the best of our values, whether that was peaceful co-operation or the working principle of equality—which means that richer communities support poorer communities—or the movement of labour and skills, which benefits us all. The 3 million Europeans who have made this country their future in good faith in recent years have brought huge energy and skill, as have our citizens who live in other parts of Europe. The idea that they should be trafficked as part of some bigger deal is repugnant to people on both sides of the Brexit debate. If the Prime Minister is serious about uniting the country, this is where she will start: with a principled guarantee of their legal rights. I shall be supporting amendments to secure that.
I will also support amendments that mitigate the economic and social risks to this country, particularly to the marginalised communities. This will include amendments to give the devolved countries real purchase on the negotiations and real accountability from government, which will affect not only the disproportionate losses they will suffer from Brexit but all the risks that it now poses to a United Kingdom.
One of the most abject sights in recent months has been to watch the Government twist and turn in the courts to exclude Parliament from the decision. I shall support every amendment that seeks to give Parliament its right and proper constitutional role to check and challenge what the Prime Minister comes back with, particularly if that is a no-deal. I think our European friends and neighbours will understand clearly why we are intent on doing that. One of the reasons for asserting the role of Parliament at this stage is that there are no precedents to lean on in this process. There is still an active legal debate over many parts of the process. Nothing is settled and, frankly, nothing is ruled out, including revocation. Parliament must be fully engaged and we must also be vigilant against the excessive use of executive power and secondary legislation in the course of the so-called great repeal Bill.
Last June is long gone and with it, the illusions that were peddled of a quick fix and lashings of new money. The European Union Committee’s report on the options for trade made it clear, for example, that having swept out of the single market, none of the off-the-shelf alternative models will work for us and none will be modified to suit us. Whatever options are open, they will certainly take more than two years. They will come with costs; some will even require some additional movement of people. To manage this safely, we will need maximum flexibility and a transitional arrangement, negotiated as soon as possible.
The world is indeed turned upside down and Mr Trump is now a part of that. We have a genius in this country when we face crises for muddling through. I do not think we can muddle through this time. I hope we can bring to bear, not just through debate on the Bill but throughout the whole process, the wisdom and experience we have already heard in the past two days. In doing so, I hope we will help to achieve a safer and smarter Brexit. This will require more humility than has been shown to date by the Government, and it will need a greater commitment on behalf of the people to both truth and transparency.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I draw the attention of the House, and perhaps the Daily Mail, to the fact that my receipt of an MEP pension is in the register.
We have had a long and intense debate, with many excellent speeches. I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in thanking Gina Miller for the fact that we have had this debate. It has been a marathon rather than a sprint, just as the Brexit process itself will prove to be over possibly a decade of blood, sweat and tears. Those who swallowed the myth perpetrated by some Brexiteers that it would mean “With one bound, we are free” are going to be cruelly disappointed. This is just one of the many disillusionments to come. Another is the unravelling of the notion that leaving the EU will solve all our problems. There are in fact many sources of valid dissatisfaction, grievance and frustration among the people of the United Kingdom today. To most of these problems, Brexit will bring no relief but there is no spare capacity in this Government to focus on anything but Brexit. As Tony Blair so rightly said in his recent speech:
“This is a Government for Brexit, of Brexit and dominated by Brexit. It is a mono-purpose political entity”.
The Government’s Statement introducing the White Paper three weeks ago made an extraordinary assertion about the Bill. They said that the Bill is not,
“about whether or not we leave the EU, or even how we do so ”.—[Official Report, 2/2/17; col. 1310.]
From these Benches, and as we have heard from others, there is profound disagreement with that assertion so Liberal Democrats are not prepared to throw in the towel. We hope that majorities will form for key amendments and I welcome indications from across the House of such support.
Against the citation by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, and others that 37% of the electorate voted to leave, I set the riposte of my noble friend Lady Walmsley: that means that 63% did not vote leave. Thus, it is perfectly legitimate to try to persuade the other place to think again. Indeed, waving this Bill through with no change, while harbouring serious reservations, would be an abrogation of our responsibility—as the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and my noble friend Lord Taverne emphasised. We are being asked to rubber-stamp Brexit at any cost, the most extreme of all the options open to the Government.
Extreme Brexit shamefully forgets the interests of the young, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, noted. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, we will be asked, “What did you do to stop this?”. To the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, who espoused the “doctrine of unripe time”, I say: if not now, when? When do we try to stop the fall off the cliff edge? As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, no deal is the worst deal of all. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, coined the best phrase of the debate for the Brexiteers—“sore winners”—and I believe that the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Lawson and Lord Forsyth, bore out that description. Responses came from my noble friend Lady Featherstone, who said, more or less, “Do not bully or threaten me to give up my belief in a close relationship with Europe”, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, who said that speaking out is our right, our responsibility and our duty.
There have been objections to the Liberal Democrat call for people to have the final say on any Brexit deal. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said it was not very British to have a further referendum, but Mr David Davis, who is surely very British, thought it was a good idea. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley said, you cannot start with democracy and end with a stitch-up, and I am grateful that other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Triesman, agreed with that proposition. As my noble friends Lady Randerson and Lady Kramer stressed, this would be a first referendum on the result of negotiations, the first chance for the British people to pass judgment on the Brexit deal that the Government come back with. It is not a second referendum in the sense of a rerun of last June. Some noble Lords need to grasp this essential difference, which was well understood by the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston.
My noble friend Lord Newby, in his long-ago introduction, referred to Gladstone’s call to trust the people. This was in fact requoted by Randolph Churchill, but Gladstone originated it, and it is worth recalling the whole quote:
“Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear”.
It is that fear which is so driving the Brexiteer intolerance of disagreement or dissent from the true faith—fear that people might realise that the extreme Brexit emperor has no clothes, and that will mean exposure to cruel, cold winds.
Last June’s vote cannot possibly be interpreted as a decision to leave the single market, as the noble Lord, Lord Darling, emphasised. Not only was Mrs Thatcher, as she then was, the original sponsor of the European single market, but the Conservatives obtained an overall majority at the 2015 general election—the last one we had—with an explicit manifesto commitment to safeguard the UK’s position in it, as my noble friend Lord Shipley reminded us. The noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, urged respect for that manifesto. Perhaps he might ask his noble friends on the Front Bench and in the Government to respect that manifesto commitment to the single market.
The price we will pay for the alleged privilege of global Britain freedom is not only a restriction of opportunities for all our citizens but also the far greater weight and expense of red tape for exporting to the EU from outside the single market and the customs union. My noble friend Lady Walmsley said that the single market gives us the freedom to sell and the confidence to buy.
The refusal to seek continued membership of the single market is due to two self-imposed red lines—against enforcement of EU law through ECJ jurisdiction and against free movement of people. Yet it is blindly obvious—even the White Paper says so—that, in any transitional period or longer term under a free trade agreement or security arrangements, we will be obliged to follow EU standards and the ruling of the court either directly or indirectly. My noble friend Lord Lester pointed this out, as did the noble Lord, Lord Monks, and my noble friend Lord Marks labelled the Government’s position as absurd. The Government are clearly hoping to get away with a smoke and mirrors concealment of this link to the ECJ.
The Government turn their back on free movement without either acknowledging that it is a two-way street, enabling many British people to explore the delights of study, residence or retirement in another EU country, or options for flexibility and change. This was urged by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Hain.
Some speakers seemed to think we could have the single market without the single market. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, expects free trade as at present. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, wants mutual market access for insurance. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Mandelson, rightly refuted any such notion as delusional.
The noble Lords, Lord O’Donnell, Lord O’Neill and Lord Giddens, explained how global trade agreements could not offset the disadvantages of exit from the single market. Other noble Lords explained how Brexit would harm co-operation in different sectors, such as financial services. My noble friend Lord Paddick talked about security and my noble friend Lady Jolly mentioned defence.
The potential effect of very hard Brexit on these islands is alarming. Much concern was rightly expressed about the effects within the island of Ireland of pulling out of the single market and the customs union. The White Paper gives no clue about how it will actually avoid a hard border, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, pointed out. My noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed rightly feared for the social unity of this kingdom and for the future of the union. My noble friends Lady Humphreys and Lord Thomas deplored the effect on Wales and Welsh economic development of pulling out of the single market.
The Government seem blind to the economic, social and personal distress being caused by their refusal to guarantee the continued residence and other rights to EEA nationals already legally here. Liberal Democrats are totally committed to securing the continued rights of Britons across the EEA, as well as those of EEA citizens here. We believe—I cite the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, in evidence to the EU Select Committee—that it is “inconceivable” that a first move will not be reciprocated. So I hope there will be wide support across this House for an amendment.
In conclusion, it is Parliament’s job to seek to put the “how” into Brexit in a way that at least puts a reasonable proposition to the people and allows them to make a sensible choice between that and continued EU membership. Let us have a return to the pragmatic, common sense on which Tories traditionally pride themselves, even if this is not as exhilarating as the revolutionary ideology gripping this very un-Tory Government now. Britain is set to pay a high price, unless the Conservative Government can be deflected from their inflexible pursuit of the hardest of hard Brexits.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a memorable, indeed historic debate, as befits your Lordships’ House. At 187 contributions, I think it has beaten the record of 182 who spoke in the debate on the House of Lords Bill in 1999. We have had Peers from across the House putting their legal, constitutional, political, public service, scientific and environmental expertise at the disposal of the Government over one of the most important decisions any country can take. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, with his description of our debate as “an elegy” for 45 years which might become seen as an “aberration”. The noble Lord, Lord Hill, reminded us to heed what the other 27 countries are thinking. The noble Lord, Lord Blair, warned of threats to security and law enforcement. The contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, was an education as well as a privilege to hear—as it always is, I am corrected. Some 150 others recounted a little bit of history, here in the Chamber in the last couple of days. Of course, every speaker kept to the “Just a Minute” rule—no deviation, hesitation or repetition. As the person volunteered by my noble friend to reply, I may not be quite so disciplined.
One issue that has been well covered should be unrelated to the Bill—that EU residents should not be used as bargaining chips, for moral reasons but also for the age-old principle that no one should be affected retrospectively by legislation or, indeed, a referendum. A mere 5% of our people think that EU citizens should be asked to leave. It is no surprise, therefore, that 39—at my count—of your Lordships pressed this point in the debate. The Government’s response tonight will indicate how they will respond over the coming 18 months to future debates and the work of our EU committees. If they do not heed such a clear call, what hope is there for them to be in listening mode as we move forward? I hope, therefore, both for the interests of EU nationals here and for what it says about the Government’s genuine willingness to engage, that the Minister will give more comfort than we have heard so far. He has seen our amendment on EEA nationals, for which we anticipate majority support. How much better would it be to resolve this before we get into Article 50 territory, because this really has nothing to do with our negotiations with the other 27 and everything to do with our regard for people already on our shores, including many dedicated front-line public servants in care services and the NHS?
The Leader of the House told Radio 5 Live that the Bill should not be amended and we should not vote on our amendments, as was suggested also by the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra, Lord Lawson and Lord Forsyth —now what do they have in common?—and a few others. What kind of a legislative Chamber would that make us? We have a duty to perform our constitutional role. Our amendments are not to tie the hands of negotiators but to ensure that the legislation dealing with the outcome of the referendum and the negotiations is correct. We would certainly be happy not to vote on our amendment on EEA nationals if the Government give that pledge. But without it, I see no reason to hold back.
I turn to a key demand, which has been rehearsed by a number of your Lordships, and given a learned and erudite introduction by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, which is the necessity for legislation to implement our actual departure from the EU. At present, the Bill authorises the Prime Minister only to open negotiations. It says nothing about their outcome or the role of Parliament in giving legislative authority to the final deal. We welcomed the announcement in the Commons that there would be a vote in both Houses before any vote in the European Parliament. But this should be clear in the Bill so that come what may—a full withdrawal treaty, just the withdrawal agreement with a framework for future relations, or even a failure to agree, or an extension to the negotiating period—wherever we are when the talks are over, the outcome should be voted on to give the Government the legislative mandate to conclude the deal. We will seek to amend the Bill to provide that certainty—for the public, for Parliament and for the Government themselves.
The Minister can count, I think. If not, he has a five year-old who can teach him. He will have heard the numbers tonight and will have totted them up. So perhaps a government amendment in line with the advice of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and others would be the best course of action. Our role in this House, however, will not be simply at the end, so we will seek access to the same impact assessments that the Government see and a continual quarterly dialogue with negotiating Ministers, both so that they can benefit from the expertise of this House, but also so that there are no surprises when the final deal is done.
No matter how much I regret the choice of the British people, I respect and accept it. Indeed, I have learned throughout my rather long career that the true worth of any leader, chair or chief executive is not simply to take the right decision but to make the decision taken right. That is why I believe the priority is to ensure that the terms of our exit create a Britain that instils a sense of hope, especially for the young, and protect living standards, consumer and workers’ rights, the environment and our children’s futures, all of which also depend on the peace and security of our country, which in turn rely on our relations with our neighbours and close allies.
I share the view of my noble friend Lady Royall that the EU has helped to stabilise democracy. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Darling said, most other countries joined the EU to escape their history, as with Estonia, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and Poland, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Monks. As put so elegantly by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, the EU changed the pattern of history, replacing centuries of war by peace. This should remain uppermost in the Prime Minister’s mind as she negotiates our exit.
Getting a good deal will be a tall order for this Government, whose leader never favoured Brexit. As my noble friend Lord McKenzie and the noble Lord, Lord Owen, said, she inherited no contingency plans for our method or pace of leaving, nor for our future relationship with the remaining 27 or with other trading nations. She leads a divided country, with Scotland and many of our great cities and university towns having voted one way and Wales and much of England another. As she begins the talks with the 27, she has a duty to put all our people’s interests centre stage: the regions and areas which have fared poorly from globalisation; consumers and shoppers; the retired and the young; manufacturing, the service sector, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, tourism and travel; EU nationals, and our own people living elsewhere in the EU. She also has a duty to seek to reunite our divided country—to come together, I think the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said—and to heal the fractures caused by the referendum. If the Government think they can take the UK out of the EU any old way, they are wrong. We will be watching them, which I think the Prime Minister will appreciate, having indeed come to watch us.
This Bill only starts the negotiations with our partners. Our amendments will be to safeguard the Northern Ireland peace process, to ensure that the devolved Administrations are involved throughout the process and to ensure, as the Government negotiate the divorce and the framework for our future partnership with the EU 27, that the prospect of needing legislative authority at the end of the process will make certain they produce a deal which can win the consent of the elected representatives next door and of your Lordships’ House. We would welcome a positive willingness from the Government to reach consensus on this. That would be good for Parliament and the right way to start this challenging process.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, the Bill before this House is just 137 words long, yet it has been the subject of almost 20 hours of debate and it is, and has been, an historic debate. On my rough calculation, about 1,000 words have been spoken for each word in the Bill and there are more to come. However, with quantity has undoubtedly come quality and I thank everyone who has spoken. Simply to read out the names of all 183 speakers would take me several minutes, so I ask your Lordships to forgive me—and maybe even thank me—for not addressing every point made by every single speaker.
The level of interest in this Bill is hardly surprising. Our nation’s membership of the EU has been part of the mental map, a fixed point, for many people for decades. So when I hear the concerns that have been raised by your Lordships about what the future holds, I do not dismiss them with a complacent flick of the hand. After all, like many in this House, I too voted to remain last year. I believe that significant opportunities lie before us, but any change brings challenges in its wake—challenges which this House has a rightful role to highlight and debate.
If anyone was in any doubt about the value of this Chamber in the legislative process, they should certainly read the debate of the past two days and the work of our excellent committees. Consider the subjects raised by your Lordships: the rights of citizens, immigration, Ireland, universities, our nuclear industry, agriculture—I could go on. These are all important issues but we must not confuse the policies that flow from Brexit with the core purpose of this Bill. This Bill’s core purpose, indeed its only purpose, is to start the process of leaving the European Union. This was noted by a number of noble Lords and they are right. Other noble Lords were right to point to the democratic process that has brought us here.
The electorate voted for a Government who had pledged to hold a referendum, and respect its result. Parliament then voted—by a majority of six to one in the other place—to hold a referendum. The question people were asked, one agreed upon by Parliament, was brutally simple, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said: did they want to leave or remain in the European Union? Some 33.5 million people entered the polling booth that day last June. This was not, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggested, just an expression of a point of view. It was a decision. As the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, said, they knew what they were voting for, and 17.4 million people picked up that stubby little pencil and voted to leave. That was the point of departure.
Parliament attached no conditions, no small print, no caveats. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said:
“It is simply unacceptable for Parliament—for this House—not to honour its commitments. That is what happened when Parliament enacted the referendum Bill”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 123.]
As the noble Lord, Lord Darling, said, there is no alternative.
So here we are tonight, debating a Bill that was passed, unamended, by the other place by a majority of 384 to start the negotiations. It is a Bill to deliver on the result of the referendum, so that we can, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, put it, get on with the negotiations so we can get the best deal for the UK. As he said,
“there is no turning back”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 22.]
At this point it would be somewhat churlish, and the sign of a bad loser, not to compliment the skill of one of our number—I refer, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. He is a worthy adversary and I now know whose door I would knock on were I ever to need legal help, although I fear it would have to be pro bono.
Let me now address some of the issues raised by your Lordships over the last two days: first, parliamentary scrutiny. I really do not like to say this after almost 20 hours of debate, but in terms of parliamentary scrutiny, we are just about approaching base camp. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, put it, we have a long way to go. As well as this Bill, Parliament will vote on the great repeal Bill to repeal the European Communities Act. Primary legislation such as an immigration Bill and a customs Bill, and secondary legislation, will be required to ensure that our statute book is operable on the day we leave the EU.
The Government have announced that we will bring forward a Motion on the agreement to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it is concluded. We expect and intend that this will happen before the European Parliament debates and votes on the final agreement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, asked whether a further Bill might be needed to authorise our withdrawal from the EU. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, asked if this vote will be under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. The Government’s commitment is to bring forward a government Motion, which goes above and beyond the constitutional requirements set out in CRAG, and, of course, any new treaty that we agree with the EU will be subject to the provisions of CRAG before ratification.
The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, raised the issue of revocability of the notice to withdraw. There is obviously no precedent for a country triggering Article 50, let alone seeking to reverse such a decision. As a matter of firm policy our notification will not be withdrawn. A clear majority of the electorate voted to leave the European Union and we will respect the will of the British people. There can be no attempt to remain inside the EU, and no attempt to rejoin it. Further, extending the negotiating period cannot be guaranteed by an amendment in this Bill; extending the negotiating period requires unanimity of all 27 members. It is not within the Government’s gift or Parliament’s.
To those who argue that Parliament should be able to amend a treaty put before it, I would echo the words of my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford: how would this be taken by our European partners? We have said we will approach these negotiations in good faith. We, like them, want to have a smooth and orderly Brexit. So if Parliament was given the power to unravel the agreement after months of painstaking negotiations, how could our European partners know that the agreement would be honoured? They could not. Consequently, this approach would inject more uncertainty into the whole process. I do not say this just because I believe Britain needs certainty, although I certainly do believe that, but because I firmly believe that Europe needs certainty too. If Parliament could amend one treaty and send it back because it did not like some terms, what is to stop it amending the revised treaty and the one after that?
This House and the other place will have the opportunity to scrutinise and debate the Government’s approach as the negotiations proceed. My noble friend Lord Boswell suggested that Parliament be involved as much as possible, and I totally agree. We have promised to give this Parliament at least as much information as the European Parliament, while protecting our national interest. The key point, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, is that we need to be realistic. These are going to be tough negotiations. So parliamentary scrutiny, yes; giving away our negotiating position, no.
Other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised the issue of publishing our assessment of the impact—the costs and benefits. At this point, all I would say is that such an assessment would surely undermine our position, and be exactly what those on the other side of the table want.
Let me now turn to the issue of a second referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, asked if the views of the people on the final deal are irrelevant. The Government clearly do not think the views of the public are irrelevant, as we are honouring the views they expressed in the referendum. We are engaging with the public, and will continue to do so as the negotiations are scrutinised and the agreement is voted on in Parliament. As my noble friend Lord Hague said, we cannot go round in circles. We need certainty and clarity—certainty and clarity that would be dashed by a second referendum. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, argued, we could descend into a world of “neverendums”.
As to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that such a referendum would bring the country together, let me ask this: given that the Liberal Democrats argue the first referendum has created so much division, why would a second one bring the country together? To insert a second referendum now would backslide on this Parliament’s and this Government’s commitment to honour the result. As a number of noble Lords have said, it would undermine our negotiating position and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, put it, that way lies peril.
The noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, and Lord Morris of Handsworth, turned to the issue of EU nationals. They spoke of the valuable contribution that EU nationals make to the UK and I agree. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised the issue of the rights of EU nationals in the UK and UK nationals in the EU. Many noble Lords commented that both groups have felt unsettled by the result of the referendum last summer. The Government share their wish for a fair and speedy resolution to this issue. They hoped this issue could be sorted out before we triggered Article 50. I was delighted when last year the Prime Minister suggested to EU leaders that they should come to an agreement covering both EU nationals in the UK and UK nationals in the EU as soon as possible. Many favoured such an approach but others did not, saying they wanted to wait until formal negotiations begin. Therefore, we cannot begin formal discussions on this pressing issue until we have triggered Article 50. That is why we need to pass this Bill as soon as possible.
I note the strong views expressed about the wish for the Government to move unilaterally on this issue. As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, a unilateral move by the Government to address the issues facing EU nationals in the UK, however well intentioned, will not help the situation of the hundreds of thousands of our own citizens in the EU. They could end up facing two years of uncertainty if any urgency to resolve their status were removed by the UK making a one-sided guarantee. We need to act fairly and provide certainty for both groups of people as quickly as possible, and that will remain the Government’s position.
We are sighted on the future of UK nationals working in EU institutions, about which my noble friend Lord Balfe spoke. We should indeed thank them for their work and we intend to do all we can for them in the months ahead.
Let me now turn to issues regarding our approach to the negotiations. We must do all we can to create the right conditions for a grown-up negotiation with our European partners, which is why, as I have said, we need to show that we are negotiating in good faith. However, it goes further than that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, said, this country will continue to face challenges that European nations face, such as terrorism and human trafficking. We will continue to share a thirst for knowledge and research and we must never forget that it remains overwhelmingly and compellingly in our national interest that the EU should succeed. Our approach will be to seek to collaborate and co-operate on issues wherever it is in our national interest to do so.
Some have characterised the Government’s approach to the negotiations as extreme Brexit. I would argue that it is nothing of the kind. It sets out an approach for a new partnership, to work together and trade together to our mutual benefit. It reflects a world where digital technology is turbocharging the forces of globalisation, as my noble friend Lord Howell remarked. To repeat, it reflects the fact that people voted to leave the EU.
The noble Lords, Lord Mandelson and Lord Hain, spoke passionately of their wish to protect jobs and investment, and I applaud their sincerity and the consistency of their views. Where I part company with them and others such as the noble Baroness, Lady Jowell, is that this means we must remain in the single market or in the customs union. Staying in the single market would mean not controlling our borders; it would mean remaining under the EU’s rules without having any say over them. Maintaining our current status in the customs union would mean not having the ability to strike our own trade deals. These are issues on which the British people made their views quite clear, and doing as the noble Lords suggest would mean not leaving the EU.
Secondly, our European partners made it perfectly clear, before and after the referendum, that the four freedoms are indivisible—a point my noble friend Lord Tugendhat made. We respect that, which is another reason why the Government are taking the approach set out in the White Paper.
However, this Bill is about the process of our leaving the EU. It is not about the shape of the negotiations to come, nor the Government’s approach. I will happily debate these matters with your Lordships, and I am sure that there will be other occasions on which to do so over the coming months and years. But as the other place has shown, and as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, the Bill is not the place to put constraints on the Government’s negotiating position.
A number of your Lordships—the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to name just four—raised the matter of the island of Ireland and Brexit. They are entirely right to highlight the challenges we face. I can assure your Lordships that the Government are fully committed to the Belfast agreement and its successors. Nobody wants to return to the borders of the past, so we will make it a priority to deliver a practical solution as soon as we can. I can also assure the House that we are consulting closely with Ministers in the Republic and Executive Ministers in Northern Ireland.
I further assure the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that the comments he raised about the border have been clearly heard in government. As he knows, the open border for people and businesses has served us well. We had a common travel area between the UK and Ireland long before either country was a member of the European Union. We will work to deliver a practical solution that allows the maintenance of the common travel area with the Republic while protecting the integrity of the United Kingdom’s immigration system.
Over the last two days, inevitably attention has focused on what divides us, so finally I will focus on what brings us together. First, we agree that in this debate everyone in this House, no matter what their view, should be heard and respected. We are all here because we want to help our country prosper and thrive in the future. To question and scrutinise is certainly not a sign of being unpatriotic. We can all agree that this House has a clear and proper role in scrutinising the Bill. It is equally clear that, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay,
“it would not be proper or correct for this House to frustrate the triggering of Article 50”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 102.]
Furthermore, at the end of the negotiations, we all agree that the United Kingdom will still wish to co-operate with the European Union and work with our European partners to tackle the challenges we all face.
Finally, whether one voted to leave or remain, we can all agree that, after 20 hours of debate, it is time not to remain but to leave this House and to go to bed.